Jury & Selection Committee

Adrian Olivier was the founding president of the European Archaeological Council – Europae Archaeologiae Concilium (the network of state heritage agencies). He graduated with a BA, as well as a Ph.D. in Archaeology from Queen’s University Belfast. Adrian retired from English Heritage in 2012 where he was Heritage Protection Director and Head of Profession for Archaeology. Prior to that he was Director of the Lancaster University Archaeology Unit following extensive early career experience as an active field archaeologist in northern England. Adrian was the founding President of the European Archaeological Council – Europae Archaeologiae Concilium (the network of state heritage agencies), and works closely with the Council of Europe and other European institutions. Adrian continues to publish on heritage management issues and provide strategic and professional advice to organisations and agencies across Europe; Adrian is the Chair of the National Trust Historic Environment Advisory Group. He is Secretary General of ICAHM, the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management.

Piotr Gerber, PhD Eng. Architect, is a professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the Wrocław University of Technology, Poland. He is the author of more than eighty academic publications both in Poland and abroad and co-author of two encyclopedias on industrial architecture and history of technology.

Piotr Gerber is an architect and lecturer with expertise in industrial architectural heritage and technical heritage. He is involved in rescuing industrial heritage in Poland and historical hospital renovation projects. He is the author of several designs for the renewal of heritage hospitals and industrial heritage in Poland and was Involved as an expert in projects to place objects on the UNESCO list, including the historic Gdańsk Shipyard.

Member of the Monument Protection Council affiliated with the Ministry of Culture. As part of the Council work on the assessment of cultural objects nominating on the list of monuments in Poland.

He is a member and managing member of several international organisations related to the conservation of cultural heritage, such as TICCIH, president of Polish TICCIH Committee, member of Industrial and Engineering Heritage Committee of Europa Nostra, member of the board of The German Society for History of Hospitals, Association for Industrial Archaeology.

Piotr Gerber is Founder of the Foundation for the Protection of Silesia Industrial Heritage (2007), the objective of which is to construct a system of cooperating museums representing the major historical industries in Silesia. As part of the foundation’s work, a number of projects to save historic industrial facilities have been undertaken.

Etienne Poncelet, is Architecte en Chef des Monuments Historiques, responsible for the Arc de Triomphe and the 8th arrondissement of Paris, for the cities of Beauvais and Senlis and the estates of Chantilly and Pierrefonds, as well as for the French Antilles. As an architect he has restored over 300 monuments, and on the administrative level is the General Inspector for the historic monuments of Aquitaine and Normandy. He is also a corresponding member of the Académie d’Architecture. Internationally, he was active as President of the French ICOMOS Committee between 1997 and 2001, and as Vice-President of the Scientific Council of Europa Nostra since 1989

Ola Fjeldheim has been working as Secretary General for Fortidsminneforeningen, The National Trust of Norway for the last nine years. Fjeldheim lives on an old farm outside of Oslo, and has been restoring it for the past twenty years. Fjeldheim has a university degree in environmental studies, and worked for nine years as a teacher. During those years he also earned a degree in cultural studies (ethnology. history and art history). In 2005 his career took a new direction, working for two years on a Norwegian-Swedish Interreg project on crafts and heritage in the border regions between the two countries. Fjeldheim then started as a cultural heritage advisor in the local community of Ullensaker. In 2012, he completed a master’s degree in architectural conservation at the Oslo School of Architecture. Due to his interest in traditional carpentry, he has acquired some skill in practical work on old wooden buildings. During these years he has written a number of peer-reviewed articles on heritage subjects, and held a large number of lectures and practical courses.

Elena Dimitrova is Associate Professor at the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia with over thirty years of teaching and research in spatial policy and planning. She has a Master’s in Architecture, awarded in 1976 and defended her PhD in 1990. Dimitrova’s professional expertise and research interests are in the spatial and sociocultural aspects of sustainable development, participatory planning approaches, interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue on heritage as a factor for urban sustainability. She is a team leader in several international research projects; the author of numerous publications in the fields of urban development and planning, higher education and research, and cultural heritage preservation for sustainable development. Dimitorva is and has been a participant in numerous European academic networks and international conferences.

Elena Dimitrova has been a member of ICOMOS-Bulgaria since 2005 and Vice-President since 2011; a member of CIVVIH (International Scientific Committee on historic cities, towns and villages) since 2010, CIVVIH Advisory Committee member (2018-2021) and Board member (since 2021); representative of ICOMOS-Bulgaria in ICOMOS SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Working Group since 2019. She is a member of the Expert group on European Quality Principles for EU-Funded Interventions with Potential Impact on Cultural Heritage, jointly developed by ICOMOS Europe and the European Commission (DC Culture and Education), which was adopted by ICOMOS General Assembly in 2021. She was Invited to be a panellist (Theme II: ‘Community engagement through culture for sustainable local development’) at the UNESCO Conference on ‘Culture 2030 | Rural-Urban Development: The Future of Historic Villages and Towns’, organised in Meishan, China, in 2019.

Elena Dimitorva has extensive experience in scientific article reviews, ICOMOS missions and desk reviews and the evaluation of educational and research projects in European and national academic and research programmes. She has also been a local assessor for the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards since 2018.

Michiel Purmer studied Human Geography, specialising in Historical Geography at Utrecht University. In 2000, he began working for Natuurmonumenten, a Dutch NGO that manages more than 100.000 HA of nature reserves, including a broad array of cultural heritage: archaeology, country estates, historical buildings and cultural landscapes. As senior heritage specialist he is an advisor on cultural heritage for this society in the field of landscapes, archaeology and parks and gardens. Michiel Purmer also represents Natuurmonumenten in the broad field of cultural heritage in The Netherlands, working, for example, with other nature conservation organisations, the Dutch Heritage Agency and universities.

Michiel Purmer defended his PhD thesis at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2018. The thesis, entitled Het landschap bewaard (The landscape preserved), studied Natuurmonumenten as an heritage organization, with focus on historical cultural landscapes in historical perspective.

Michiel Purmer guest lectures at universities and previously held a position at Groningen University. He regularly publishes on heritage and landscape, but also on other fields of interest like numismatic and clay pipes and recently became a member of the National Consultation Panel on Heritage of the Netherlands.

Yonca ERKAN is professor of Built Heritage at University of Antwerp since 2022. She is the UNESCO Chair on the Management and Promotion of World Heritage Sites: New Media and Community Involvement (since 2015) at Kadir Has University, Istanbul.  In 2018, she worked as senior consultant at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, as the HUL/World Heritage Cities Programme Coordinator. Currently, she is coordinating the EU research project within the Horizon2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie – RISE Program titled “Sustainable Management of Industrial Heritage as a Resource for Urban Development” (2021-2025). Yonca Erkan also coordinates a funded project titled “In the context of urban-rural continuity, Web-GIS based Integrated Site Management Model for historic cities: The Case of İznik”.

Klimis Aslanidis studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens (1998) and specialised in architectural conservation, obtaining the title of MA in Conservation Studies at the University of York (2000). His PhD thesis, submitted at the University of Patras and published by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, examines the evolution of Byzantine architecture on the island of Naxos. He has participated in the design and supervision of numerous conservation projects for ancient, medieval and modern monuments in Greece, including churches, among which are the Athens Cathedral, monasteries, castles and houses. He has also worked for several years at the conservation works of the Greek Ministry of Culture on the southern slope of the Acropolis, where he was mainly responsible for the restoration of the auditorium of the ancient theatre of Dionysos. He is currently Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture of the Technical University of Crete. His research and teaching focuses on architectural design and the conservation of historic buildings and sites. As a member of the Laboratory for the Documentation and Conservation of Historic Buildings and Sites, he participates in conservation projects throughout Greece and he is co-editor of the periodical “Notebooks of Architectural Conservation”. Klimis Aslanidis is a member of the Council for Architectural Heritage of Elliniki Etairia, the country representation of Europa Nostra in Greece.

Kujtime is a Tirana-based architect and designer from Albania. She holds a M.Sc. in Architecture, and a MA in Cultural Monuments Restoration. She currently works as an architect specializing in building restoration. In addition to her focus on architectural design, Kujtime is presently working on an innovative start-up (albanianheritage.al) that purports to document, preserve and promote Albania’s cultural heritage, in-country and abroad.

Ana Irina Chiricuță graduated from the National University of Arts in Bucharest, with a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Conservation-Restoration department. Over time, Ana Chiricuță participated in organising exhibitions, workshops, coordinating volunteer actions and presentations that involved interdisciplinary communication and interaction with heritage beneficiaries in local communities. She graduated from a course on heritage conservation “Establishing diagnosis” and a course on “Inventory of wooden churches”. She currently works at the National Institute of Heritage as a scientific researcher within the Historical Monuments Directorate on several research projects. She has coordinated preventive conservation workshops in summer schools organised by the institute in 2020 and 2021.