The "Cultural Herritage & Innovation Center" Programs at the ICTIDCenter aim at helping cultural heritage institutions, research organisations, educational centers, schools and academia; civil society and local governments; as well as all concerned professionals with their work, using innovation as a process by which new ideas generate economic, social and cultural value for the benefit of all local communities. 


​Research and innovation nurture smart and technologically advanced solutions to help Europe protect and promote its cultural heritage. We support both the cultural heritage and the creative sectors through strategics plans focused in a sustainable conservation model with a self-sustainable economy.

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The diversity of organisations involved in cultural heritage and the inherently multidisciplinary nature of the sector demand an innovative approach to the challenges of cultural heritage preservation, promotion and capitalisation via cultural tourism and cultural and creative industries development.

Both UNESCO and the EU emphasise the need to retain basic skills through education and training, apprenticeships and learning tools development and procedural guidelines.​

​The Irish Creative Training and Innovative Development Center`s CULTURAL HERITAGE & INNOVATION LAB delivers a wide range of programs and projects aiming at different aspects of cultural heritage innovation in Europe and the Mediterranean. 

  • Some of our projects aim to add a new digital dimension to cultural heritage preservation, conservation, restoration and enhancement by providing cutting-edge technologies for digitising artefacts and researching artworks.
  • Another group of projects and activities focus on Virtual and Smart Cultural Tourism, aiming to implement effective solutions for bringing innovations to the market and address challenges encountered by regions on digital and sustainable cultural tourism and digital heritage.
  • Networking, cross-sectoral and cross-regional cooperation initiatives focus on introduce a participatory, inclusive collaboration into cultural heritage projects that foster knowledge exchange, learning from case studies and the establishment of support structures to the access to funding and investors or the interregional marketing of services and software products as well as collaboration with tech solution providers.
  • Design and dissemination of ICTIDC Heritage Innovation Training Programs and Toolboxes, tailor-made to address the specific training needs of a wide range of organisations and cultural institutions.

SPECIAL FOCUS ON EDUCATION​

​​The ICTIDC`s CULTURAL HERITAGE & INNOVATION LAB pays particular attention to the engagement and education. Education plays a key role in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Intangible cultural heritage can provide context-specific content and pedagogy for education programmes and thus act as a leverage to increase the relevance and quality of education and improve learning outcomes.


As well as fostering the skills and development of professionals, we develop a range of innovative technological and communication models to educate and engage children, young people, local communities and the broader public in culture and heritage. 


All relevant stakeholders (heritage professionals, public authorities, researchers, audiences) are involved in the implementation of our training programs by adopting a bottom-up and co-creation approach. Via various previous projects, cultural heritage stakeholders (professionals, researchers, public policy makers and audiences) across Europe have actively participated, through focus groups, in the mapping of the sector’s needs, challenges and practices.