The project of the Department of Excellence in Historical Sciences and Cultural Heritage at the University of Siena
Sustainable economy, new technologies, communication, digital heritage, and applied sciences to cultural heritage are the five interdisciplinary themes that will be developed within the project of the Department of History and Cultural Heritage of the University of Siena, selected by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) among the 180 Italian “Departments of Excellence” that will receive significant additional funding during the five-year period 2023-2027.
“This is a recognition of the quality of our work,” says Professor Enrico Zanini, the director of the department. “The additional funding will allow us to hire new professors, researchers, and technicians, and above all, to develop an ambitious five-year research project focused on two main ideas. The first is the search for a socio-economic sustainability of cultural heritage through the involvement of communities. The second is the design of new professional figures in the field of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, aimed at training individuals who can find a specific placement in a rapidly evolving job market that is of strategic importance for Italy, Tuscany, Siena, and its territory.”
The project is open to collaboration with other departments of the Sienese university and is centered on the creation of five “arenas/nurseries.” These are spaces in which to interact with the various competencies present in the university, grow a new generation of researchers, and develop new teaching perspectives to train updated professionals in the field.
For a sustainable economy of cultural heritage –“We intend to apply an economic-business approach, oriented towards concrete feasibility and sustainability over time, to the projects related to the knowledge, protection, and valorization of cultural heritage,” explains Professor Zanini. “Our aim is to identify operational models that protect the specificities of cultural contexts but are at the same time scalable and reproducible, to give concreteness to the relationship between culture and sustainable development.”
New Technologies in Cultural Heritage Research – “Our aim,” says Zanini, “is to highlight the crucial role that technological innovation plays in ensuring the sustainability of cultural heritage. Digital archives are a key tool for preserving knowledge, protecting cultural artifacts, and making
them accessible to the public over time.”
Communication of Cultural Heritage – “Another important goal,” Zanini explains, “is to promote material and immaterial cultural heritage as a defining element of Italian identity on a global scale, while fostering a deeper connection between heritage and the communities that value it.”
Digital Heritage – “Our approach is to apply digital transition to both tangible and intangible cultural heritage,” Professor Zanini elaborates, “as a means of ensuring sustainability and accessibility in a post-pandemic world, and in response to the global crises we face.”
Cultural Heritage and Applied Sciences – “Our project emphasizes a conscious and scientific approach to knowledge, conservation, and protection of cultural artifacts from the past,” Zanini underlines, “as a key component of overall sustainability for heritage over time.”
“The underlying idea of our excellence project,” Zanini adds, “is based on several considerations. The University of Siena has made sustainability a central focus of its strategic actions, and while UNESCO’s ‘Culture 2030’ indicators framework outlines 17 sustainable development goals, the sustainability of cultural heritage is not explicitly mentioned. We believe that Italian cultural heritage can be a powerful driver of sustainable economic growth in its regions, and Siena is an ideal city to experiment with a new approach to the sustainability of cultural assets. This offers the potential to create new professions that bridge research on cultural heritage from the past and present with future job opportunities.”
“Based on these considerations,” Zanini concludes, “our project’s guiding principles are encapsulated in three key concepts: culture for sustainability, culture in sustainability, and culture as sustainability. These underscore the essential role of culture, particularly from an economic perspective, in a sustainable future.”
A complete description of the project is available here: https://www.dssbc.unisi.it/it/notizie/il-dssbc-e-dipartimento-di-eccellenza-il-quinquennio-2023-2027.
This project has received funding from the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) under the Departments of Excellence initiative