How can we apply science to our heritage? What does Heritage Science mean? How can we better study and preserve our heritage? How can we help researchers work to advance knowledge about heritage and strategies for its preservation?
Knowledge and preservation of cultural and natural heritage have an extra supporter: the European Research Infrastructure on Heritage Science (E-RIHS), the only pan-European Research Infrastructure in the field of social and cultural innovation that has been accepted in the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) Roadmap 2016. The ESFRI Roadmap, which was launched in March 10th in Amsterdam, includes only the strategic research infrastructures that correspond to the long-term needs of the European research communities.
Heritage Science is a cross-cutting domain that embraces a wide range of research disciplines while supporting the various aspects of tangible heritage conservation, interpretation and management. E-RIHS connects researchers in the humanities and natural sciences and fosters a trans-disciplinary culture of exchange and cooperation while offering access to a wide range of cutting-edge facilities, high-level scientific instruments, methodologies, data and tools for advancing knowledge and innovation in the study and preservation of heritage.
E-RIHS brings together 18 countries as founding members, 10 potential international countries as supporting partners and over 80 institutions. It will be located at E-RIHS headquarters and national hubs, fixed and mobile national infrastructures of recognized excellence, physically accessible collections/archives and virtually accessible heritage data.
E-RIHS aims at enabling the cross-disciplinary community to advance heritage science and give global access to distributed infrastructures all over Europe in a coordinated way. The establishment of E-RIHS in Europe is a joint target pursued by several communities acknowledging the need of an integrated approach. E-RIHS is now working on assembling a worldwide network of affiliated partners and creating a global research infrastructure with the support of the intergovernmental organization ICCROM.
Further information
Luca Pezzati
email: luca.pezzati@cnr.it
E-RIHS website
www.e-rihs.eu