Spreading SoPHIA – Culture and Sustainability

Spreading SoPHIA - Kultur & Nachhaltigkeit

CURRENT

On 22 November 2023, the final conference of the communication project entitled "kultur.nachhaltig.leben" took place in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier (Room D). With free admission, we invited educational partners, cultural professionals, decision-makers and interested parties to a joint exchange. You can find more information about the conference here.

Spreading SoPHIA – Culture and Sustainability

Communication and Awareness Raising on a Holistic Approach to Sustainability

The aim of “Spreading SoPHIA – Culture and Sustainability” is to communicate the main findings of the Social Platform for Holistic Heritage Impact Assessment (SoPHIA) research project to various target groups in the wider population.

In the mentioned Horizon 2020 research project SoPHIA, EDUCULT, together with partner institutions from Italy, Greece, Croatia, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, researched the social, economic, cultural and environmental impact of cultural heritage interventions and developed the SoPHIA model to illustrate the results, as well as a toolkit to help cultural heritage stakeholders implement the model.

Comprehensive policy briefs on the dimensions of impact, guidelines for an action plan for future action on cultural heritage impact assessment and an analysis of the research agenda and research needs in the field of impact assessment in Europe have been prepared for policy makers.

These results, in particular the main building blocks of the SoPHIA model and the importance of the cultural dimension of sustainability, will now be disseminated to a wider public through “Spreading SopHIA”. In this communication project, pupils, cultural actors and political decision-makers are made aware of the connections between culture, cultural heritage and ecological, economic, social and cultural sustainability and encouraged to include these dimensions in their activities and considerations. This serves to ensure that a broad section of the population benefits from this research outcome via holistic sustainable education/culture and policy making.

Method

In a first step, the research output from SoPHIA and the concrete significance of culture and cultural heritage in the sustainability debate will be processed in a way that is appropriate for the target groups. Then, in the form of workshops and multiplier events, cultural actors and political decision-makers will be given the SoPHIA model as a tool to evaluate their own work in relation to sustainability. A broad public is addressed via a comprehensive social media campaign and targeted print media with mediating content on the topic. In order to reach the target groups in the best possible way, the project will be supported by the cooperation partners MuseumsQuartier Vienna, the Austrian UNESCO Commission and Europa Nostra.