The international Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has just released the European Quality Principles for EU-funded Interventions with Potential Impact upon Cultural Heritage.
“Cultural heritage preservation should be mainstreamed into programming at EU and national levels on an equal footing with other objectives” write the experts who make 40 recommendations related to programming, design, implementation, governance, risk assessment, research, education and training.
In particular for briefs and tenders with cultural heritage components they recommend a “two-envelope” system “ranking the technical offer separately from the financial one” and that all briefs and tenders “include a business plan as well as a conservation-maintenance and long-term monitoring plan, and that they explain the potential benefits for the public.”
The document aims to provide guidance on quality principles for all stakeholders directly or indirectly engaged in EU-funded heritage conservation and management (i.e. European institutions, managing authorities, international organisations, civil society and local communities, private sector, and experts). It stems from the work of an expert group assembled by ICOMOS, under a mandate of the European Commission in the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.
Created in 1964, ICOMOS is the only global non-government organisation dedicated to promoting the application of theory, methodology, and scientific techniques to the conservation of the architectural and archaeological heritage. It is a network of experts that benefits from the interdisciplinary exchange of its members: architects, historians, archaeologists, art historians, geographers, anthropologists, engineers and town planners.
