SAFECULT

European written heritage represents material cultural and historical value, at the same time fulfils the role of 'memory of Europe'. Most of the EU written heritage is facing various risks, from ...

The project constructed a framework for skills in disaster risk management for EU cultural institutions. The specific objectives: 1) Assess the state of art of disaster risk prevention and governance in the cultural Institutions of the EU and the world. 2) Develop a European network addressing the issues of both disaster risk management and first response intervention, to foster cross–border cooperation and assistance. 3) Elaborate courses, programs and materials to support the education of the operators working in written heritage. 4) Improve the key competencies and skills of such operators 5) Establish a resident international course in the premises of the partners to support the continuous education of the managers and operators of institutions owning written heritage. 6) Set-up and deploy a platform with shared materials and best practices to mitigate disaster risks and manage emergency situations, targeted to help the cultural institutions of Europe. 7) Increase the consensus of policy makers and cultural institutions on the fundamental role of risk management approach and its inherent benefits in terms of minimization of costs and maximisation of cultural assets protection.

The project methodology was based on the following structure. (1) horizontal activities, devoted to Management and Coordination of the Project, Communication, Dissemination and Quality Management; these tasks were run for all the project duration. R1 was dedicated to research of available relevant knowledge, projects and studies done in the past lasted for more than 10 months and covered the following activities: A1 - Study the cases of disaster risk management approaches and the practices adopted for the first response to an emergency affecting the written CH. A1 - Assessment of the most important EU Projects and international studies in the field of disaster risk management A2 -Assessment of the state of the art of continuous training courses on disaster risk management. Survey of the status of the emergency planning and disaster risk management adoption in the public and private cultural organizations in the partnering countries Within phase R2 the project constructed a dynamic knowledge-base on disaster risk management and cross-border first aid. Database is stored on an online repository of the project and its main outputs are summarised in the R1 report. SAFECULT Open Educational Platform was created on a publicly available Google Classroom server. Links to access the training are available on Safecult website https://safecult.eu. During the Phase R3 the TPM in Rome has been organised, On that occasion the Consortium was committed to the development of the cultural professionals as well as the course materials and the capacity building programme. The training curriculum provided a detailed overview of each of the modules offered during the course. The training materials are elaborated as face-to-face courses and as MOOC-based modules, which are accessible from the project platform through the SafeCult project website -www.safecult.eu/g-classroom/ Within phase R4 were designed and developed course materials and the practices, procedures and methods to support the effectiveness of the course. Subsequently, SAFECULT Trainings of academic staff were organised by STUBA (SK) and by I-CON (RO). However, the courses were organised and performed after the official end of the project, so they cannot be listed among official project activities. Project partners were aware of this issue and decided to organise them on their own to deliver this important output of the project to the first participants, who in Slovakia were selected from students of master and doctoral study program Heritage Materials Preservation (at STUBA) as well as from restorers working in Slovak National Archive. The total number of participants was 12 in Slovakia and 24 in Romania. At the same time close to the end of academic training, Multiplication events (Capacity building events) ( by MISR (SK), BAR (RO) and by BNCF (IT)) were organised. All these events had good attendance, abundantly represented by directors and managers of culturalinstitutions. The event organized by MISR in Slovakia was visited by more than 60 participants, the event organized by partner BAR in Romania 17 and the Capacity building event in Italy hosted 11 participants. Feedback and comments were collected from all these events through questionnaires distributed to the participants after their end. Last but not least, based upon the gained knowledge, during phase R5 an elaborated report on the EU framework for the management of risks and emergencies for written heritage has been provided. Moreover, the EU guidelines for the management of risks and emergencies for written CH, and the EU collaborative cross-border response tools have been produced. All these outputs are freely available to the entire community on the Safecult project website and on the Erasmus + project result platform.

The objective was to develop structured and high level practices and approaches to the risk management, protection and preservation of written cultural heritage, SafeCult has developed a framework for disaster risk management for European libraries, archives and museums to structure and communicate the capabilities and capacities to deploy preventive and intervention measures to protect and mitigate the risks and the inherent impacts of natural hazards affecting the written heritage. The SafeCult project has studied the cases of disaster risk management in written cultural heritage and the practices of emergency response. SafeCult assessed the most relevant international practices and EU projects, as well as the policies and rules in force in the countries of the consortium members by means of field research and analysing and elaborating the current practices, as well as through targeted surveys. SafeCult has produced (a) the skill cards and curriculum; (b) the online MOOC platform; (c) the whole course material and courseware; (d) the MOOC-based modules with the practices, procedures and methods to support the effectiveness of the course. The results achieved by the SafeCult project therefore are A multidisciplinary European network/framework for the education on disaster risk by linking the fields of conservation of written cultural heritage. A European interconnected network of technicians, experts and cultural heritage managers The assessment of the state of the art of disaster risk prevention and management for written cultural heritage Design, development and implementation of three new courses on disaster risk management and provide multidisciplinary training for participants scalable solutions for staff training on disaster risk management and piloting of an online platform as an effective knowledge transfer system The internationalisation of participating countries through joint staff training programmes attracting international audiences and guest speakers and trainers from abroad.