Jury & Selection Committee

Pablo F. Longoria is an architect and urban planner specialising in cultural heritage conservation and restoration. He earned his Master’s in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid in 1993 and has since led landmark projects safeguarding some of Spain’s most treasured monuments and historic sites.

As Executive Director of World Monuments Fund Spain, he has overseen major initiatives including the restoration of the Salon Rico in Medina Azahara, the Partal Oratory at the Alhambra, the Chapel of San Blas paintings in Toledo Cathedral, and the management plan for the Roman Aqueduct of Segovia. He has also led innovative projects such as the Virtual Reality conservation study of La Garma cave in Cantabria, recognised by Forbes as one of the world’s most notable VR projects.

Beyond his executive role, Pablo is an international educator and scientific director, contributing to UNESCO’s City Lab on Historic Urban Landscapes, ILUCIDARE capacity-building programmes in Cairo and the Caribbean, and numerous academic forums on heritage, architecture and sustainability. As an independent consultant, he has advised on global heritage projects, including Heritage Impact Assessments in Kazakhstan, Bahrain and Uzbekistan. A long-standing member of ICOMOS, he continues to combine scholarly insight with hands-on expertise, shaping both policy and practice in cultural heritage preservation worldwide.

Dorottya-Lilly Makay (born 1971, Cluj County, Romania) is a civil and structural engineer specialising in built heritage conservation, with over 30 years of experience in heritage protection and structural design. She holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, focusing on Baroque roof structures, and completed early international internships with ICOMOS UK (1996) and US/ICOMOS (2003), enhancing her expertise in historic structure research and conservation.

Her career bridges academia, professional practice and heritage advocacy. Since 2018, she has been an Associate Lecturer at “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia and previously taught at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca on historical load-bearing structures and built heritage conservation. Professionally, she has led projects as administrator, project manager and structural engineer at IROD M Ltd. (founded 2003) and CONSOLIDEM Ltd., covering restoration of historic monuments as well as civil and industrial constructions.

Dorottya-Lilly has contributed to over 350 technical assessments and more than 360 restoration and reinforcement projects, including St. Michael’s Church, Cluj-Napoca (European Heritage Awards/Europa Nostra Award, 2024) and Calvaria Roman Catholic Church (Europa Nostra Award, 1998). She has published widely, presented at international conferences, and lectured in heritage protection training programmes. Actively involved in NGOs and committees for heritage preservation, she works with the Kelemen Lajos Association for Monument Protection, the Transylvania Trust Foundation, and other national and local historic monument committees.

Lidija Martinović (born 1997, Cetinje, Montenegro) is a visual artist and conservator-restorer whose work bridges fine arts, conservation-restoration and museology. She completed her undergraduate studies in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Montenegro (2015–2018), including a semester at the Faculdade de Belas Artes in Lisbon through the Erasmus programme, and earned her Master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration of Applied and Fine Arts at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in 2021, with a thesis on the conservation of chromolithography of Herzegovinian Slaves.

Currently pursuing a PhD in Art History at the University of Belgrade, specialising in museology and heritology, Lidija combines academic research with practical conservation work. She has participated in numerous regional conservation and restoration projects and was awarded the 2018 University of Montenegro Annual Award for Best Drawing. Her professional interests focus on the conservation of paintings and paper, documentation, and the role of museums and archives in safeguarding cultural memory.

Since May 2022, Yonca Erkan has held a full-time position as Professor in Heritage Studies at the Faculty of Design Sciences, University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on the intersection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century industrial heritage, World Heritage, and urban history.
Previously, she served as a member of the UNESCO National Commission and vice-chair of the Tangible Cultural Heritage (2011–2014). Between 2015 and 2024, she held the UNESCO Chair on Management and Promotion of World Heritage Sites: New Media and Community Involvement at Kadir Has University.

In 2018, she worked at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre as a senior consultant, coordinating the World Heritage Cities Programme and the Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation. She also coordinated the EU H2020 MSCA RISE CONSIDER Project on Sustainable Management of Industrial Heritage as a Resource for Urban Development (2021–2024).

Oskar Habjanič earned his degree in history and philosophy from the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), in 2003. He went on to complete a master’s degree in metaphysics at the same university in 2010.
He works as curator at the Maribor Regional Museum. He co-founded and leads several museum programs, including Date with Heritage, Neighbours under the World’s Oldest Vine, and Museoeurope. He has curated multiple international exhibitions and collaborated with esteemed institutions such as the Bavarian National Museum (Munich, Germany), Universalmuseum Joanneum (Graz, Austria), the Pontifical Swiss Guard (Vatican), Alimentarium Food Museum (Vevey, Switzerland), the Peasant Museum (Bucharest, Romania), the Franz Liszt Museum and Research Centre (Budapest, Hungary), Burgenland Regional Museum (Eisenstadt, Austria), Museum of the Benedictine Monastery in St. Paul in Lavanthal (Austria) among others.

He is the co-author of the concept for the Museum of the Oldest Vine in the World. His work focuses on integrating inclusive heritage into museum programming, with a special emphasis on connecting heritage with small enterprises and gastronomy. He is the author of more than 150 scientific and professional articles in the field of cultural history, and co-organised six international symposia.
In 2016, he received a residency scholarship from the Universalmuseum in Graz (Austria), and in 2025, the Inclusive European Heritage Residency at Hardwick Hall was organised by Europa Nostra and the National Trust.

Before joining the museum, he worked with underprivileged youth and served as a freelance journalist, reporting from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Turkey and Xinjiang (China).

She is a cultural heritage researcher and practitioner with international experience across museums, archives, and heritage organisations. She is about to begin doctoral research at La Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain, as part of the Horizon Europe-MSCA CHORAL programme, where her work will focus on textile heritage in rural and mountain environments, exploring both material and intangible dimensions.

Alongside her academic work, she has built a strong professional portfolio through roles with leading cultural institutions. She serves as Programmes Officer at the European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage, curating a webinar series. As a Community Outreach Projects Intern at the International Council on Archives in Paris, she contributed to initiatives supporting heritage in Africa and Ukraine, while also helping to organise the ICA Barcelona Congress 2025.
Sophia’s earlier experiences include placements at the Jewish Museum London, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, the Imperial War Museum, and Young V&A, where she gained expertise in provenance research, collections care, exhibition development, and community engagement.
In 2024, she was selected to participate in the Executive Leadership Programme: Engaging Communities in Cultural Heritage, a prestigious summer school organised by the Heritage Management Organisation in Greece. This further strengthened her leadership skills and commitment to participatory approaches in cultural heritage.

Sophia holds a BA in History from the University of East Anglia, an MA in Museum Studies (Distinction) from UCL, and an MA in Urban History and Culture from the University of London Institute in Paris.

She is a member of the European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage (ESACH) and a Young Member of Europa Nostra.

Francesco Trovò is an architect (IUAV) with a PhD in Conservation of Architectural Heritage from Milan Polytechnic. He served for many years as an official architect at the ABAP Superintendency for the Municipality of Venice and its Lagoon, where he took on various coordination roles, including the UNESCO site “Venice and its Lagoon” and was responsible for the restoration of important public buildings in Venice.

He is an associate professor in Architectural preservation at the University IUAV of Venice. He carries out study and research activities on historical buildings in Venice, Cultural Heritage and climate change. He has participated in international conferences and is the author of several scientific publications. He sits on numerous scientific committees of journals and is a member of associations dealing with Cultural Heritage, such as Green Building Council Italia and ICOMOS Italia.

Ira Vihreälehto is a cultural heritage professional, educator, and author with over two decades of experience advancing education, participation, and awareness in Finland and internationally. Since 2015, she has served as Executive Director and Senior Advisor at the Association of Finnish Cultural Heritage Education, where she has led more than 30 national and international projects. Her work combines creative placemaking, intergenerational learning, and digital tools for intangible cultural heritage, including the widely translated Spinner of Living Heritage (available in 14 languages).
Vihreälehto manages training programs for teachers, develops pedagogical resources such as Kulttuurin vuosikello—a digital heritage learning platform that reached over 116,000 users in 2024—and represents the association in multiple expert groups. She is also active in communication and outreach across media, from blogs to social platforms and educational video projects.

Alongside her leadership work, Vihreälehto is a non-fiction and textbook author and host of a TV series on Finland’s national broadcaster YLE1. Her contributions to cultural heritage were recognised with the Europa Nostra Grand Prix, the European Union’s most prestigious cultural heritage award, in 2018 for the project Kulttuurivoltti.
Before her current role, Vihreälehto spent nearly two decades as a teacher and teacher trainer, specialising in history, social studies, psychology, religion, and special education. She holds a Master’s degree in History from the University of Jyväskylä, with additional qualifications in special education, psychology teaching, principal training, and ADHD counselling.
She is an appointed expert in several national and European cultural heritage bodies, including the Finnish World Heritage National Coordination Group, the Living Heritage Expert Group (2018–2026), and the European Heritage Label Expert Group (2022–2026), nominated by Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture.

Karla is a graduate of Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Law, and of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where she completed her Master’s degree in Arts, Culture, and Society.
Upon her MA, she has gained knowledge in Qualitative and Quantitative Research that she has applied in various individual and group projects within the topics of Creative and Sustainable Cities, Cultural Policy, Sociology of Culture and Critical Heritage Studies. Her research interests span across various disciplines, looking at the intersection of the human with its surroundings. From urban development and gentrification processes to heritage as a catalyst of social well-being, she aims to explore how these dynamics play a role in society and in the individual. She has been active in the cultural scene through volunteering, but also within bottom-up initiatives such as an animation film festival that she co-founded this year in Cluj-Napoca.

She had the opportunity to present her MA thesis at two international conferences, the Arts and Cultural Management Conference 2024 in Vienna and the II Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies: Central and Eastern Europe Chapter at the University of Warsaw in 2025, aiming to continue her studies in the future.

She is a member of the European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage (ESACH) and a Young Member of Europa Nostra.

Vincent Curie was born in 1975 and has over 20 years of experience in EU project management, specialising in civic engagement, democratisation and culture. He is Director of the European Heritage Label Bureau, overseeing projects that promote heritage recognition and European identity.

Vincent has worked across both the public and private sectors, gaining experience in diverse operational approaches. He participates in European and national heritage boards and committees, and has contributed to the evaluation of heritage projects, awards and grants.