With the closure of the project KEEP ON, the partnership makes an evaluation of this common path of recent years, the challenges experienced and the opportunities that have also arisen.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing the opinions of the various partners, whose contribution has been invaluable to the implementation and success of this transnational cooperation project.
We start with the Croatian partner, IRMO, who took on the relevant role of Expert Partner.
“The KEEP ON project opened a tremendously important topic of heritage sustainability. As much as we, as researchers, are deeply involved in the topic, the project opened new research avenues for us, while the exchange of experience contributed a lot to gaining new knowledge and insights into the conceptualization of heritage sustainability. This led to a publication of research papers, thus going beyond the project deliverables and opening doors for new and promotion of this complex concept. Thus, we learned on the importance of long-term planning (e.g. reducing CO2 emissions related to heritage sites in Den Bosch strategic documents by 2050), innovative governance of heritage sites (e.g. Parador de Santo Estevo), participatory management (e.g. The Flax Museum), public-private cooperation (e.g. Asti Foundation), etc. This resulted in the Practical Guide for Heritage Sustainability, a project deliverable which gained substantial attention, and was therefore also translated in the Croatian language, seizing the opportunity to widen the audience. It was published in the form of book, which we are very proud of. Projects dealing with similar topics in other countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) were additionally interested in it so we presented it on a conference in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, we are proud to have participated at online conference organized by the University of Georgia, USA to compare the American and European activities related to heritage sustainability. Thus, the project results extended beyond the borders of the project partnership in the region and outside the European continent. Finally, we are happy to see new partnerships born at the final dissemination event and are motivated to prepare new project proposals with them.”
