RCH 2027 Joint Transnational Call : Foundations for climate-resilient cultural heritage

The European Partnership for Resilient Cultural Heritage launches its first Joint Transnational Call (JTC): “Foundations for climate-resilient cultural heritage: Assessing and managing impact and risk, dealing with damage and loss”.

This first JTC within the RCH Partnership invites research proposals that address the question of risks, damages, impacts and losses of cultural heritage caused by climate and environmental change. Proposals must draw upon stakeholders’ experience and build on existing research and initiatives. Proposals that include scientific research, innovative technological solutions and community-based approaches are especially encouraged. Joint research must work towards integrated risk assessment methodologies that inform long-term planning for resilience, management, and governance of cultural heritage, and cultural heritage informed climate action.

Results and insights resulting from the research projects funded under this call should contribute to the mutual knowledge basis that is needed for developing new and robust tools and policies, for example:

– tools to assess and monitor climate change risks and environmental impact to cultural heritage, to project and visualise potential impacts of climate action measures, and tools to evaluate different risk management options;
– decision-support systems and effective strategies and practices that can be used by public authorities and local communities to prepare ahead of natural hazards to protect cultural heritage at risk, as well as to set priorities and operational frameworks for managing loss and damage to cultural heritage;
– scalable and transferable innovative climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, derived from integrated cultural heritage and climate research, including also traditional and local knowledge, stakeholder and citizen science generated data, taking cultural heritage into account as a resource and framework for societal and environmental resilience;
– policy recommendations and effective strategies and practices that can be used for the management, governance and protection of cultural heritage at risk of climate and environmental change, grounded in quantitative design data, standardized methodologies, and robust impact assessment procedures.

Research proposals are invited to address aspects from at least one of the four complementary and strongly connected sub-themes, and should address at least one of the sub-themes:

– Risk and impact assessment and cultural heritage risk preparedness and management;
– Managing loss and damage of cultural heritage impacted by climate change-induced natural hazards;
– Traditional, local and Indigenous knowledge systems and practices as resources and frameworks for societal resilience in the context of climate change;
– Sustainable governance of the cultural heritage sector.

The points listed under each sub-theme offer a (non-exhaustive) overview of the various possible research perspectives and potential outcomes that could be explored in research projects.

Submission of Pre-Proposals: January 11th 2027 at 14:00 (CET) on the submission platform.

Submission of Full-Proposals: June 16th 2027 at 14:00 (CEST).