ECOHERITAGE: ecomuseums as a collaborative approach to recognition, management and protection of cultural and natural heritage. Erasmus Project

Project Title

ECOHERITAGE: ecomuseums as a collaborative approach to recognition, management and protection of cultural and natural heritage.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Rural development and urbanisation

Project Summary

Recent demographic decline affects unevenly different population settlements across Europe: rural areas face high rates of depopulation, while urban areas experience higher population concentrations. Spain leads rural depopulation in Europe, with only a 25.7% of its population living in rural areas (Eurostat: 2017).

The high rate of depopulation in rural areas also poses an important social challenge due to the related high risk of exclusion and poverty. In 2015, 25.5% of the rural population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion, while in cities it was 24%. The risk of social exclusion in rural areas affect the 27.1% of the population, while in the cities, the 24.3% (Eurostat: 2017).

People living in rural areas tend to drop out of education and training earlier. In fact, according to Eurostat, the rate of young people aged 18-24 living in rural areas of the EU who neither study nor work is 3.7 points higher than people living in cities of the same age group.

Given the cultural and natural richness of rural areas, heritage can definitely represent an alternative source of development for these territories.

Ecomuseums work as shared processes of recognition, management and protection of cultural and natural heritage, aimed at promoting sustainable development. Ecomuseums are organised by its communities in an associated and cooperative way based on four main areas: economic, social, environmental and scientific-technological. Ecomuseums are able to generate incomes from culture, knowledge and services.

EcoHeritage primary target group are rural communities, especially adult population, as well as ecomuseums in Europe. The secondary target group addressed are municipalities and local governments, cultural institutions, heritage research institutions and adult education providers.

EcoHeritage will address these groups with the overall objective of contributing to the awareness and consolidation of ecomuseums as a model of sustainable and collaborative heritage management for the development of economic growth and social cohesion among rural communities in the consortium countries.

The specific objectives of our project are:

-To raise awareness about ecomuseums as a collaborative heritage management model, establishing a set of criteria for its recognition and a common methodology to improve its contribution to social, economic, environmental and heritage sustainability of rural areas.
-To provide skills to adult learners in rural areas through the creation of innovative training materials on active citizenship promotion and participatory heritage management.
-To generate steady communication networks between ecomuseums at national and European level thus fostering knowledge and good practices exchange that will contribute to the sustainability of consolidated and new coming ecomuseums.
– To foster the creation of ecomuseums as an endogenous resource for competitiveness and social, economic and environmental sustainability of rural areas.

To reach these objectives the following outputs will be developed:

IO1 – Ecomuseums, social museums and other practices of collaborative management of cultural heritage: a report.
IO2 – Ecomuseums Best Practices Manual.
IO3 – Participatory heritage management toolkit and OERs.
IO4 – Ecomuseums online network and web-based training app.

The project consortium is made by the following partners:

UJA (ES) is a university coordinating a Centre of International Excellence on Heritage (CEI Patrimonio), gathering 10 Andalusian public universities.

OnP (ES) is a consulting enterprise specialised in project managing, monitoring and evaluation.

The UAH (ES) is a university represented in the project by the Department of History and Philosophy where a specific line of research has been developed to study the evolution of social museology in Spain.

MINOM-ICOM (PT) is an international network working on community museums, ecomuseums, museology institutes, groups focused on the organization of local cultural activities, cultural management and mediation, and grassroots cultural institutions.

UL (PT) was the first university in Portugal to ensure specific teaching of museology at the masters and doctoral levels.

UNIMIB (IT) is a university that has been working for years on the concept of community and sustainable local projects as a tool for the development of marginal rural territories.

Parabiago (IT) is a municipality managing the Ecomuseo di Parabiago and participating in the steering committee of the Lombardy ecomuseums network and the international platform DROPS for ecomuseums and community museums.

MiLA (PL) is a foundation that has disseminated the concept of ecomuseum in Poland, developing an original methodology for creating ecomuseums and supporting the development of several ecomuseums.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 305187 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE JAEN & Country: ES

Project Partners

• On Projects Advising SL
• UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO-BICOCCA
• Comune di Parabiago
• COFAC COOPERATIVA DE FORMACAO E ANIMACAO CULTURAL CRL
• Fundacja Miejsc i Ludzi Aktywnych
• International Movement for a New Museology
• UNIVERSIDAD DE ALCALA