Jury

Maria Eugenia is an architect working as Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Cuenca, Ecuador. She obtained her Master in Conservation of Monuments and Sites (2014) and her PhD (2018) at KU Leuven, Belgium. Her doctoral studies focused on the Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation and its implementation amongst worldwide case studies. Since 2012, she has been part of the City Preservation Management -CPM research group at the University of Cuenca. Within this group she has been part of local, national and international initiatives for safeguarding cultural heritage. Currently, she participates in two international projects, the first one related to innovative governance systems for built cultural heritage based on traditional Andean organisational principles in Ecuador; and the second, a Horizon2020 project ILUCIDARE for which she is the local co-coordinator. She is also actively involved in initiatives as OurWorldHeritage, Go-HUL, the CIPA Emerging-Professionals group and part of the National Committee of ICOMOS Ecuador. She is a member of the Jury for the ILUCIDARE Special Prizes.

Rossana Bettinelli graduated at the University of Architecture in Venice (1976). She is an Architect, landscape and urban planner and restoration expert. In 1977 she founded her own Professional studio in Brescia (I) as Architect designing architectural-landscape restoration and environmental redevelopment, residential and commercial buildings, planning and implementing more than 60 projects.
In 2009 in Taormina she won the Grand Prix in Category Conservation of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards following her restoration project of the Fasano Church destroyed by the 2004 earthquake at the Garda lake (I).
Expert advisor for Conservation of Historic Buildings and Natural Landscape Environment she collaborates with public administration boards. From 2008 to 2014: Member of the National Landscape Quality Observatory for the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Rossana Bettinelli has carried out several scientific and teaching activities at the Brescia Engineering Faculty and at the Parma Engineering Faculty. She has curated many exhibitions and acted as the member of their scientific committees, along with the publishing of the corresponding catalogues. She is the author of more than 50 publications and essays and has organised conferences and conventions at national and international level of which she has been moderator and speaker. She has published articles, and contributed to interviews on the protection of heritage to newspapers, local and national radio and television.

Dr. Heritiana Ranaivoson is Senior Researcher and Project Leader at imec-SMIT-Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) in the Media Economic & Policy Unit. He studied Economics and Management at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (ENS Cachan) and got a PhD in Economics (Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne). His thesis dealt with « Market structure and diversity of production. The case of the recording industry ».From 2008 to 2010 he was an associate researcher at Cerna, the Centre for Industrial Economics at Mines ParisTech. He is part of the U40-Capacity Building Programme „Cultural Diversity 2030“. He has been a visiting lecturer in several universities in France and Belgium.
Dr. Ranaivoson has led several research projects at international, national and local levels, funded by public (e.g. European Commission, Unesco) or private (e.g. Google) organizations. He was notably coordinator for the EU H2020 project WEAR Sustain which supported teams of artists and technologists to develop ethical and sustainable wearables. He has published extensively in the fields of cultural and media diversity, media innovation, media policy, audiovisual platforms, and the economic impact of digital technologies on creative industries. He is a member of the Jury for the ILUCIDARE Special Prizes.

Laurent Lévi-Strauss is presently Chargé de Mission to the President of the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris. He is also member of the Commission of Ethics for the Museums of the City of Geneva. During some 15 years, he worked at UNESCO, namely as Deputy Director of the Division of Cultural Heritage, where he supervised the implementation of numerous international safeguarding projects, for example in Angkor, Afghanistan, Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina, among others, and later the operational and juridical activities for the support to museums and the safeguarding of cultural objects, including the implementation of several international conventions. Previously, he worked at the French Ministry of Culture, as Deputy-Director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then as Director of the Office of the President of the public television channel Antenne 2 (now France 2). He holds a diploma from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Paris and a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Paris X. He has published several books and articles concerning cultural heritage and its preservation. He is a member of the Jury for the ILUCIDARE Special Prizes.

Blerta Ismaili is a cultural manager, sociologist and actress based in Prishtina, Kosovo. Ms. Ismaili is leading the direction and conception of the annual Heritage Space program at Cultural Heritage Without Borders (ChWB) Kosovo. As one of the key local resources operating in the country for cultural production, Heritage Space annually mentors, supports and presents ten new projects. It encourages the cross-pollination between contemporary artists and cultural heritage. Ms. Ismaili coordinated the establishment of the co-creation platform GërrGërr, a collaborative platform between cultural institutions to create new possibilities of interaction with existing heritage sites and discourses in Kosovo. Additionally, Ms. Ismaili is a founding member of PART (workers in art) in Kosovo, a grassroots initiative that brings together researchers, artists, curators and independent practitioners in the field of arts, that analyze and respond to generating adequate cultural policies in Kosovo. She is a member of the Jury for the ILUCIDARE Special Prizes.

Eugen Vaida, born in 1981, is an Architect at BIA Eugen Vaida and at Asociatia Monumentum, which has been a member organisation of Europa Nostra since 2019. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Architecture and Urban Planning „Ion Mincu”, in Bucharest. Among his many projects, Eugen coordinated the Daia Heritage Valorisation Plan, developed by the Global Heritage Fund in 2017-2018, and is currently coordinating The Ambulance for Monuments project, which won an Award and the Public Choice Award at the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2020. He is a Member of the Advisory Group for the European Commission on heritage policies, the Founding member and president of The Federation for Transylvanian Heritage and the Advisor for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Eugen Vaida published numerous literary works on cultural heritage, including Craftsmanship and heritage. Tile Making in the vision of architects (Alţîna, 2015) and The Architectural Guidebook For Contextual Planning in the Saxon Area of the Order of Romanian Architects (RURAL Working Group).

Maria Cristina Vannini started her versatile and extensive career as an archaeologist under the Archaeological Superintendence of Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont. This was followed by several marketing and freelance research projects for international companies such as L’Oreal and Unilever. In 2004 she founded soluzionimuseali-ims, a consultancy for museums to assist in assessments, projects management and marketing. In this capacity she has advised and managed a plethora of museum-related projects, including conferences, exhibitions, training and summer schools. These include training and consultancy for the Valtellina Museum System to achieve national museum quality standards, the organisation of the international conference “How to defend the heritage of humanity – how to protect cultural heritage” at the Milan Universal EXPO2015 site and the organisation and coordination of the Summer School OfficinaLedro. In addition, she also gives lectures as an adjunct professor in Museum Studies at the IULM University in Milan. Maria Vannini sits in the European Museum Forum Trust, and is a member of Fondo Ambiente Italiano, of Italia Nostra, and of ICOM. She holds a master’s degree in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Milan, with a thesis on “The Golasecca phases I and II in the village of Como, loc. Pay – via Isonzo”.

Hanna Kristiina Lämsä is the Executive Director of the Association of Cultural Heritage Education in Finland. She graduated with a master’s degree in Political Sciences from the University of Helsinki. This was paired with academic studies at the  Università degli studi di Firenze, Université Paul Valery, Montpellier, and the University of Turku. Her professional career started at the National Board of Education, where she was a producer / web-editor. This was followed by various positions at the Association of Cultural Heritage Education in Finland, NGO, where she gradually went from being a secretary, to project officer, and finally to executive director. In 2018 she headed a project for the Finnish Heritage Agency.

Hanna Kristiina Lämsä has published an article in the Annual book of Finnish Local Heritage Federation, and has remained active on various blogs and webfora, providing commentaries and statements on policy in the field of culture. In her capacity as executive director and projects officer, she has managed various cultural projects, most of them aimed at engaging the youth with cultural heritage. One of them, Cultural Leap: Educational Programme, won the Grand Prix of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards in 2018. She holds membership of the European Heritage Days Working group, the Board of Europa Nostra Finland, as well as a vice-membership of the National Committee on Sustainable Development (Prime Minister’s office). Her expertise covers cultural sustainability, education and learning, youth engagement, and policy-making. 

Prof. Alex Torpiano is an architect and structural engineer by training, with a specialisation in masonry structures. He is currently Dean of the Faculty for the Built Environment, and Head of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design. In 1994, he set up, and directed, the Institute for Masonry and Construction Research up to 2009, when it became the Department of Conservation and Built Heritage within the same Faculty. Between 1994 and 1996, he was a member of the Prehistoric Temples Technical Experts Committee. During this period, he was entrusted with the restoration of the Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, and Ggantija Prehistoric Temple complexes, following a series of collapses. He subsequently led a team of evaluators of the structural condition of the four major temple sites in Malta and Gozo, and co-authored a report which subsequently led to the erection of protection shelters on three of those sites.
In 1988, when he set up what is now a leading architectural and structural engineering practice in Malta, TBA Periti. Between 2000 and 2012, he led aoM partnership, a practice responsible for the Manoel Island and Tigne’ Point Redevelopment Project. He has worked on many projects involving the restoration of heritage masonry structures, as well as a number of local parish churches.
Prof. Torpiano is the Executive President of Din l-Art Helwa, a member organisation of Europa Nostra since 1967.

Uwe Koch was born in Berlin. He is a graduate in Sociology from the Humboldt University Berlin. Before his appointment of 1 June 2015 as head of the German Cultural Heritage Board he held different senior positions in the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the state of Brandenburg since 1991. From 2002 he directed the Department of historic monuments, memory culture and museums in the state of Brandenburg.
Uwe Koch has 25 years of experience in government administration for cultural heritage. He was the German coordinator for the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.