Call Facts
Presentation of the call
The European Partnership for Resilient Cultural Heritage launches its first Joint Transnational Call (JTC): "Foundations for climate-resilient cultural heritage: Assessing and managing impact and risk, dealing with damage and loss".
Submission of Pre-Proposals: January 11th 2027 at 14:00 (CET) on the submission platform.
Submission of Full-Proposals: June 16th 2027 at 14:00 (CEST).
Climate and environmental change pose significant and growing risks to cultural heritage, practices and tradition. Global warming, heat waves, wildfires, sea level rise, land use changes and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, to mention just some of the pressing climate change-based hazards, are damaging and destroying cultural heritage in a wide variety of landscapes and geographic regions, including urban, coastal and inland areas, and mountainous and polar regions. At the same time, climate mitigation and adaptation measures may have unintended positive as well as negative effects on heritage or vice versa, certain heritage protection rules might hinder climate adaptations measures. A lack of common methodologies and coordination of climate awareness in heritage conservation, management, and monitoring also hinders its possible positive contribution to climate mitigation efforts. Integrated research on cultural heritage, climate and environment will bring together research and strategic approaches from diverse national and regional perspectives, facilitate joint action and inform innovative mitigation and adaptation strategies both for cultural heritage management as well as climate change policy. These strategies can help to respond to threats to and destruction of cultural heritage caused by climate change and climate action, to let go or adapt climate-negative practices and traditions, and to promote societal acceptance of imperative climate action.
This first JTC within the RCH Partnership invites research proposals that address the question of risks, damages, impacts and losses of cultural heritage caused by climate and environmental change. Proposals must draw upon stakeholders’ experience and build on existing research and initiatives. Proposals that include scientific research, innovative technological solutions and community-based approaches are especially encouraged. Joint research must work towards integrated risk assessment methodologies that inform long-term planning for resilience, management, and governance of cultural heritage, and cultural heritage informed climate action.
Topics
Applicants should recognise the multidimensional relationships to cultural heritage and contemplate the possibilities and limitations of different innovative and conventional research approaches, and tailor the research and intended outcomes accordingly. Aspects to consider are, for example, socio-political realities and socio-economic inequalities, equitable representation of diverse geographic and demographic contexts, and available administrative capacity. The research does not have to be focussed in one of the participating countries and therefore equitable partnership principles should be demonstrated in the proposal.
Proposals should focus on transdisciplinary co-creation of knowledge for climate adaptation strategies and address environmental impact for cultural heritage. Proposals should when relevant include meaningful participation by local communities, Indigenous Peoples, heritage custodians, business actors, citizens, and/or other stakeholders as co-creators and co-designers. Their participation will support equitable decision-making and help to ensure the appropriate accessibility to and usability of (digital) technologies, data, repositories, and assessment and management tools. Applicants should consider how their results can be scaled beyond the specific contexts of their proposals. Thus, research findings should extend beyond the local context, to ensure that the research does not result solely in local solutions, or to ensure that findings resulting from research on broader level can be translated back to local situations.
Results and insights resulting from the research projects funded under this call should contribute to the mutual knowledge basis that is needed for developing new and robust tools and policies, for example:
- tools to assess and monitor climate change risks and environmental impact to cultural heritage, to project and visualise potential impacts of climate action measures, and tools to evaluate different risk management options;
- decision-support systems and effective strategies and practices that can be used by public authorities and local communities to prepare ahead of natural hazards to protect cultural heritage at risk, as well as to set priorities and operational frameworks for managing loss and damage to cultural heritage;
- scalable and transferable innovative climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, derived from integrated cultural heritage and climate research, including also traditional and local knowledge, stakeholder and citizen science generated data, taking cultural heritage into account as a resource and framework for societal and environmental resilience;
- policy recommendations and effective strategies and practices that can be used for the management, governance and protection of cultural heritage at risk of climate and environmental change, grounded in quantitative design data, standardized methodologies, and robust impact assessment procedures.
Research proposals are invited to address aspects from at least one of the four complementary and strongly connected sub-themes, and should address at least one of the sub-themes:
- Risk and impact assessment and cultural heritage risk preparedness and management;
- Managing loss and damage of cultural heritage impacted by climate change-induced natural hazards;
- Traditional, local and Indigenous knowledge systems and practices as resources and frameworks for societal resilience in the context of climate change;
- Sustainable governance of the cultural heritage sector.
The points listed under each sub-theme offer a (non-exhaustive) overview of the various possible research perspectives and potential outcomes that could be explored in research projects.
Contact the RCH Joint Call Secretariat (JCS)
Funding institutions & partners
