General Information

Organisers: S3Platform (Joint Research Centre, European Commission) and Regional Government of Lazio

Background: This S3 workshop will focus on Cultural Heritage as part of the wider domain of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs).

Although Cultural Heritage and CCIs represent key elements to promote socio-economic development, as clearly acknowledged by the European Commission, their full potential –as an engine for innovation and growth, remains unreached.

The Eye@RIS3 tool reveals that Cultural Heritage has been identified as a strategic priority for research and innovation by numerous regions. On the one hand, regions identify opportunities in cultural heritage technologies (e.g. conservation, restoration, monitoring, risk management and environmental protection), digitisation and imaging, on the other cultural heritage is seen a key element in the development of (among the others) innovative approaches to tourism and sustainable construction. 

Cultural Heritage presents specific features and challenges that require targeted support. Innovation-driven investments addressing Cultural Heritage have to be better understood for effective implementation and scale-up. This requires regions and Member States implementing smart specialisation to fully take into consideration the complex links between traditional cultural assets and policies (cultural heritage, dynamic cultural institutions and services) and the opportunities provided by new demands and societal needs. In turn, this implies involving actors that work in the cultural heritage field but are not engaged in innovation processes, nor directly targeted by innovation policy programmes.

The workshop, co-organised by the S3 Platform, LazioInnova (the regional Innovation Agency of Region Lazio) and Regional Government of Lazio, will explore these issues looking at different experience within the EU.

Objectives: The workshop aims, in the first place, at supporting policy makers in the implementation of their smart specialisation strategies, with a focus on Cultural Heritage. Second, it seeks to further integrate the cultural and creative sectors into regional innovation strategies for smart specialisation by bringing together the RIS3 community with a larger set of actors and institutions. Finally, a third goal of the event is to discuss how to operationalise the alignment complementary policies with smart specialisation objectives, exploiting synergies and finding more effective ways of working.

Target group: The event brings together policy makers from EU countries and regions as well as representatives from the European Commission, scientific institutions and academics. The main target groups are policymakers at the regional and national level responsible for RIS3s and the planning of the EU Structural Funds as well as policymakers at local, regional and national level responsible for other complementary policies (cultural policy, spatial planning, etc.) and economic actors and research organisations working in the field of Cultural Heritage and CCIs.

It is organised as a mutual learning event based on the exchange of experiences from different actors, organisations and institutions involved in Cultural Heritage for territorial development.

Structure: This one- day workshop is organised along plenaries and parallel sessions with presentations followed by open discussion or working groups. The workshop will be highly interactive, to make the most of the knowledge and experiences of all participants. Regions will discuss how their smart specialisation strategies approach Cultural Heritage and what challenges and critical issues they face in the implementation phase. Those issues will be then debated and connected to successful experiences and innovative projects for mutual learning and improvement. The audience is expected to be actively engaged in the parallel sessions, and will be supported by rapporteurs and moderators.