The central aim of this project was to investigate how we can strengthen the skills of cultural heritage workers in the field of participation and dialogue: what kind of training and support can we develop for them? This new training offer had to strengthen the implementation of participation in cultural heritage organisations. We wanted to find out how the concept of heritage participation is implemented in other countries and which practical work forms are used there, to inspire our sector.
Since the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Portugal, Faro, 2005), the cultural heritage sector has been evolving towards a more participatory approach. The new Flemish Cultural Heritage Decree (2017) therefore formulates participation as one of the basic functions for every cultural heritage organisation. It defines this concept as: "the active involvement of society, in particular heritage communities, in cultural heritage work". The concrete interpretation of this concept and the practical translation to all work domains is a big challenge for our cultural heritage organisations. The Flemish cultural heritage sector focuses strongly on the Netherlands and England. This Erasmus+ project wanted to look further and search in other European countries (France, Germany, Ireland) for good practices, methodologies and skills to strengthen and make visible the participatory dialogue within cultural heritage organisations.