Global Challenges, Sustainability and the Politics of Heritage

Despite the unparalleled global disruptions and grief, we hope to persevere with our aim to foster dialogues between policy makers, heritage professionals and heritage research communities to increase awareness of the role the Arts and Humanities can play in policy and decision-making.

As you know, the social and political changes needed for sustainability are complex and entangled alongside a new salience in research and its potential role towards decision-making. While certainly there is a push to improve our understanding of how to approach, understand and manage the Anthropocene, core challenges for the arts and humanities continue through discussion, debate and governance.  This half-day Conference hopes to contribute to the impressive energy and commitment of individuals, institutions and governments that continues despite current awkward social arrangements, by exploring the relationships between global challenges, specific and far-reaching understandings of sustainability, and their relationships with heritage.

The areas we are focusing specifically on are:

• What are the opportunities and challenges of the sustainability concept and how can heritage research contribute towards understanding it further?
• How can heritage research help inform evidence-based policies related to sustainable development challenges, such as issues of social justice, instability, and legacies between nations and peoples?
• Can heritage research help ensure successful implementation towards achieving sustainable development (e.g. through ensuring programmes understand and work within local contexts)?
• How can heritage research support effective frameworks of government, or support the political will to transform research and innovation into sustainable long-term practices?

Provisional programme

• 10:00: Welcome
• 10:05: Can heritage research help ensure successful implementation towards achieving sustainable development? 
• 10:20: How can heritage research help inform evidence-based policies related to sustainable development challenges? 
• 10:45: Panel: How can heritage research support effective frameworks of government, or support the political will to transform research and innovation into sustainable long-term practices? 
• 11:40: Heritage-Sustainability: developing methodology
• 12:20: Panel: Effective utilisation of sustainability and heritage studies: assessing societal benefit and economic value, the role of stakeholders, and the future development of environmental/sustainability/heritage regulation
• 13:15: What can heritage research contribute towards understanding sustainability further? 

Confirmed speakers include:

• Adala Leeson, Head of Social and Economic Analysis and Evaluation, Historic England
• Alison Heritage, Project Manager, ICCROM
• Beth Perry, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Sheffield
• Gameli Kodzo Tordzro, Research Associate, University of Glasgow
• Hana Morel, Research Associate, UCL 
• Harman Saggar, Head Economists for Arts, Heritage and Tourism, DCMS
• Jack Philips, Economic Advisor, DCMS
• Kalliopi Fouseki, Programme Director/Senior Lecturer for Sustainable Heritage, UCL
• Kelsea Sellars, Policy Researcher, Ubele
• Krystyna Swiderska, Principal Researcher, iied
• Michael Stubbs, Land Use and Planning Advisor, National Trust
• Sara Turnbull, Founder/Director, WorkWild

Further details

• Details about registration and the online platform being used for this event are available here

The AHRC Heritage Priority Area team – led by Rodney Harrison at the UCL Institute of Archaeology– works with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the heritage research community, and heritage partner organisations, to draw together and stimulate the development of a wide range of research across the arts and humanities that make an important contribution to understanding heritage.