By Randy T. Nobleza, Ph.D
The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) convene past and present cohorts of online inter-agency coordination meetings in safeguarding heritage collections, living traditions and practices in the face of disasters, extreme weather events and complex emergencies last May 18 to 20.
In the face of overlapping risks posed by disasters, conflicts, and extreme weather events, there’s an increasing need to transition towards more integrated and risk-informed practices. READY Track 1 embraced a systems-based and people-centered approach to enhance the comprehensive risk assessment of movable and intangible heritage. This approach has led to more effective preparedness, risk reduction, and coordinated action across various sectors. In this session, selected members of the Track 1 cohort who applied this methodology in their post-training field projects. They shared practical evidence demonstrating how shifting from a single-hazard to a multi-hazard approach has resulted in a more comprehensive understanding of the risks impacting heritage and its associated communities. Building on these presentations, a moderated roundtable brought together multidisciplinary stakeholders. They reflected on how collaboration with relevant agencies has helped bridge data gaps, incorporate community perspectives, and foster a more bottom-up understanding of risk. The discussion also explored how these approaches can support more informed risk prioritization, ensuring that preparedness and mitigation measures, as well as the utilization of institutional resources, are both effective and sustainable.
Across Europe, there’s a growing wealth of tools, methodologies, and best practices for managing the risk of disasters to cultural heritage. However, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in how these are applied, coordinated, and shared across different institutions, sectors, and contexts. READY aims to address this challenge by bringing together a consortium of 18 technical partners from 14 countries and eight sectors, including cultural heritage institutions, civil protection authorities, research organizations, policy bodies, and international networks. These partners brought complementary expertise in safeguarding heritage, managing sites, collections, and living traditions, as well as advancing scientific and technical innovation, and supporting policy development and implementation.
The session focused on the contributions of READY’s technical partners. Through concrete examples, it demonstrated how cross-sector collaboration is leading to more integrated and operational approaches to risk management. It also highlighted lessons learned from implementing risk assessment, preparedness, and response strategies, and reflect on the benefits of stronger connections between heritage, civil protection, research, and policy communities. Additionally, it pointed to emerging practices that are helping to strengthen the resilience and recovery of cultural heritage in the face of disasters, extreme weather events, and complex emergencies.
Global evidence consistently showed that investing early in disaster risk reduction and preparedness can significantly reduce losses and recovery costs. According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, every dollar invested in preparedness can save up to seven dollars in recovery. Proactive approaches can help protect heritage sites, collections, and living traditions, enhance adaptive capacity through local and traditional knowledge, and improve coordination between heritage institutions and civil protection actors.
Despite this evidence, practice still prioritizes response and recovery over prevention. This highlights the need to integrate anticipatory and risk-informed approaches more firmly into heritage management. READY addresses this gap by promoting strategies that combine data, local knowledge, and cross-sector collaboration to support early action and more effective protection.
Drawing on experiences from READY Track 1, this session showcased how participants conducted risk assessments, tested preparedness through simulations, and implemented cost-effective, context-specific mitigation measures while engaging local communities, government actors, and emergency services. These efforts not only enhance the resilience of heritage institutions but also contribute to the resilience of the communities that depend on and identify with them.
Through case studies and shared reflection, the session explored how risk-informed strategies can be translated into action, how cross-sector collaboration can improve effectiveness, and how community knowledge can support more sustainable and locally grounded approaches. It also highlighted how practical and scalable measures, often developed with limited resources, can make a significant difference in strengthening preparedness and resilience.
In complex emergencies, limited coordination, insufficient preparedness, and gaps in the capacity to provide first aid to cultural heritage often hinder timely and effective action. Building on ICCROM’s codified ISO-standard methodology on First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis, READY addresses these challenges by strengthening capacities and fostering coordinated, cross-sector collaboration among heritage professionals, civil protection actors, emergency responders, humanitarian agencies, military actors, and local communities.
Through this approach, READY Track 1 equipped participants with practical skills in emergency documentation, salvage and stabilization, and people-centered early recovery. This ensured that cultural heritage protection is better integrated into broader emergency response efforts.
This session was led by members of the READY Track 1 cohort whose post-training field projects focused on strengthening emergency preparedness, enhancing response mechanisms, and providing first aid to cultural heritage. They showcased their work, including developing scenario-based, multi-stakeholder simulations, training national teams of cultural first aiders, setting up crisis units, and improving preparedness for the emergency evacuation of community members. The session highlighted how coordinated action can strengthen resilience in times of crisis and support the early recovery of heritage and associated communities.
A stakeholder roundtable further discussed the remaining gaps in integrating heritage concerns into broader humanitarian aid and response mechanisms. It also addressed the need for joint capacity development and explore opportunities to strengthen cross-sector collaboration and coordination for protecting heritage and associated communities in times of crisis.
Across the heritage field, many training and capacity development initiatives are already underway, reflecting a strong and sustained commitment to safeguarding cultural heritage. However, there is a need to deliberate more about how the results of these efforts can be amplified and sustained. This includes sharing lessons learned across sectors and maintaining new partnerships formed through such processes for wider benefit. Additionally, it involves considering how evidence generated through practice can help integrate concerns for heritage safeguarding into broader frameworks and policies for humanitarian aid, emergency response, climate adaptation, and development planning.
This meeting aimed to promote strategic cross-disciplinary exchange by fostering national, regional, and institutional partnerships. These partnerships connected efforts, support learning, and create opportunities for replication and context-specific application.
In the concluding session, participants’ field projects, particularly those focused on raising awareness among diverse stakeholders, presented. These projects demonstrated how heritage can be leveraged to support disaster risk management, climate adaptation, social cohesion, and community resilience. A roundtable discussion, moderated by members of the Track 1 cohort, brought together heads, decision-makers, and representatives of multidisciplinary institutions. This discussion explored how partnerships and coordinated action can continue to amplify and sustain impact, support more integrated approaches to heritage safeguarding, and strengthen the positioning of cultural heritage within wider policy and planning agendas. #