MAIN ISSUES/CHALLENGES: Cultural heritage covers a variety of activities, which implies not only tangible material objectives, but also a system of values, traditions, knowledge, and lifestyles that characterize a society. Article 167 of the Treaty on the Function of European Union (TFEU) underlines the necessity to protect and enhance the culture of the Member State, and the need to look after the common cultural heritage. There is therefore a renewed attention on the heritage sector at the EU level, making it one of the priorities of European policy-making, as set out by the Work Plan for Culture of 2015-2018 and "Innovation in cultural heritage research" 2018. Cultural heritage is nowadays regarded as playing an important role to the overall European GDP. According to the 2016 edition of Eurostat,over 6 million of jobs, that is the 3% of total employment rate, have been covered by cultural jobs in the EU. The cultural sectors’ turnover was EUR 300 billion in 2013, which is 5.3% of the turnover of total services. France, Italy, Spain and Germany account for over half of the total number of EU cultural enterprises. Cultural heritage is not only a significant creator of job opportunities in Europe, but also“a key component to the attractiveness of Europe”, writes a report “Cultural heritage counts for Europe”. Finally, it affects also Tourism sector, which is an important part of the EU GDP, accounting for EUR 415 billion, as reported by the World Travel and Tourism Council in 2015. Nowadays, the heritage sector has to deal with new challenges and it is therefore necessary to develop new professionalism, able to promote and support cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is increasingly seen as a fundamental resource of the European Union, since it improves not only the overall economic growth and employment, but also social cohesion and environmental sustainability. A better knowledge of the other cultures means an improved sense of understanding of what is different and an improved capacity to adapt and to deal with it. Moreover, the increased accessibility to cultural heritage contributes to build a sense of belonging and identity. These are the reasons why it is necessary to invest in the training, valorisation, promotion and diffusion of cultural heritage related skills. GENERAL OBJECTIVES: Storytelling and fundraising skills assume a fundamental role in connecting the past to the future. Cultural Heritage storytelling does not mean simply telling stories but "communicating through stories", that is, creating narrative universes through which a cultural heritage org. enters into an emphatic relationship with people, managing to arouse emotions in public. Markets are increasingly becoming narrative arenas where, alongside the intrinsic quality of products and cultural heritage; the ability of branding evokes a universe of stories, traditions and values (cultural and ethical) that is fundamental to engage people to protect, exploit cultural heritage, and support it financially. The processes of presenting art and heritage are themselves narrative acts. Storytelling will help to design new strategies of communication and also to adapt to new media that can be used in educating people as well as to promote culture and art. Therefore, being able to craft stories and portraying cultural heritage values is becoming a crucial skill to master to exert an attractive value towards increasingly attentive and aware public. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: 1)Definition of a NEW PROFESSIONAL FIGURE: the Cultural Heritage storyteller and fundraiser. 2)Creative and INNOVATIVE TRAINING, able to support cultural heritage sites to promote and engage the public, and rise funds for their own development. 3)IMPROVE EMPLOYABILITY of young graduated in humanistics who - in the periodic employment rankings of recent graduates - are systematically in the last positions. Improve people chance to compete in the job market. 4)IMPROVE THE COMPETITIVENESS OF EU CULTURAL HERITAGE ORGANIZATIONS managing cultural heritage sites by enhancing what characterizes and differentiates Europe from other continents: its heritage. TARGET GROUPS: Cultural heritage org. managers and staff VET providers/Trainers Young graduated Policy Makers and public institutions managing Cultural heritage sites TRANSNATIONAL DIMENSION: Approaching cooperation on a transnational level will be critical for the project activities since only a European confrontation as well as cooperation among the actors involved will boost the adoption of effective innovations, systems, competences, and new professionalism. The transition toward a new professionalism is intrinsically a transnational effort since cultural heritage sites in EU are facing similar problems but the knowledge base they need in terms of new skills, digitalization and communication cannot entirely rely on one country’s intellectual resources.
Through the implementation of the project, we wanted to enhance storytelling and increase the fund-raising capacity for those who work or want to work in cultural organisations in the future. Indeed, storytelling is taking on a fundamental role in creating narrative universes through which a cultural heritage organisation enters into an emphatic relationship with people, succeeding in arousing emotions in the public. These emotions should help people realise that Europe's historical and cultural heritage does not belong to one country alone but is a common asset of all member countries. In a nutshell, increasing the recognition of belonging to a common history and culture is what we wanted to achieve through the implementation of the project. In addition to the creation of a new professional figure and improving employability in Europe, the project achieved its goal of creating creative and innovative training to support cultural heritage sites and improve the competitiveness of these organisations that manage the cultural cumun heritage.
The idea of applying for this project emerged once the cultural heritage sector was the subject of renewed attention at European level, making it one of the priorities of European policy as set out in the 2018 Work Plan for Culture 2015-2018 and "Innovation in Cultural Heritage Research". In concrete terms, given the need to create job opportunities at European level and to have a new professional figure capable of enhancing the cultural heritage of museums, we took the opportunity to engage in an international consortium. Developing a new curriculum that could not only enhance the organisations participating in the consortium, but which could be of good practice for all organisations that in the future would like to exploit their cultural heritage to enhance it and bring it to the European level was the guideline for the project idea.