Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe - a critical analysis

Cultural Heritage has a extraordinary power to improve the quality of our lives. In every corner of Europe heritage building and sites, historic neighbourhoods and cultural landscapes has the capacity to inspire and enrich us all. On 2013 the EU-funded project “Cultural heritage counts for Europe” (CHCfE) was launched with an ambitious goal: to collect and analyse existing and accessible evidence-based research and case studies regarding the economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts of cultural heritage, in order to assess the value of cultural heritage which was recognized in 2014 by the EU Council of Minister “as a strategic resource for a sustainable Europe”. The final Report of this project, recently published (16 settembre 2016), presents the thorough mapping and analysis of the Europe-wide evidence which deepens and enhances our understanding, knowledge and awareness of the full potential of our cultural heritage as a key resources for sustainable development. The final Report demonstrates the economic, social, cultural and environmental impact of our cultural heritage. This paper is a critical analysis of this EU “Cultural heritage counts for Europe ” project. The project identified a large number of significant studies dealing with the impact of cultural heritage and organized the research output into three levels of analysis: macro, meso and micro. In the macro level of the report a theoretical framework was established which allows the data to be understood within a broader global perspective. The meso level entails and analysis of the research that has been done across the European Union demonstrating the wide-ranging impacts of cultural heritage at local, regional, national and European levels. Finally, the research is completed at the micro level with case studies which provide real-life evidence that heritage has an impact in one or more of the four domains: economic, social, cultural and environmental.