3) Education, Training & skills

Hanna Kristiina Lämsä is the Executive Director of the Association of Cultural Heritage Education in Finland, an NGO. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Helsinki. She also studied at the Università degli studi di Firenze, Université Paul Valery, Montpellier, and the University of Turku.

Her non-academic studies include a Specialist Qualification in Leadership and Management. Her professional career in the cultural heritage education field started at the National Board of Education in Finland, where she worked as an editor, web-editor and a producer.

This was followed by various positions at the Association of Cultural Heritage Education in Finland, established in 2006, where she gradually went from being a secretary to project officer and finally to executive director. In 2018 she was the Project Manager of the European Year of Cultural Heritage at the Finnish Heritage Agency.

She is active on social media and has also provided various commentaries and policy statements as well as other writings in the field of cultural heritage, education and sustainability.
In her capacity as executive director and project manager, she has innovated and managed various cultural projects, aimed at engaging the children and youth with cultural heritage. Under her term, the Association has grown from a new-comer to an influential actor in the cultural heritage sector in Finland and increasingly also at European level.

The organisation works cross-sectorally in order to enhance cultural rights, especially of children and youth, their participation in cultural heritage and their cultural competence. In addition to leadership and management and communication skills her expertise covers cultural sustainability, education and learning, youth engagement and policy-making.

Currently, the Association is leading the Erasmus-cooperation project called Future Narratives.
She is a member of the Board of Europa Nostra Finland, as well as a member in the steering group of the Cultural Heritage Strategy in Finland. She has a wide network of professionals and organisations working with Cultural Heritage and children and youth in Finland and other parts of Europe.

Charles Personnaz is a historian and civil servant, having spent most of his career in the field of cultural heritage both at the French Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Culture. He has been Director of the National Heritage Institute (INP – Institut national du patrimoine) since 2019.
Charles Personnaz has a special interest and commitment to the preservation of Christian heritage in the Middle East. He has authored several books published in France about Byzantine and Greek history and cultural policy.

Árpád Bőczén is the founding president of the Association of Cultural Heritage Managers (KÖME), since 2012. He graduated as an architect at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and as a cultural heritage expert at the Corvinus University of Budapest. His main interest is the human and especially the socio-cultural aspects of our tangible environment. Encouraging people and communities to take an active part in shaping their environment and living spaces whilst developing existing heritage based on value has played a significant role in his practice. Building spaces and structures is equally as important to him as building communities.

He is the country coordinator of Interpret Europe, the international professional network of heritage interpreters. He is a certified interpretive writer and a certified interpretive guide and trainer. He has been the initiator, manager and evaluator of many international projects dealing with the wide range of cultural and natural heritage including built assets, archaeological values, landscapes, memories, objects, digital works, music and many more. He always attaches high importance to the establishment and follow up of good cooperation among different disciplines and cultures. He was the manager of Interpret Europe’s 2018 conference “Heritage and Identity”. This event was part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage program.

Ella was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary and received her B.A in Archaeology and M.A in Cultural Heritage at University College London. She worked as an assistant in public and commercial archaeology and in the heritage sectors in the United Kingdom and Central America. She co-founded Heritage Education Network Belize, a non-profit organisation dedicated to innovative and sustainable ways to understand and safeguard culture and heritage.

Mariam Maka Dvalishvili is a founder and Executive Director of the Georgian Arts and Culture Center – the leading cultural NGO in Georgia. For over 25 years her role in the organisation has included GACC policy-making, strategic planning, fundraising, elaboration, execution and overseeing of GACC projects and ongoing activities. The Development of Cultural Industries and Crafts in particular, is one of the GACC’s major ongoing programmes, among four others. Within this programme and with the support of a wide range of international organisations (including the EU, USAID, etc), Dvalishvili has led numerous crafts development projects, with a focus on the engagement of youth and apprentices, to ensure the continuation of traditions, and to develop products and businesses in accordance with international trends and requirements.

Based on the memorandums with the major arts educational institutions in Georgia (Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, University of Georgia, among others), under the leadership of Dvalishvili many different crafts programs have been organised. These include the provision of capacity building trainings, workshops and internships for the students of crafts/arts departments. On the basis of open calls, young design graduates and artisans have received guidance and support in product development and marketing, crafts business development, export import regulations, copyrights and trademarks and putting them in touch with enterprises to help them acquire internships and work placements.

In 2016, as part of an EU project, Mariam Maka Dvalishvili established the Tbilisi First International Summit of Crafts and Design “Ethno Fest”, which included the participation of craftsmen from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. The Summit takes place on a biennial basis and is an excellent opportunity for young entrepreneurs, designers and artisans to present their work, participate in workshops and conferences and to participate in the planning and implementation of the Summit.

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.

Sara Crofts trained as an architect at Edinburgh College of Art where she specialised in historic building conservation. She then worked for a number of architectural practices dealing with the repair and conservation of historic buildings in both Edinburgh and Cumbria.

Having undertaken the Lethaby Scholarship awarded by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 2003, Sara Crofts worked as the SPAB’s Churches Caseworker for a spell before being appointed as the Project Director of the SPAB Faith in Maintenance project in 2006. The Faith in Maintenance training project ran for five years during which time she delivered 150 courses for Anglican, Methodist, United Reformed Church, Roman Catholic and Jewish groups and trained more than 5,000 volunteers throughout England and Wales.

Sara Crofts’ next role was Deputy Director of the SPAB and then, in 2015, she joined the Heritage Lottery Fund as Head of Historic Environment where her role focussed on policy and strategy development including training and skills.

She returned to the voluntary sector to take up the role of Chief Executive at Icon in January 2019. Her role includes oversight of Icon’s training and professional development activities as well as their accreditation framework.