As the year draws to a close, the AHEAD (Accessible Heritage Experience for Audience Development) project is delighted to share a set of open learning resources for participatory audience development with the cultural heritage community.
These resources bring together insights, tools, and reflections developed through months of collaboration with heritage professionals, artists, researchers, and community practitioners across Europe. They are designed to support participatory approaches to heritage, strengthen professional practice, and encourage more inclusive and meaningful engagement with communities.
AHEAD is co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe initiative.
What’s included in the AHEAD Learning Resources
AHEAD Capacity Building Programme – Syllabus
A structured overview of the AHEAD learning framework, introducing key concepts such as participation, audience development, ethics, inclusion, and evaluation.
AHEAD Seminars
A series of expert-led seminars that explore participatory heritage from different perspectives, combining theory with real-world practice and case studies.
AHEAD Lab Guidelines
Hands-on guidelines developed through the AHEAD Labs, offering practical, step-by-step support for designing and implementing participatory activities with communities.
AHEAD Magazine
The final AHEAD magazine brings together stories, reflections, and lessons learned from across the project, highlighting challenges, successes, and emerging practices in participatory cultural heritage.
Why we’re sharing these resources
Across the heritage sector, professionals are increasingly asked to work collaboratively with communities, address inclusion, representation, and accessibility, build long-term audience relationships, as well as navigate complex social and ethical questions.
The AHEAD learning resources respond to these needs with practical tools grounded in lived experience, rather than abstract models. They are designed to be adaptable, reflective, and useful across different institutional and community contexts.
In line with AHEAD’s values, all learning resources are freely accessible, designed for reuse and adaptation, suitable for self-learning, group training, and workshops, relevant beyond the lifespan of the project.
We invite you to explore them, share them with colleagues, and use them as inspiration for your own participatory heritage initiatives.
👉 Explore the AHEAD Learning Resources: https://aheadeurope.eu/learning/