Call for Participation

The International Conference on Cultural Heritage (CH) brings together researchers, policy makers, professionals and practitioners to explore some of the more pressing issues concerning cultural heritage today. In particular, the main goal of the conference is to focus on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, the use of cutting edge technologies for the protection, restoration, preservation, massive digitalization, documentation and presentation of the CH content. At the same time, the event is intended to cover topics of research ready for exploitation, demonstrating the acceptability of new sustainable approaches and new technologies by the user community, SME’s, owners, managers and conservators of cultural patrimony.

Several organizations have decided to join together in order to create an optimal environment for the discussion, explanation of new technologies, exchange of modern ideas and in general to allow the transfer of knowledge between a maximum number of professionals and participants during one common time period.

Its main objectives are further to:

Highlight the role of European cultural heritage research and developments within international activities and co-operation.
Assess the impact of EU policies on the protection, restoration, preservation and digitalisation (e-documentation) of European CH and evaluate the positive contribution of cultural heritage innovative research and developments for competitiveness and job creation.
Disseminate the results of EU cultural heritage innovative research and developments acquired at large research facilities and discuss new development and innovations in research infrastructure.
Discuss and consolidate co-ordination of national research into and educational programmes for CH within Europe and the world.
Refine, amend and publish main ideas and visions of any technological platforms opened to the entire field of CH in the context of preparation of the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (2014-2020).
Emphasize the relation of conservation practice to contemporary legislation, especially experienced by SMEs, problems of orphan works, fraud and crime regarding movable cultural heritage market; health and safety issues in conservation practice.
Discuss the influence of research on the impact of EU policies and directives on CH, and mitigation of possible adverse effects.
Underline and discuss the role of the current and future developments on international activities, agreements and co-operations:
1. against demolishing and/or looting in CH (UNESCO, Interpol, Europol, ICOMOS, ICCROM, etc).
2. on the e-documentation and e-preservation in CH (Google, UNESCO, World Library, mSoft, etc);
3. on the establishment of standards in the field of CH;
4. on conventions (like the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible CH; EU CH Label, WHL, etc);
5. on monitoring, protecting and presenting worldwide the CH using innovative ICT solutions;
6. on the legal and ethical responsibilities of CH Informatics.

Those researchers who wish to participate in this event are invited to submit papers on original work addressing the following subjects or related themes in the following two categories:

Protection, Restoration, and Preservation of Tangible and Intangible CH:
1. Damage assessment, diagnosis and monitoring for the preventive conservation and maintenance of CH;
2. Assessment of new conservation treatments (effectiveness, compatibility, reversibility)
3. Development and application of methodologies, technologies, models and tools for damage assessment, monitoring and adaptation to climate change impacts (including extreme events)
4. Groundbreaking applications in the field of monitoring and protecting the tangible CH (for example: earth satellite observation monitoring systems, GIS, etc).
5. Information Management systems in CH.
6. Innovative topics related to the current and future implementation, use, development and exploitation of the EU CH Identity Card
7. Framework conditions to enhance and market most promising prototypes used in tangible and intangible CH
8. Protecting cultural heritage assets from risks and damages resulting from earthquakes, fires, storms, looting and "extreme events"
9. Non-destructive diagnosis technologies for the safe conservation and traceability of cultural assets
10. Compatible solutions for improving the resource and energy efficiency of historic buildings in urban and rural areas
11. Innovative solutions for archaeology, as well as cultural landscapes, taking into account the promotion of (and protection from) cultural tourism and quality of life
12. Benchmarking for furthering guidelines and best practices on methodologies, and standards for CH protection, restoration, preservation and documentation, in relation with CEN (TC 346), Europeana and implementation of EU directives affecting CH and its end-users
13. Research needs to further improve conservation & restoration practices and strengthen the involvement of end-users: owners & managers, conservators, restorers, SMEs, industry etc.
14. Protection of submerged CH: maritime, coastal, marshes and lakes including archaeological assets
15. Contribution to the JPI Initiative on CH for furthering the coordination of all European public efforts together with Member States and wide range of stakeholders
16. Contribution to the ECTP and Focus Area on CH especially for the efforts from private sector especially SMEs and industry
17. Innovative solutions for the consolidation, dissemination, demonstration and exploitation of results, training and education related to the tangible and intangible CH (including open access to scientific results in cultural heritage as well as their preservation)
18. e-Infrastructure networks and applications in the field of CH
19. Contribution to the efficient estimation of costs of the maintenance, conservation, restoration, preservation, digitalization and documentation of the tangible and intangible heritage.
Digital CH:
1. Digital Data Acquisition Technologies in CH
2. 2D and 3D Data Capture Methodologies and Data Processing in CH
3. On-site and remotely sensed data collection
4. 2D and 3D GIS in CH
5. Remote Sensing for Archaeology and CH Management & Monitoring
6. CAD and FEM based Digital Reconstructions and 3D Modelling
7. Reproduction Techniques and Rapid Prototyping in CH
8. Visualisation Techniques (desktop, Virtual and Augmented Reality)
9. Virtual Reality in Archaeology and Historical Research
10. Multimedia, Multilingua, Data Management and Archiving
11. Construction and indexing of large scale Multimedia/Multilingual
12. Encyclopedias in CH
13. Computer Animation for CH Applications and Virtual Heritage
14. Game Technologies in CH
15. Non-Photorealistic Rendering of CH Data
16. Virtual Museum Applications (e-Museums and e-Exhibitions)
17. Digital/Virtual Documentation of Archaeological Excavations
18. Novel Internet-based CH Applications
19. Portals and Digital Libraries of CH
20. Usability, Effectiveness and Interface Design for CH Applications
21. Innovative Graphics Applications and Techniques
22. Interactive Environments and Applications
23. e-Libraries and e-Archives in CH
24. National Digital Libraries and Aggregators as cross-domain systems
25. Long term availability of content and its long term accessibility
26. Effective IC-Technologies for the creation, management and reuse of content and knowledge
27. Storytelling and authoring tools
28. e-Learning in CH
29. e-Infrastructures on digital libraries applications
30. Tools for Education, Documentation and Training in CH
31. Archaeological Analysis and Interpretive Design
32. Standards, Metadata, Ontologies and Semantic Processing in CH
33. Authentication, Accreditation and Digital Rights Management
34. Legal issues: Water-Marking, Orphan Works, Copyrights and IPR
35. Professional and Ethical Guidelines
36. The Economics of Cultural Informatics and Tourism
37. Natural and Man initiated deconstruction of CH and prevention techniques.
38. ICT assistance in monitoring and restoration