Belgium

Adriaan Linters has extensive experience in the field of industrial cultural heritage. He received an MA in Contemporary History in 1973 and later worked as a researcher at the Centre for Industrial Archaeology from 1974 to 1975, at Flemish Heritage Agency from 1975 to 1979; for industrial heritage at the province of Limburg from 1980-1985; and as a lecturer at St.-Lucas School of Architecture from 1985 to 2003. Adriaan Linters worked as an independent heritage consultant from 2003 to 2018. He is Chairman of the Vlaamse Vereniging voor Industriële Archeologie, winner of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards in 2019 in the category Dedicated Service to Heritage.

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.

Koenraad Van Balen graduated as an Engineer Architect at the KU Leuven (Belgium) in 1979; he obtained a postgraduate degree in architectural conservation in 1984 and he obtained a Ph.D in Engineering in 1991 at the KU Leuven. He is a full-professor at the KU Leuven in the Civil Engineering department. Van Balen carries out research and teaches on binders, masonry and sustainable construction methods. He is the director of the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC) at the University of Leuven. He has been the holder of the UNESCO Chair on preventive conservation, monitoring and maintenance of monuments and sites since 2008. He is a member of ICOMOS and was the first secretary-general of the International Scientific Committee on the Analysis, Repair of Structures of the Architectural Heritage (ISCARSAH). He has long been a member of the general assembly of Monumentenwacht Vlaanderen. He is or has been an advisor to, amongst others, the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and the Getty Foundation. In 2002-2003 he was a visiting scholar at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles. He supervises research carried out at the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation related to various aspects of investigation, valuing and managing (World) Heritage. Amongst others he coordinated the research carried out by the RLICC on Heritage Counts for Europe in collaboration with Europa Nostra. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European wide research coordination initiative “Joint Program Initiative: Cultural Heritage (JPI-CH)”. He is the scientific coordinator of ILUCIDARE programme.