STOA | Panel for the Future of Science and Technology panel STOA Panel October 2026
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STOA European Parliament
Oh, I know. I know, I know. I know, I know, I know both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we are more the social science side.
Lina Gálvez
But still important, still interesting. But yes, that's the good thing of our Parliament, that's the good thing at least about STOA, that probably the we have also this very technical profiles among our members that are pushing these very interesting studies. And definitely this is this is an issue that is of most interest for for us, because obviously climate change is not stopping, quite the other way around. And as we were discussing just before starting the the panel, it is something that it is extremely important for for Europe and is our heritage, our cultural heritage that we really need to take care of very much. This time we are very lucky because we have all the authors of the of the study with with us in the room.
Two of them, Johanna Leissner and Germinas Stanojev, will conduct the presentation, but I hope you all be able to participate also in the Q&A question.
And I would like to give the floor to Helder Sousa Silva for the presentation of the study and to thank him once more for this proposal that is extremely a very interesting proposal and very important for us and for this Parliament. Thank you.
Hélder Sousa Silva
Thank you, thank you, dear chair Lina, and the dear colleague Ivars too, I mean, sharing this STOA panel. Thank you for the, I mean, the authors of this study. And thank you also for the secretariat of the STOA panel. Due to the fact that I'm here representing the CULT committee, I'm a lucky man today because I have also a colleague coming from the, I mean, this technical area, but also a member of CULT committee. And I proposed this issue, I mean, to be studied by the STOA panel, as we shared in the beginning of when we met today, due to the fact that with my experience of 11 years as a mayor in Portugal, I realized how important is this, I mean, this study, the heritage and the impact of the climate change in the heritage in a global way.
This is the main reason because today I'm really, really glad due to the fact that we are discussing this point in the European Parliament and especially in the STOA panel. Having said that, I would like to, I mean, it's my duty to take the floor and to share some summary of the study. I would like to say that the climate change is increasingly threatening Europe's cultural heritage. More frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and sea levels rise are accelerating the deterioration of cultural assets and challenging existing conservation practices. Although knowledge of climate-related risks is growing, the large-scale implementation of effective adaptation measures remains limited.
Research has increasingly shifted from an approach focused on repairing damage to one that seeks to anticipate risks. And precisely we are here today trying to anticipate risks, adapt cultural heritage and avoid interventions that destroy its historical and architectural value. The STOA study presents for the first time a consolidated overview of a broad range of technologies and examines how they can support the climate adaptation on tangible cultural heritage in Europe. And Lina, as you already said, today we have the, I mean, the privilege to have with us four, I mean, researchers. I would like to start with the bios of the authors.
Johanna Leissner, forgive me if the, I mean, the names are not so well pronounced, but is a chemist and material scientist at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, not so bad, with more than 25 years of experience on the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage and the green transition of historic buildings through sustainable practices and innovative technologies.
She has held leading roles in key European research and policy initiatives, such as chairing the EU Open Method of Coordination experts group on strengthening cultural heritage resilience for climate change. Dear Johanna, thank you so much for coming. And I pass to Ermina, Jermina, Ermina Stanojev is a policy expert, researcher and strategic advisor with more than 15 years of experience mainstreaming cultural heritage across EU policies. She has served as expert evaluator, advisor and panel member across different European programs, covering the full cycle from program development to evaluation, implementation and monitoring. Ermina, thank you, thank you so much also.
Sebastian Krook studied architecture and digital technologies in heritage conservation. He was research associate at Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, Cultural Heritage Research Group. Sebastian, again, thank you. Alessandra Bonazza, looks like an Italian name, is research director at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council of Italy, where she coordinates the research unit Impacts on Environment, Cultural Heritage and Human Health. Having introduced the, I mean, the speakers, I'm pleased to welcome again Johanna, Ermina and the, but I don't know if the four will take the floor.
Only two. Johanna and Ermina, who will do the presentation together with their colleagues, who will also available for questions. And I will give you the floor for the, for the two. Ah, the chair.
Speaker 7
It doesn't matter, it's the chair that, yeah, you've been doing my, my role presenting, so that's fine. And you know, I'm, I'm very polite and you do so well that I allow you to do it. No worry whatsoever.
Speaker 6
No, no, no, Lina, I will pass the floor to our chair lady Lina. Thank you. I'm so sorry, because I continue to the default. Don't worry, don't worry at all. It's a default, it's more than fine.
Lina Gálvez
Okay, Lina, please. Okay, so you have the floor for 20 minutes and then we start a Q&A questions. But starting obviously, I will give the floor first to our colleague. No, thank you very much. No, it's okay, we are in family.
So please, the floor is yours for 20 minutes and then we will open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Good morning, bonjour, bom dia, buenos días, buongiorno, guten Morgen to everybody. Dear distinguished members of the European Parliament and the STOA panel, we are extremely honored today to have the possibility to present and to discuss with you the report on which we have been working intensively over the last four months. This report shows that the information on the different kind of technologies which are already available, this information is highly fragmented across disciplines, projects, sectors and institutions.
Johanna Leissner
And this is for the first time, and thank you for this study, that we can present an integrated overview. This kind of report or study has not yet been available to give this integrated overview of the broad variety of different kinds of technologies how we can adapt cultural heritage. And therefore, since we have so many different technologies, we try to introduce a classification framework, starting with climate information and three categories of technologies, which are traditional, established and modern technologies. Further on, we have four case studies from Italy, from Portugal, from Greece and Germany. And these case studies show that already many modern technologies are applied.
They show promising solutions, but we also found that these solutions are not yet widely available or deployed at scale, what you also have mentioned. So this is also some gap we have identified. And further on, very important I think for you, members of the European Parliament, are the policy options. And since cultural heritage is a very broad sector, we have not only looked into cultural policies, but also in many other policies. But this will be explained by my colleague Jermina.
Yeah, coming back to the climate. The climate we are now in is really a climate crisis. And you see this report, the climate report from 2025, showed that Europe is the fastest warming continent. And I think this year was an eye-opener for many people in Europe because we had the first ever recorded heatwave in June 2026. And that killed not only thousands of people, but tens of thousands of people across Europe and especially in the central and more northern part of Europe.
And we also have to say that women are less tolerable for heat. So we have to take care for the women who work outdoors because the temperatures over 40 degrees are very, very bad for our health. And we also have seen this year during the heatwave, and we had only recently again heavy precipitation in Spain, that buildings, especially in central and northern Europe, are not at all adapted to the heat. We are very well adapted to cold, but the heat we will see in the future, and we know this from the different climate models where I come now next, that these, we are not at all prepared. We need cooling.
We know that cultural heritage is affected by climate change. We have seen this in the past five years, but we even know it for a much longer time, thanks to the European research programs, which were the first ones in 2003 in the world to launch a call for studying what are the impacts of climate change on the built heritage. And that was Noah's Ark project. And I have here my colleague Alessandra, who was at that time a PhD student who was trained in this first European project to become a specialist on climate change impacts.
It was followed Noah's Ark by another project called Climate for Culture where we have for the first time coupled the climate models with a whole building simulation tool. Why? Because this building simulation tool could give us the future, what are the future indoor conditions in museums, in archives, in historic buildings, what are the future indoor temperatures and we also used the whole building simulation tool together with the climate models to calculate the future energy demand we need because museums need a lot of energy for air pollution cleaning but also for heating and creating optimal indoor conditions. But it's always a long way from research findings into policies and into receiving the attention also from the policy makers. And in 2020, it was under the German presidency, the Cultural Affairs Committee of the European Council has given first time in the world a political mandate to look into the topic what are the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage.
And so the Commission set up this expert group of EU member states and this expert group, the work has been really a very big success story for Europe. We looked into, we had 55 delegates from 25 member states and three associated countries. We looked into what is the state of play in the member states' respective policies and we also looked into what are the threats to cultural heritage and we also were able to collect 83 good practice examples. The success was we received remarkable attention from the COP, from the G7, from G20 meetings. We received also attention from the United States, from Canada, from Rwanda and Morocco.
And we have also been achieving in different member states that cultural heritage was integrated into the national adaptation plans for climate change and on European level we had a success story, this is the European partnership on resilient cultural heritage which was launched last month in Marseille. Let's go, what are the threats to cultural heritage from climate change? Mr. Sousa has already mentioned many. Severe precipitation. What can we do if we have a flood?
How can we protect our buildings? But also long heatwaves, droughts causing wildfires and also materials are very vulnerable to extreme heatwaves. Sea level rise is an important topic for all countries who have coastlines from the Baltic Sea to Portugal to Greece. But also indirect threats which are often socioeconomic threats. For example, if we have thawing permafrost and whole villages will disappear, who takes care of the cultural heritage?
It will be lost. It will be damaged forever. But also the gradual climate change, so the constant increase of temperature. I'm a chemist and material scientist by training, so all temperature, higher temperatures degrade materials on a much more timescale, much more accelerated. And we also see increase of pests.
They are eating up our books and our papers in the archives, in the museums. And the dieback of vegetation, that is the most prominent problem, the heatwaves, the droughts in historic gardens.
And that poses a question: what is the concept of a historic garden if the trees they were planted in the 17th, 16th century cannot survive any longer because we have so dramatic different climatic conditions? This is a philosophical question also: what will be the concept of a historic garden in future of climate change? Next. Yeah, coming back to the climate information. The climate information is the foundation for any kind of adaptation.
And here we have the climate models. They are now very advanced. They are, let's say, the modern Oracle of Delphi because they give us a tool to look into the future, what kind of climate and what kind of extreme events we will see in the future. And here we go from a global climate model, we go to site-specific with a resolution of one by one kilometer. We can assess buildings, we can model the indoor temperature, the outdoor temperature, and we can even look into rooms and to individual art objects until the year 2100.
We have done this with the global climate models downscaled to regional models. The next slide. Yeah, as I already explained, we started to try to classify because we were ourselves, we thought we know already much about technologies, but we learned during our work over the past four months that there are so many different kinds of technologies. And we tried to put this classification, starting with traditional technologies, which are still used today. This is about the traditional knowledge our ancestors had.
They have been making buildings which are specifically adapted to the local climate. So a house in Spain or Portugal looks completely different than one in the Black Forest. Why? Because our ancestors knew that we have in the Black Forest a lot of snow, in Spain and in Portugal we have a lot of heat and wind. So this knowledge, this traditional knowledge together with the craftsmanship and they also use little energy input, they are still valid today.
Established technologies are what are used by conservators and restorers every day in order to protect and to keep our cultural heritage. So that is different kinds of spectroscopies, but they also do already some risk assessment and some preventive conservation. But the most important now is modern and emerging technologies, and these comprise all kinds of digital tools including artificial intelligence, coming to real-time data management and automated decision support system. And you see here also a digital twin of the St. Peter's Basilica, which is a very good tool for preventive and predictive maintenance. And we also have classified the modern technologies, starting with advanced monitoring and risk assessment, and here satellite technology, Earth observation, the Copernicus services, sensor networks connected to the internet and different kinds of tools of artificial intelligence arrive together at risk mapping and early warning system.
And that is exactly what we need. Also other digital heritage technologies, I don't go into detail, which is the historic building information modeling and the digital twin, which is the future because they are integrating real-time data so to give us also a good virtual copy of a building. And that is especially important when we think of the damage and loss we will see in the future.
People want to have their heritage back. Once it is damaged, we know this in Germany from the Second World War, people wanted to have their cathedral back. And then we need all the data. And here the HBIM and the digital twins can give us the data so that we can reconstruct the lost heritage. And for me as a material scientist, it is important that we are also looking into the research and further development of materials.
Because what we have seen this year during the heatwave, the trams could not run because the bitumen in the tracks was boiling. So we need materials which are durable, not only in the cultural heritage sector. We need nature-inspired materials. Here I have the example of a coating for aircraft from the Second World War, which were inspired by the tomato skin. And they have used tomato waste, which is everywhere in Southern Europe.
And they have used the properties of a tomato skin when you have a lot of sun and wind, it protects very well the tomato. And this they have transferred to use it as a coating for aircraft or for metallic surfaces. So we need more material research also. And emerging technologies are right now developed in Horizon Europe projects where they put together the artificial intelligence, using artificial intelligence, robotics for conservation and putting all the data into cloud-based platforms. So technologies are important, but technologies alone will not bring the solution.
And we are coming now to the four case studies from Italy, it is Venice, from Portugal, we look into two different kinds of cultural heritage, and Greece and Germany. Next slide. So you all know the iconic city of Venice. We all know that it is threatened by sea level rise, but not only sea level rise, there are other damaging factors too, but they have frequent flooding. And the Italians took a very brave decision already some many years ago and it were engineers who started with the solution to build a mobile flood barrier system.
They were really in the beginning very much contested and said it will never work, it will never work. And in 2019, Venice was flooded heavily. And then in 2020 for the first time they launched this MOSE system. And since then, this MOSE system has prevented the flooding of the city of Venice more than 108 times. And the costs they have been saving, it is much more worth, but the overall cost for this large infrastructure was 7 billion euro.
I mean, this is not peanuts, this is quite an investment. It is a large-scale infrastructure investment. But this example of Venice shows we can do something, we need technology, we need infrastructure upgrading. Next. Coming to Portugal.
Here in Portugal, they have done, they have used satellite data, geographic information systems technologies to look into where in Portugal cultural heritage is most endangered by wildfires, by extreme flooding, by extreme strong winds. And they have put that all together in a risk map. And so easily the heritage managers can see when they know that there is a wind coming, what they have to do to adapt their cultural heritage.
And going back to individual art objects, here you can see the very famous Portuguese ceramic tiles, azulejos, and they are everywhere in Portugal and they constitute a very important part of their identity. And here they have used artificial intelligence to detect, because you cannot each time put a scaffolding on the big, large buildings, to early detect any kind of damage on the azulejos, and that is all in a mobile app, and then the conservators can immediately know, now we have to take interventions on the site and immediately and not by routine inspection with scaffolding, so that saves also a lot of money and time. And that is really a very good example that we can combine, and now we would, in the future we would combine this map, the risk map together with the individual art objects and the artificial intelligence. Next example, that is Greece. Greece has presented in March 2026 for the first time, the first fully integrated nationwide heritage-specific climate adaptation strategy, and they have used climate modeling up to one times one kilometer, and they looked into five priority climate hazards: wildfires, flooding, droughts, extreme heatwaves, to study the vulnerabilities and done the risk assessment for all UNESCO World Heritage sites in Greece.
Speaker 9
They have used all kinds of modern technology from AI-supported local climate prediction to mobile diagnostic laboratory to support early action. And one example which is in the report is for the archaeological sites, they have even put roofs over the archaeological site, and the roof material is especially designed to withstand and be very durable for the future. And all together is put into a decision support system to help for the heritage managers and the conservators to really do early and predictive maintenance. Let's go to the, my home country Germany, and here we have been studying in the KERES project, which was the only one nationally funded research project on extreme climate, future extreme climate events. And when we started the project, the open-air museum, which is one of the biggest in Germany, and they have more than 130 half-timbered houses, many like here in Strasbourg, which is also a city full of half-timbered houses, and they were flooded on the 9th of July.
And then we were asked as researchers, what can we do, how can we help the museum director, because this freshly restored bathhouse from the Middle Ages was fully flooded, and you can see on the lower pictures, the walls were completely wet, and when the wet, the walls are wet, they release also pollutants. And my colleagues at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, they have developed a device, they called it Fast Drywall systems, and this we were allowed for the first time to test it in, under real conditions, because it was developed in the lab, and the director was very happy that we could test this fast drywalls. And they are using 80% less energy, they are no, making no noise compared to an industrial heat blower where you are heating all up the whole room, and they are also trapping all the pollutants.
So that was very helpful to dry immediately the walls and to keep the costs for again a renovation and restoration of the bathhouse as low as possible. I think I'm now handing over to my colleague Jermina to give you an overview what kind of policy options we see for cultural heritage in times of climate change.
Ermina Stanojev
Thank you Johanna. Good morning. I'll just continue so well from Johanna's presentation you can understand how complex field actually we are talking about. And when it comes to policies we are actually facing two different sides of the of the policy opportunities but also policy gaps that we have. So in the EU policy integration when it comes to culture heritage we are facing very asymmetrical situation where culture heritage policies themselves are increasingly integrating climate risk resilience preparedness.
But this progress within culture heritage policies is largely driven by mainly soft law instruments. But on the other side completely contrary binding EU climate frameworks are not sufficiently recognizing culture heritage. And that's a really a significant gap that we that we have. As a result culture heritage remains very weakly embedded in EU mainstream climate governance. But what is even more complex is that culture heritage itself as you said architect engineer social science is actually a field which is going across range of technological and societal challenges and then consequently to policy areas.
And I'm saying this because you will see that our policy options are actually going across a number of different policy areas. So the first one is really focusing on strengthening climate governance and accountability. And culture heritage should be systematically embedded within climate resilience frameworks adaptation planning and reporting mechanisms. And I will not go through all of them that are potential policy roadmaps but essentially clear responsibilities measurable targets dedicated monitoring systems would help to ensure that heritage risks are identified addressed and regularly reviewed. And we have for example really a need like clearly reporting on heritage adaptation in national climate reports.
We have open legislative chains on European climate resilient frameworks and a number of other opportunities where this can be more prominent. Furthermore it's really about turning heritage adaptation plans into funded actions and local capacity. What also from Johanna's presentation you understood that many institutions already actually do understand their climate risks but they do lack resources needed to respond. So greater investment is really required for adaptation works for preparedness for emergency planning but also professional training and local capacity building.
And here I will just mention so the civil protection mechanism, the new next upcoming territorial investment framework and here I call for members who are also members in the REGI committee where the the discussions will be going on the cohesion funds, so the European Fund for Regional Development, as well as on negotiations ongoing on Agora EU where we see an opportunity for maybe skills development, capacity building and so on. Another important aspect when it comes to policies is really making research data and digital services more adapted to specific needs of culture heritage. EU should definitely strengthen investment in heritage-related climate research, field testing and digital services. So the climate information, Earth observation data, AI application and digital tools must actually become more available and more adapted to culture heritage. And here I would just like to point out on Horizon Europe, so the next framework program for for research where we are ending actually in a bit of a risk having now the partnership, large-scale partnership for culture heritage, that culture heritage will shrink from Horizon.
So this is also a call to make sure that the negotiation for having culture heritage in the next framework program is actually going in the direction of support for research for culture heritage. Then Copernicus and other digital services and also very important including culture heritage in climate research in the updated strategy for international culture relations. Last but not least definitely is about making green transition compatible with heritage conservation, so ensuring that climate mitigation and decarbonization measures are compatible with heritage conservation. And why this is important? So this is one of the weakest points in also policy making where actually early assessments, for example, of conservation requirements can help avoid maladaptation.
And here I will just give an example of circular economy act, how we could or why we should look at really making some of, for example, repair and reuse visible. We have witnessed that some years ago when the European Green Deal was launched, culture heritage was not included there, while actually culture heritage as such has really important role in in in this regard. So we have also done a we have tried to do a prioritization of policy options. It's important to understand that they really support one another and that they can be pursued at the different level of ambition. They can also proceed in parallel and the assessment was done based on resources needed, potential benefits, ways of implementation and expected contribution to heritage protection.
So what you see is really the green of course are identifying more favorable assessments, but it's important to understand that they are all favorable. So the red ones are just the ones that are indicating greater demands in terms of higher costs, however they are all relevant and needed. So the option the first option on the climate governance and accountability is the one that really provides foundation. The option on funded adaptation actions and local capacity really connects through funding, preparedness and local capacity.
The option on research and digital services is a targeted support across also other options. And the last one on the green transition is really focusing on a strong preventive role. So in the document, in the report, we really gave even more details on possible routes how to look into these policy options. And I give back floor to Johanna for conclusions.
Yeah, just to conclude. The main conclusions, I will not read them, but... I will not read the main conclusions, but we all are sure and sadly that climate change is already a major threat for Europe's cultural heritage. And as Mr. Sousa already mentioned, Europe is... The cultural heritage is Europe's unique selling point.
Johanna Leissner
It's important for economy. It's important for tourism industry. It's important for our social cohesion. It's important for our identity. Europe is still a global pioneer in cultural heritage protection, in cultural heritage research.
And we must continue investing into research and also into implementation. We need the people who are skilled. We need training and transfer of research results. Technology is very important part of the solution, but not the solution itself. And we also must be careful of maladaptation, because maladaptation can also lead to a destruction and loss of cultural heritage.
Speaker 9
We need to go from reactive conservation to proactive resilience, as you already said, Mr. Sousa. So we need all the technological tools, but we should always be aware that technology can fail. We must be prepared what are we going to do when the internet is not working, when the global satellites are not working. So we must be prepared that can happen due to climate, extreme climate event or through other geopolitical crisis we have. And cultural heritage should be recognized as a really strategic European asset and must be embedded in all mainstream policies.
Johanna Leissner
Let's go to the... Looking into the future. Here we would argue that cultural heritage technologies are an important part. They are key enabling technologies and they must be recognized because here Europe is really a leader. We are the pioneer in cultural heritage technologies.
It was not mentioned in the Draghi report, sadly. And we have the data. We have the data which are necessary to develop an AI-powered heritage climate adaptation agent. This is the future. People will consult the artificial intelligence.
Speaker 9
But we must give them trusted and validated information. And this can become then a trusted European AI companion where not only the conservators and restorers are consulting the AI, our... We named it CultureBob. So and you also as policy makers, you just ask CultureBob, what is the, let's say, if you have a castle in Spain or azulejo in Portugal, please give me the climate data and what are the dangers, what kind of solutions do you have already, to whom do I need to contact. And all this can be concentrated and put into such an trusted European AI companion.
And I think here Europe can play an important role compared to other big countries leading in the tech development, but they do not have the data we have.
Speaker 9
And we must be very proud. And I think we can look into positively into the future that we will still be the the leader in the next decades. And I would like to thank you as the members of the European Parliament for this timely report, for giving us the the attention how much we need your support to invest further also in technological development so that Europe still can be number one in the world. Thank you.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, thank you very much. Extremely interesting, but also useful presentation. Unfortunately, there were many things that were not mentioned in the Draghi report. And this is one of them. I can name it others.
And but here we are for that. I mean, it was just a report, a very important report. But yeah, lacking the territorial dimension, as others, so many things were not gender dimension, I'm glad you mentioned as well, were not present. But here we are. Here we are really trying to do our best.
Lina Gálvez
You are lucky because at least you have here among the members that are present in the in the room, some of the rapporteurs that are involved in Horizon Europe, in the new FP10 on the one hand, that is one of the policy options you have mentioned, but also on cohesion policy. So I'm sure they and I, I'm in FP10 involved, we will have a lot of questions to to do it. So if that is okay for you, we will be collecting first questions and then give the floor back to to you for yeah, for discussion and answering the questions. So I'm starting by the leading member of this panel today, Mr. Sousa Silva, the floor is yours.
Hélder Sousa Silva
Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Lina. And thank you again for I mean, very focused presentation because for me it was I mean, the consolidation of some ideas, concerns, and proposals. I mean, it's funny because when I came, I just arrived from a meeting with I mean, the opinion-giving committees' rapporteurs for the NRPPs.
NRPPs, you know what what what means, National and Regional Partnership Plans. And I'm the the rapporteur of CULT committee in the NRPPs. And I will I mean, briefly read one paragraph that I raised in the previous meeting. And is the following. We propose explicitly including the repair and recovery of cultural and natural heritage following disasters because losing heritage is more than losing monuments or buildings.
It is losing community's identity and collective memory. Therefore, protecting heritage is an investment in Europe's resilience. I mean, one hour ago in this meeting. And I'm doing this I mean, to raising this awareness related with the inclusion inside the civil protection package and also the cohesion package, the I mean, the inclusion of the the heritage I mean, preservation in the next MFF.
And my point is also related with the next MFF and you already mentioned this opportunity linked with civil protection and also Agora EU because we are working in a parallel mode but we are trying to include the heritage in all these packages because it's a transversal goal. It's not oriented one direction goal but it is a transversal goal. This is the main reason my question is, of course, in European Union we don't have the mandate coming from the national member states to deal with these matters because culture was not, it's a competence was not sent to the European Union level, also defense, housing and education. But we are right now, we are treating and we are facing these new challenges and we are accepting in a complementary mode to treat and to help the member states to face the new difficulties. Having said that, what you focus and in the right way, the role of the EU but also the role of the local and the regional authorities because we, the members of European Parliament, we have a very strong and close cooperation with local and regional authorities, especially in Committee of Regions but not only in direct way with the national governments.
How you can see the operationalization of the implementation of this strategy? Who will be the most key, most important key players to, because we can produce the strategy, we can also have some support speaking about money, we can involve the member states. But I'm speaking and I shared this with you in the beginning that sometimes some member states don't use the money, the incoming money coming from the tourism, for example, it's a case of Portugal. We depends a lot, too much sometimes from the tourism but the awareness of the governments are not so connected to invest in this prevention instead to the reaction as you already said. And we need to touch in the right buttons and the right buttons, I'm suspicious to say that due to the fact that I have some experience in the local and regional authorities, but I think the involvement of these key players, local and regional, it's essential, it's mandatory to have the implementation.
And what is your approach related the all the involvement of the players, not only in the European level because we are doing this, trying to do this but in the complementary way again because the key points are in the national and regional authorities.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, Helder. No, thank you, thank you, no, it's okay. Now is Marcos Ros that is from CULT Committee but he's here from REGI, so the very important as well because of funding possibilities. So Marcos, the floor is yours.
Marcos Ros Sempere
Thank you Lina, thank you very much. Thank you Elder for having asked for this research report because I think it's very important. I am here in my double capacity. I am representing REGI committee which is the committee of regional development in charge of all the structural funds and all the territorial funds for the European Union but also as an architect and member of the CULT committee and dealing with cultural heritage. I'm the representative of CULT committee on the high level expert group of the European Commission on cultural heritage so I'm I'm very much related to both topics and I have been working on cultural heritage in my capacity as an architect during 16 years in in my city of origin.
I think that I found very interesting some things but the most important thing of this report in the Parliament, within the Parliament is that you have said several times that we need stable funding. We are the budgetary authority and we we can prepare wonderful resolutions, we can adopt wonderful INI reports but we at in at the end of the day is the European Commission and member states responsibility to design operational programs, to to put in into force some activities but we are the budgetary authority. And now is the precise moment, the key moment in which we are debating the multiannual financial framework for the next seven years. And I have to say that for first time, I am the I'm now the rapporteur on ERDF, is one of the biggest funds that the European Union has now but not it will it won't be one of the biggest in the next, it will be one of the biggest but not the biggest one in the next period. It will be incorporated into the national and regional plans but ERDF now in in our proposal, my proposal as rapporteur with my colleague Pascal Arimont from EPP has incorporated for first time cultural heritage in three parts of the in three parts of the articles, not in recitals or not in in the articles.
And it's incorporated in rural development together with tourism. You have mentioned very well the the link between cultural heritage and tourism as an economic asset which is very important. It is also mentioned in sustainable urban development because it's very important for cities, for our towns to incorporate cultural heritage protection when we are talking about that. And it's we we have also incorporated the principle of building back better to to the resilience of the climate change catastrophes and episodes. So I think it's very important.
And we also incorporated cultural heritage in housing problem, in housing assets because we we want to finance housing but not only new houses but also refurbishing cultural heritage houses that are in some important cities of the European Union. Second, I think that we you I haven't seen a mention but maybe it's in the in the global report about the New European Bauhaus initiative which is an initiative that it was launched by the European Commission six years ago and it's it's about sustainability but also beauty and also inclusion.
And it's very much focused, there are a lot of activities on cultural heritage, but on the perspective of sustainability, which is mixing the dimension of climate change. And finally, I had to say that when we were, you have mentioned also in the report EPBD directive, when we were working on the adaptation, on the revision of the EPBD, I wanted to go further with the cultural heritage, but at the end of the day, it was impossible to give an agreement between all the groups and it was a global exception, no? Cultural heritage buildings are exceptions of this EPBD. I didn't like that because I think we had to incorporate with a lot of provisions, knowing that cultural heritage cannot adapt like a normal building, but a global exception means that they don't care about that. And I think that it would have been a good idea to incorporate in certain way cultural heritage, but that is done and we cannot make a revision now.
But congrats for that, it's very useful for us because it goes in the same direction as we are defending in our proposals in NRPP opinion from CULT, in REGI committee, and I hope that with the support of ERDF, but also Horizon Europe, Agora, at least we have a battery of little funds that you can fish from them and to preserve cultural heritage from climate aggressions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Marcos, and now from CULT and REGI, we move to this side, to the ITRE members and also rapporteurs of the EPBD. So Ivars Ijabs, our vice-president.
Ivars Ijabs
Yes, thank you very much, and well, especially I think that you really showed us the very, well, breadth of how broad actually the impact of the climate change is on the cultural heritage, starting with architecture and extreme heat and floodings until the, well, insects who are eating the paper and so. But well, generally speaking, I think that since your presentation is about digital technologies and how they could be used, it's clear, although of course we are also big fans of the preservation of cultural heritage, we all know that not everything is going to be and not everything is probably even worth to be preserved, although of course we have our own sympathies toward our own buildings and our own cities and Fachwerkhäuser or things like that. And the question is about this, if you want the predictive capacities of digital technologies, who could actually advise and also help the decision-makers what is worth preserving for the future generations, taking into account what kind of changes are expected to happen in the future and what is probably, sorry to say, to be left out of this very enterprise of the preservation of the cultural heritage. Because we all know that yes, Europe is really, well, the place where the cultural heritage plays a huge role, and I would be also happy to hear a little bit more about countries apart from the Mediterranean and your home country, which is Germany, because there is a lot of things to be preserved also up north. Yes, yes, yes, and but at the same time, of course, we all know that the budgets on all possible levels, on the municipal level, on the national level, and on the European level, they tend to be rather limited, especially taking into account all the possible challenges coming in.
Speaker 13
So in that sense, digital technologies could really be of great help, well, to have this predictive function, what's worth preserving using public money, actually, the taxpayers' money, which could also be used for many other purposes.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, and now finally me. Well, I really would like to thank you. I mean, it's an extremely interesting and timely, as I was saying, coming from the city probably with huge cultural heritage, but probably the city with the highest temperatures, I'm coming from Seville. And so I know quite well this this problem. Also, the New European Bauhaus is is placed there in the new JRC building in in Seville that it is building up now.
It's probably the the most advanced building in Europe in terms of adapting to to climate change and new energy necessities and so on. So we hope it will be a flagship of of this New European Bauhaus. But also I'm one of the rapporteurs, as Ivers and the chair that is the main rapporteur that is not today here, Christian Ehler, of the new FP10, the new framework program. And but in general, we are dealing with a double problem that goes beyond what we can discuss here, is that we are decreasing our commitment to combat climate change. This is very unfortunate, and this is something we have to be very loud about it.
And we have in on the table a proposal to reduce our budget. That is Hunger Games what is going on here in in this Parliament, because every year we go into this impossible equation. In Spanish we say la cuadratura del círculo. And so, yeah, make it, yeah, a circle, a square. And and so this is this is going on here, and obviously each one is fighting because at the end we are also specialized in specific policies.
So we are trying to to get the best for one policy or the other. So this is really Hunger Games now how it's going on. But probably the main issue we have to to to fight for is a bigger budget, because we have more necessities and a lot of things that we should do together in order to be more efficient, more competitive, preserve much better our cultural heritage included. And yes, now is the is the is the moment, as Marcos was saying, and not all the stakeholders or all the actors involved have the same voice in within the European institutions. So I really recommend you to be even louder on on on that.
And we are in your side. We are very loud as well, but this is I think it is important. Regarding specifically the mention you were doing to the Horizon Europe FP10 and the partnership, it is still an ongoing process, so it's not yet finished. But be careful. Okay?
Lina Gálvez
I mean, especially because it's not in our side as Parliament, it's mainly the Council and the Commission deciding which kind of partnership. What we are doing is pushing in the negotiations for having something to say also on that. It's what we are doing, but so far it is mainly Council and Commission decision which partnerships. And but there is a kind of a general idea to reduce it. So just...
Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking for FP10. I know, I know, the one... I'm talking FP10, that is what we are negotiating right now. Because we have for I mean, these main pieces of legislation that are linked to the MFF are being negotiated at the same time as Marcos was saying before. So you have to be again very present.
Lina Gálvez
However, we have in our position that we closed last week, so we reached an agreement last week, we provided 300 euros for the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage. So this is probably one of the few items with specific... But this is our proposal. Now we have to fight obviously with the Council and the Commission for that. So just to let you know that from Parliament we are taking care of it.
But yes, it's now is the more than Hunger Games is another fight that is now starting now in the in trilogues very, very, very soon. However, I have a couple of questions that was more kind of sharing information with you. And it is on to what extent we are ready, I mean, universities, our scientific system ready for the interdisciplinarity that it is needed in order to approach that. Probably in some countries much better than in others, but if I look to my own country, which is also Marcos Ros's country, interdisciplinarity is still penalized. So I would like to know if you have also working on that and you could also provide us because this is a very specific issue in which multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity is more needed, but still is not rewarded in terms of academic career.
And of course, you will not get into something that is like this. So I would like to know something what you think, how you feel about it. And the other issue is tourism, because it's probably here we are in front of double sword sector that it is impacting and it is allowing to the preservation and but on the other hand probably this as it is now is not helping for preserving cultural heritage. So I would like to ask you about that. So I give you the floor back.
Feel free please to take the floor in the order you have. We have around 15 minutes to finish our discussion, so feel free please.
Ermina Stanojev
Maybe we start with the last question on the interdisciplinarity. Well, all of us have also research background and working in research and I can confirm as someone also who has worked across Europe from Sweden to Belgium and Italy that interdisciplinarity even at well-established universities is not something which is recognized. I'm not saying that it's not encouraged, however, even if we look into scientific publishing, which is a silo in itself, it is very challenging for interdisciplinary researchers to go further. If you're working in policies, you're too policy-oriented to publish in culture heritage. If you're working in culture heritage, then you're too culture heritage for the climate science and so on.
So we actually have a big homework with universities, with the education system, with member states, etc. when it comes to interdisciplinarity. The measurement of a single researcher is definitely not adjusted to interdisciplinarity. What we see at different universities happening are opening of so-called institutes that are working across faculties within a certain university, but these positions are not often going in the direction of research, but rather persons who are managing single researchers again from silo fields. So it is a big elephant in the room that no one is opening up in a more constructive and concrete way. And I also think Alessandra can share some perspectives on that too.
Speaker 19
Yeah, I have to say that in relation to interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity, we are have, I mean, we still have a lot to do. Anyhow, for example in Italy, we have good examples about courses, academic courses where different disciplines are working together, like for example the scientific one and the social humanities. So we have courses dedicated. I'm teaching in science conservation, for example, course at the University of Bologna where all these issues are considered. But we still have to work for sure indeed.
And you are right, differences are in the different countries, yeah.
Speaker 9
The topic of tourism, as you said, is positive and negative with the overtourism, but I think here maybe the digital tools can help to make things more visible, to better visualize what are the impacts of overtourism. And I mean, one can think of all kinds of virtual technology and immersive technology where we can also show visitors what kind of impact this can have on the cultural heritage. So maybe it's not the ultimate solution, but of course it has to be a balance of overtourism and economic income that is very important. And I think also that these tools, you said it, can also help to make decisions what kind of heritage on the one side we can protect and we can save in terms of climate change. And then there will be, must be a discussion with the wider society, what do they want to keep?
And we as scientists, we can then deliver the information, but this building probably cannot be saved because it costs too much money. And this is what we can bring with validated data for good decision-making to policymakers, to mayors, to regional leaders, to presidents, to chancellors and so and ministers. And I think here we are really on a good way to make this more visible.
That that is very important not to speak about something abstract. And then let the people, the wider society decide. Look, it costs seven billion euro to make this infrastructure in Venice. Not every country, not every city can afford this. Seven billion euro.
I mean, that's not that's really an a huge investment. And then the people can make much better informed decisions. And that is my proposal for what we have been putting together. But maybe Sebastian, you are working now in a company.
Speaker 20
Yes, but not not so long already. But so I I would agree, it's it's a big discussion and also a big academic discussion and also how how to change the theoretic background of of heritage protection. Because like we don't know how to deal with all these consequences in the in the gardens and parks. We see big losses, big big big damages already. And it will be really difficult to maintain the appearance and the the values of of these heritage sites.
And so information is important to get this whole discussion started and to be, yeah, able to have a basis on it. Did you want to add something? If not, I would come to the key actor maybe. So from from my perspective, from the projects we did on the national level in Germany, the the key actor is always closely linked to the institu- like to the heritage site itself. So it it's really difficult difficult to answer in general because we have a lot of different institutions.
We have private owners, we have institutions owning it. But as soon as you reach the understanding and the capacity, the knowledge at the the person who's responsible, this is a really big win. But you will not be able to have this centralized organized in a central body, but the people taking care of of, yeah, specific different gardens, houses, museums will have to know about the risks and the possible measures to take.
One more comment. And I think it is important that the decision makers are also convinced that heritage is an asset in itself. If they are not convinced... I was last week in Tallinn in Estonia at an ICOMOS meeting and there they really have taken very well care of the... I mean, Tallinn is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
So it's really embedded in many different political levels. They appreciate, they know what they have. And if we do not convince the people who are sitting at the decision-making level that it is worthwhile invest in heritage... We have only three percent of protected heritage, but we have heritage which is valuable for the people, especially in the villages. I come myself from a village, in the rural areas.
Speaker 9
And I often see, sorry to say, that the mayor, for example, in my village, he doesn't care about cultural heritage at all. We have a wonderful building which it will be just beaten down. Yes. It's clear. Yes.
So if we are we really must convince the people who are doing the decisions and this is why we are so grateful that you have given this us the possibility for this report. And when it is supported by the initiated and commissioned by the Parliament, that has an weight also in for the mayors in Europe. And also the same with our OMC report.
That has really triggered in many different levels, oh yes, there we must do something. And you should not under, I mean you know this probably, you should not underestimate your weight. When you decide something, it has impacts on the local level. Congratulation, thank you.
Speaker 19
Yeah, if I may relation to the key role of regional actors and authorities, I really believe this is a key point. It's a key point and following the experience that I have participating at Interreg projects where local authorities are involved as partners, beneficiaries in the project. So the most important thing is to, you know, to try to have a co-creation approach. So really to look at which are the needs in the field. Regional authorities, regional development agencies have a strong connection with the communities and we have the involvement of communities and these authorities is essential.
I really think that this is a, we had a good success, I have very good experiences in setting up strategies of adaptation, mitigation and protection of heritage at local level by involvement these authorities in setting the priorities and propose solutions that could be useful for heritage, but not only heritage, for the landscape, the territory. So we have also to consider the connections among the different sectors.
Ermina Stanojev
The last point on the on the local and regional authorities. We have mentioned already that many local and regional authorities are already aware of the issue. So the raising awareness point, it's we have already reached it. But for many of them is a challenge to actually start the process and how to deal with it. And it happens that I am also working with the REGI committee on the study of the for the cohesion funds and what we have actually identified is that the one of the main problems for them is to actually have the first step of the assessment, which is costly, timely and take many resources from different sides.
So under the next cohesion funds, it would be very important that this step, which is a kind of pre-step, is already considered as an eligible cost or something, even if a potential project is not fully funded. So this is extremely important because many local and regional authorities don't go further because they do not have initial assessment, which is very often needed actually to even apply for cohesion funds. So it sounds like a technicality, but it's actually a very important aspect.
Lina Gálvez
It's what we deal with, it's very important, I've taken note of it, but first of all we really need to manage that the cohesion funds and structural funds are not nationalized. Now the proposal from the Commission is national envelopes and this is very risky for what we are talking about here. So this is the first thing we have to, sure, please.
Hélder Sousa Silva
You touch, I mean, in the critical bottom of the the I mean the future problem because if these funds will be, I mean, collected by the national governments, I'm not speaking about the parties and so on because all of them act in the same way. They want to, I mean, to distribute among themselves the money.
They don't share the money with the local and the national authorities because in the next MFF, the package for the NRRP will be, I mean, short than the actual MFF because the reduction of the funds will be, I mean, a clear, I mean, need. But I need to go, I need to go back and also to, we have more four minutes. I was responsible for the candidacy of my hometown to the UNESCO heritage site. And when I was, okay, I'm sharing this not with, I mean, so, so, so trying to show you, I mean, a special one, but also to share that when I took the share in my hometown, the investment in the, in culture in a global way, but especially in the heritage and Mafra, it's my hometown, I have a huge, the biggest baroque monument in Portugal is located in Mafra. I was mayor of Mafra.
And the problem is Mafra's monument was full responsibility of the national level. And the national level must share competencies with the regional and local levels because we need the involvement of locals. If we don't have this sharing of the competencies, it's impossible, for example, for a mayor, for a leader, a regional leader to invest because we are not also allowed by the Portuguese law to invest in some monuments that we don't belong, we are not the owners or the co-owners. This is also a legal matter, but it's very important. And the involvement of the community, it's essential because the community must be proud of their heritage.
But we need to explain them how the value of the heritage. When we was approved by the UNESCO, I can ensure you, the Mafra's community, I mean, raised the flag, and they become much more proud of their heritage. And till now, they understand and they support the investment of the municipality and their budget because they pay also the local budget, I mean, to refurbish, to maintain the local heritage because this belongs, is the feeling of belonging, you know? It's very, very important. Because sometimes the, only to share one figure, I start with less than 1% of the local budget for the culture.
I stop close to 8% of my budget related with culture. And it was one of the best investments that I have done during my, during my presidency. I ensure you. This is the main reason because sometimes we are all the time claiming for more money from the European Union. I'm not in this side because the local, the national, and also in the complementary way, the cohesion funds can foster, it can be the, I mean, the carrot, you know, the carrot, not the essential.
And I stop here.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you. Thank you very much. Just before closing this panel, just I have to say something as well because I'm very much fond of the local authorities and the co-creation, but sometimes are the very same local authorities going against its own cultural heritage. So just we have, not the whole city of Seville is a UNESCO protective, but we have the cathedral and the Alcázar and this is a part of it that it is. And just three weeks ago, the mayor allowed and paid for a private dinner for a magazine in.
So this is a way to privatize, to promote the privatization of this heritage. And this is not the way. And this is also a local authority. So probably this co-creation and controls in order to avoid a malfunctioning.
But we have to go to point five of the agenda, which is any other business. And I don't think there is any other business. So just to mention the NESTA STOA panel that takes place on Thursday, 26th November, same time as today, from 9:30 to 11:00 in this very same room here in Strasbourg. So thank you very much and see you soon. Thanks.
Because all the colleagues are... okay, I cannot say all, but some part of the colleagues and the biggest party groups, they want to escape from this bucket to the other. And for example, for the preparedness in the civil protection, we have full support with us and to have funds.
Speaker 21
Yes, I think that you used the right word I wanted to mention about that, because heritage is not only about protection, it's not only about the past, but it should focus on the future.
Speaker 22
I will translate from Portuguese to English, more or less, the HPP method. HPP: heads, pen, and paper method. Because you are trying to implement all this digital bullshit, and in the civil protection, we need to have the HPP method, because we need to have tools to work when this digital fails.
Absolutely. Naturally. And we have recently assisted this kind of situation when we faced this energy blackout in Spain and Portugal. All the telecommunications...
Official presentation, I think it was a very useful and interesting showing of information, useful information.
Speaker 21
And sorry for the long report. We wanted it to be short, but it was not possible because there was too much out there and nobody has ever undertaken to bring this in a comprehensive way together. So I hope that we don't get too much criticism from our colleagues.
We thank you and we are really, really grateful for you and also the European Parliament because your support is fundamental.
I will try to do my best. I never give up in all the things that I believe I will fight for.
Yeah, and we are at your side. We are also fighters. We have no money, but we only have our motivation and conviction.
Speaker 21
Okay, money, I have these three steps: idea, project, and then we go to fight for the money. It's not the first thing that we are, no, I mean money in terms of being a lobbyist from industry. I always say money is never a problem. Yeah, in the end you find money for the best and the most important projects. If the project doesn't have quality, we don't have money, but for the good projects we will find.
Thank you. Goodbye. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
We are looking forward to receiving the report. Okay, okay. Thank you very much. Engineers are needed also. Society and multidisciplinary.
An engineer is a major member of the team, I mean the target, because we don't process.
I'm ready to help. Come straight to the point. Okay, all the best. Bye-bye.