1) Conservation & Adaptive Reuse

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

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.

Jean-Sébastien Misson has a Master’s degree in History (2000 – University of Liège – Belgium), a Certificate of Higher Studies in Renaissance Civilization (2001 – University of Tours – France) and a Master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration of Historic Towns and Buildings (2003 – Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation – Catholic University of Leuven – Belgium). Since 2008, he has worked on the conservation and restoration of the Citadel of Namur (Belgium), starting as advisor to the municipal board member in charge of the project, and then as head of the municipal service responsible for the conservation and restoration of the site, the biggest fortified site of the southern part of Belgium covering 2000 years of human history. Several restoration and/or adaptive reuse projects have been carried out since 2010 under his supervision. The Citadel of Namur has recently joined EFFORTS. Jean-Sébastien Misson has been an active member of ICOMOS since 2004 and is the current president of ICOMOS Belgium and ICOMOS Wallonie-Bruxelles (2020-2023) as well as an associate member of ICOFORT (ICOMOS International scientific Committee on Fortifications). He is also a member of the Royal Commission for Monuments and Sites of the Walloon Region.

Architect (IUAV) PhD in Conservation of Architectural Heritage (Milan Polytechnic), he was for a long time an official architect at the ABAP Superintendency for the Municipality of Venice and its Lagoon, where he took on various coordination roles, such as that for the UNESCO site “Venice and its Lagoon” and was in charge of the restoration of important public buildings in Venice like Marciana National Library, Gallerie dell’Accademia, the Jesuit Church and the bell towers of Venice.

Since 2021 he has been RTD B researcher at IUAV in Venice and now he is assistant professor in Architectural Restoration. He carries out teaching activities at IUAV and at the Cà Foscari University 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.

Esther Valdés Tejera is a Ph.D. Landscape Architect, with more than ten years of experience as a lecturer and researcher and over 25 years in professional practice. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Red List of Heritage of Hispania Nostra.

She received her Bachelor’s degree at the School of Fine Arts in the Complutense University of Madrid. She did a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture and Landscape design at the Politécnica University of Madrid. She defended her Ph.D. at the same university, with the topic: “The aesthetic appreciation of the landscape: nature, artifice, and symbol” and received the Best Thesis Award in 2017.

Since 2019, she has been the Director of the Urban Management BA at the Camilo Jose Cela University in Madrid and a lecturer at the Master in Historical Gardens and Ecosystem Services of the Green Infrastructure at the Politecnica University of Madrid. She has been a lecturer in different programs since 2006 at San Pablo CEU University and Politécnica University of Madrid, among others. Her main research topics and publications are about aesthetics and landscapes and the relationship between environment, culture, and identity. In 2018 she did a three-month research stay at the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard University in Boston.

Esther Valdés Tejera is co-founder of Gamberaia Jardines, a landscape architecture firm established in 2001 which develops projects for private gardens, public space, and consulting. As a volunteer, she is currently the Vicepresident of the Spanish Association of Landscape Architects, and has been a member of the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ European branch since 2003.

Antonio Lamas is Professor Emeritus (retired) of Structural Engineering and Built Heritage at the Instituto Superior Técnico – University of Lisbon, having held that position since 1985. He is Vice-president of the General Assembly (GA) of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering and a Member of the Ordem dos Engenheiros (Institute of Engineers). Antonio Lamas is President of the Jury of the annual Gulbenkian Heritage Prize – Tereza e Vasco Vilalva and a Member of the Advisory Council of “Festival Terras Sem Sombra”. He is also President of the GA of the Cultural Association “Estudos Gerals do Alvito” (Alentejo) and Chairman of the GA of the Portuguese Association for Steel and Composite Construction (CMM).

Some notable previous positions that Antonio Lamas has held are President of the Portuguese Institute for Cultural Heritage (IPPC) of the Ministry of Culture (1987-1990); CEO of “Parques de Sintra – Monte da Lua SA” (2006-2014); Member of the Architectural and Archaeological Section of the National Council for Culture (2012-2016) and; CEO of the Cultural Centre of the Belém Foundation (November 2104 – March 2016).

Antonio Lamas was an external member of the General Council (governing body) of the University of Évora (2017-2021) and was also President of the Portuguese Road Authority (Junta Autónoma de Estradas) – Ministry of Public Works (1998-2000); and non-executive member of the Board of Brisa, SA (2004-2009).
Some of the most notable decorations and awards received by Antonio Lamas over the course of his career were the Order of Infante Dom Henrique – Grand Officer (2014); Silver Medal of Tourist Merit (2009); Gold Medal of the Municipality of Sintra (2012); Honorary Member of the Portuguese Association of Historical Gardens (2018) and; Special Mention of the Jury of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards, 2021: Dedicated Service to Heritage.