– Research communities’ resource management strategies from the last 800 years in rural and urban communities to inspire today’s generation with strong examples of sustainable development

Restory – Recovering stories from the past for a sustainable future
https://restory-heritage.eu/

The project RESTORY – Recovering Past Stories for the Future: A Synergistic Approach to Textual and Oral Heritage of Small Communities, launched at the beginning of 2024, brings together 20 partners – universities, public institutions, companies, and NGOs – from 12 European countries.

Researchers and community development experts, including C.School’s professionals, are coordinated by “Babeș-Bolyai University” in Cluj-Napoca. The activities are carried out for three years and are funded by the European Commission under the HORIZON EUROPE financing mechanism with a budget of 3 million euros.

Searching for sustainable community practices in the past – Story-transfer

The project’s core consists of a series of case studies inspired by the historical experience of the Transylvanian Saxons, who built prosperous settlements in the Middle Ages in present-day Romania, some still admired as part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. This model of successful practices in the sustainable management of material and human resources has placed a special emphasis on local schooling, intuitive circular economy processes and effective communication strategies in relation to inhabited places. 

Subsequently, ten parallel research actions will be undertaken in Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Ukraine, all aiming to validate the relevance and general soundness of the medieval, modern, and recent traditions from Transylvania, strategies developed in pursuit of better management of limited resources, especially over extended periods of crisis.

Support today’s communities – Knowledge-transfer

This research endeavour to recover resource-maximizing solutions, intuitively implemented by small communities over a long period of time, will ultimately enable the knowledge transfer from academia to local memory institutions such as museums, archives, or libraries, actively and emotionally involving citizens in the sustainable development of the traditional heritage.

Thus, RESTORY targets both institutional users and visitors of cultural sites by including them in consultancy activities regarding the management of historical artefacts, as well as through educational campaigns or training sessions intended to generate new skills and jobs in the cultural heritage economy. Another important aspect pertains to assisting GLAM institutions in implementing open-access policies and accessing funding. 

Project identification details

The project (101132781) will be implemented between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2026 by “Babeș-Bolyai” University, coordinator of a consortium of 20 partners – academic entities, public institutions and museums, companies, and non-governmental organizations.

The funding of 3,000,000 euros was awarded by the European Commission’s HORIZON EUROPE programme, under the call HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01-04: Cultural heritage in transformation – facing change with confidence. This financing mechanism aims – by means of innovative scientific investigation tools and dynamic communication strategies – to avail of the inexhaustible vein of European cultural traditions and integrate the knowledge thus accumulated in the configuration of sustainable strategies and effective public policies for managing the challenges faced by contemporary society.

The RESTORY partnership:
Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca,Romania
Sighișoara City Hall, Romania
Civitas Foundation for Civil Society, Romania
C.School for Creative Acts, Romania
23 Film Studio & Media, Romania
Università degli Studi di Roma „La Sapienza”, Italy
Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy
Consorzio Materahub Industrie Culturali e Creative, Italy
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Maison du Patrimoine Médiéval Mosan, Belgium
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Háskóli Íslands, Iceland
Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
Helsingin Yliopisto, Finland
Tartu Ülikool, Estonia
Atlantic Technological University, Ireland
Uniwersytet Im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Poland
Asset Technology, Greece
Bukovinian State Medical University, Ukraine