CHARTER - the European Cultural Heritage Skills Alliance
At the end of 2024, CHARTER, the European Cultural Heritage Skills Alliance, concluded its mission to strengthen and professionalise the cultural heritage sector across Europe. The Erasmus+ funded project brought together 47 partners including leading institutions, organisations, and networks, to map current and future skills needs. As one of the project partners NEMO is thrilled to share the main findings of the CHARTER Alliance.
CHARTER identified critical skills gaps, shortages, and mismatches between education and the workforce, proposing strategies to address them through updated training paths and capacity-building initiatives. By clarifying occupational roles, developing responsive education tools, and promoting transversal skills like digital, technological, and green competences, CHARTER has laid the groundwork for a resilient and sustainable cultural heritage sector that supports both society and the economy. The project’s outcomes provide a comprehensive strategy to ensure Europe has the necessary heritage skills to safeguard, enhance, and promote its cultural heritage for future generations. Access all results on CHARTER's website and get an overview in the booklet CHARTER in a nutshell.
Securing an innovative and enterprising heritage sector: 12 transformative recommendations
By fostering the heritage sector’s role in shaping collective and individual identities, the 12 recommendations underscore the sector’s potential as a driver of social, economic, and environmental change. They align with a values-based, sustainable vision for Europe, supporting the CHARTER project’s ambition to create an innovative and enterprising heritage sector that contributes to a resilient and sustainable future.
Below follows a brief overview of the recommendations. Dive into the full version to understand how CHARTER is shaping a forward-thinking and sustainable future for the heritage ecosystem.
- Establish skills strategies for the heritage sector for a systemic change
Encourage coordinated skills strategies at the EU, national, and regional levels to align education and labour market demands, ensuring heritage’s role in achieving societal and environmental goals. - Counteract the loss of heritage skills
Combat the loss of traditional heritage skills caused by disrupted generational transfers, shrinking markets, and precarious employment. Emphasise their relevance for addressing modern challenges like sustainability and climate resilience. - Complement core heritage skills with transversal skills to foster inter- and trans-disciplinarity
Equip heritage professionals with communication, digital, entrepreneurial, and ethical skills alongside core competencies in preservation and governance to navigate evolving challenges and interdisciplinary roles. - Offer future-focused education and training
CHARTER identifies eight pathways for adapting or developing curricula: community engagement, sustainability in built heritage, heritage crafts, new heritage conservation, digital heritage, participatory leadership, heritage policy design, and international relations. These pathways address current and future sector demands. - Promote a Lifelong Learning area for the heritage sector
Encourage continuing education (CET) to upskill and reskill professionals in areas like digital content creation, conservation, and management, ensuring flexibility to adapt to emerging needs such as AI and digital outreach. - Foster the recognition of non-formal and informal prior learning
Expand recognition of skills gained through non-formal and informal methods, such as on-the-job training and traditional crafts, using tools like micro-credentials and validation processes to improve mobility and career access. - Ensure work-based learning for professional development and early-career progression
Enhance access to internships and traineeships by improving coordination, offering fair remuneration, and ensuring better integration into education programs to bridge gaps between training and the workplace. - Strengthen quality assurance in heritage education and training
Standardise quality assurance in vocational (VET) and continuing education (CET) to ensure consistent standards across the EU, particularly for work-based learning, which is vital for heritage professionals. - Strive towards a viable, diverse heritage workforce
Address workforce precarity by improving job stability, promoting gender equality, and increasing representation of disadvantaged groups to foster diversity and resilience in the heritage sector. - Foster professional recognition and facilitate mobility
Harmonise standards and improve recognition of qualifications to support the mobility of heritage professionals across the EU, addressing gaps in tools like ESCO and improving alignment with national frameworks. - Develop and use robust socio-economic indicators for evidence-based policies
Improve data collection and monitoring using updated methodologies and taxonomies to ensure reliable statistics that reflect the sector’s dimensions and inform effective policymaking. - Develop intersectoral cross-pollination of heritage knowledge
Recognise and enhance heritage’s intersection with other sectors like tourism, sustainability, and urban planning, while improving procurement standards to include heritage-related activities and attract skilled professionals.
Explore 3 booklets with key findings
CHARTER produced three accompanying booklets that consolidate findings and proposals, contributing to a sustainable and long-term skills strategy for the sector.
Booklet on profiling a future-proof heritage practice
Booklet on supporting heritage education and training
Booklet on understand sectoral dynamics
Additional key results
CHARTER model proposes culture as a common good
The CHARTER Alliance developed an innovative model for the cultural heritage sector, capturing its scope, dynamics, and boundaries in relation to existing cultural, statistical, occupational, and economic frameworks and policies. This holistic model positions cultural heritage as a distinct domain with unique functions, making it applicable to economic and social assessments while supporting its full recognition and realisation. Access more details in the accompanying report.
8 pathways for the future
Out of the many reports and other results produced by the CHARTER Alliance, Guidelines on innovative/emerging cultural heritage education and training paths is a key outcome. It provide recommendations to futureproof eight key segments of heritage education and training (E&T) where new curricula need to be developed or existing ones adapted. The guidelines aim to ensure that the cultural hertiage sector remains resilient, relevant, and responsive to emerging challenges and opportunities.