The Regional Action Plan of the Region of South Ostrobothnia in Finland was the first approved in the FINCH project in early 2021 with two actions:
- Monitoring the policy change, which was achieved and reported by the Regional Council of South Ostrobothnia during the FINCH project’s third semester. It focuses on the role of cultural heritage in the updated Cultural Strategy and follows the adoption of relevant conceptual approaches to cultural heritage management.
- Creating the Online Guide for Regional Actors on Cultural Heritage and Funding (in Finnish only) with the goal to compile a practical and concise online guidebook on cultural heritage and funding that recognises the regional policy context, needs and everyday conditions of the local and regional heritage actors. The action also improves the Policy Instrument - The Cultural Strategy- in a concrete way by offering a new and practical information source for the advantage of regional actors.
As the Cultural Strategy is firstly a guiding policy instrument, the Online Guide focuses on developing the Policy Instrument by supporting sharing of information, including essential outcomes of the exchange of experiences and learning process achieved in the FINCH project. The document was created by alternating writing phases with meetings, that allowed stakeholders to give feedback to the content and form of the document. Towards the end of this process the workshop on crowdfunding was organised as well. Concerning information on the established national and regional structures, the document was created in co-operation with stakeholders whose expertise lies on those structures.
The Online Guide has four main parts:
- Introduction to Cultural heritage in regional development
- Perspectives on financial instruments
- Examples of valorising cultural heritage
- General guidelines for accessing different funding sources in the region.
The Guide is accessible (in Finnish only) on the website of the Regional Council of South Ostrobothnia and it will be formally launched to the public on the 13th of October 2021.
