2023

Dr.-Ing. Claus-Peter Echter is a conservationist, urban planner and sociologist. Echter is a scientific heritage consultant working in private practice since 2008 and based in Munich, Germany. He has extensive experience working in favour of cultural heritage at European and international level. Claus-Peter Echter was a member of the World Heritage Panel of ICOMOS for the evaluation of World Heritage nominations in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 and has been a member of the ICOMOS Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) since 2015 and of the ICOMOS Task Force on the New European Bauhaus since 2021. He is ICOMOS focal point for the UN Habitat World Urban Campaign (WUC), elected CO-Chair of the WUC Partner Constituent Group Professionals and member of the WUC Steering Committee since 2020.

Claus-Peter Echter has been a member of Europa Nostra and ICOMOS since 2007 and was a Council member of Europa Nostra 2012-2021, and Honorary member of Europa Nostra Germany since 2019. He was Vice-President of Europa Nostra Germany from 2009 to 2019 and again from 2021. He has acted as a local assessor for the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards for many years.

Claus-Peter Echter began his studies in sociology, receiving a Diploma from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, he has completed postgraduate studies of urban planning and heritage conservation at the Technical University Munich (Certificates) and defended his Ph.D. in engineering (architecture) at the Technical University Berlin. He wrote a doctoral thesis on “Monument Topography: A Recording Tool and Cultural History Enterprise“ (2005).
He was Senior Researcher at the German Institute of Urban Affairs with the main tasks Heritage conservation and History of Urban Architecture from 1981 to 2007 and has written many books and articles and lectured on Architectural History and (Urban) Monument Preservation.

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.

Anđela is an Italian language professor with MA degrees in Cultures in Dialogue, EMJMD European Literary Cultures, and UNESCO Chair for Cultural policy and Management. Her academic journey and interest in different cultures took her to Italy, Senegal, and France, where she learned that heritage is not only where we come from, but also what gives us a sense of belonging. She is passionate about building stronger connections between youth and cultural heritage, with particular interest in endangered, neglected, unwanted and misused heritage. Currently she is an intern at Europa Nostra Serbia.

Sadi Petrela has been Executive Director of the Gjirokastra Foundation for the past 15 years, an organisation which has undertaken over 20 years of uninterrupted activity in culture conservation and development in the UNESCO site Gjirokastra in Albania. Previous to this role, Sadi Petrela has gained extensive experience in journalism, media ethics and history teaching.
Year on year, the Gjirokastra Foundation developed an intense and multifaceted activity in the conservation and development of the vast heritage in Gjirokastra (both town and surrounding area) and, in some cases, elsewhere in both Albania and neighbouring countries.
They have developed more than 50 projects, both large and small, covering almost all different areas of cultural heritage in Albania. Their fundraising and various projects with new innovative approaches have earned the Foundation a strong reputation at both national and regional levels.
The Foundation’s projects include, among others: the restoration and revitalization of traditional buildings; the preservation and development of traditional arts and crafts; creating a new historic museum of Gjirokastra and opening up a tunnel from Communist times as a tourist attraction; the development of traditional cuisine. The Gjirokastra Foundation uses a participatory approach and community involvement in culture heritage management, connecting the city with similar historic centres. Their activities are considered groundbreaking and example creating for Albania and the wider area, especially considering the difficult political, economic and social environment in which they are undertaken. Gjirokastra Foundation is a winner of European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Award in the category of Dedicated Service to Heritage for the year 2021.

Marianne R. Ytterdal, Assistant Professor at Aalesund University College in Norway, covering Mercantile, Maritime, and Technical English, Cultural Differences and Project Presentations, recently retired. She studied English and American Languages and Background, History of Art, Nordic languages and literature and Educational Science at the Universities of Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim. She has been active within Europa Nostra since 2000, in the years 2007 – 2009 in the new governance group. She is currently President of the Board of the Kjell Holm Foundation in Norway, which she joined in 2003. For 25 years, the last five as President, she was a board member of Fortidsminneforeningen: The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments, an NGO that owns and maintains 41 properties of cultural significance. Other cultural heritage boards of interest are: the European Network of National Heritage Organisations, Jugendstilsenteret (The Norwegian Art Nouveau Centre), and Den norske Kulturminnedagen (European Heritage Days). Ytterdal has also published a number of textbooks for the teaching of Technical and Practical English, the most recent having been released in 2015.

Barbara Cordero graduated in Hispanic Philology from the Autonomous University of Madrid and obtained a Master in Audiovisual Communication from IEPA (Institute of Specialists in Audiovisual Journalism).
She has extensive professional experience in media and corporate representation.
She has worked in the Hispania Nostra Association for more than ten years, assuming coordination in 2015. During all these years, she has actively promoted the conservation and preservation of cultural and natural heritage, managing numerous activities, such as the Hispania Nostra Award, the annual Hispania Nostra Forum, and Hispania Nostra Journal, to name a few.
Among the most prominent projects they have developed in Hispania Nostra, there is the Exhibition of the Europa Nostra Awards given to Spanish projects.
She is the author of numerous articles and she has participated in a number of seminars and conferences related to citizens’ activism and engagement.

Davida de Hond is a member of the management team of Museum Arnhem, a museum located in the eastern part of the Netherlands. As head of public and program, de Hond is responsible for education, marketing, communication, programming and exhibitions. Previously I have worked as an entrepreneur in the cultural field, focus on heritage and community building. I have a focus on participation and education through heritage and art. I also worked for Erfgoed Nederland, the national heritage agency, with a role in the team that focussed on heritage in an international perspective. For the Reinwardt Academy I have worked on international cooperation projects that focussed on new museology, eco museology, community building and innovation in heritage education. Besides my different employments, I am also active as an advisor on committees regarding culture and heritage subsidies. Currently for the Mondriaan Fund, and in the recent past for the municipality of Rotterdam through the RRKC, Provincial committee on culture and heritage in Gelderland and the fund for Cultural Participation.

Jelena was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia. Her professional background is in architecture and currently she studies ‘World Heritage’ in Cottbus, Germany. She loves dogs, food, hiking, running and is interested in religion, beliefs, tradition and how intangible shapes the tangible world around us.

Baiba Mūrniece is a head of the Development division in the National Heritage Board of Latvia. With an educational background in arts and international relations she has more than 24 years of experience in the heritage sector. She holds a Master’s degree in public administration. In her work, Baiba Mūrniece pays special attention to cultural heritage management, the public funding of heritage, international heritage cooperation, participatory governance and awareness-raising of cultural heritage. With her expertise in national and international heritage policies, she has participated in the drafting of various international documents, including the “European Quality Principles for EU-funded Interventions with Potential Impact upon Cultural Heritage”.
Mūrniece represents Latvia at several international heritage cooperation platforms. She has been member of the Bureau of the Governing Board of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe,” has been the national coordinator of the European Year for Cultural Heritage. Mūrniece has chaired the Baltic Region Heritage Committee and the heritage expert group of the Latvian State Cultural Capital Foundation and was one of the co-founders and former president of ICOMOS Latvia.

Dr. Natalia Moussienko is a Europa Nostra Council member, and member of the Internal Advisory Committee of Europa Nostra and is a Board member of the NGO “Initiative for St. Andrew Passage” in Kyiv, Ukraine which has been a Europa Nostra member-organization since 2014. She was previously a member of the jury for the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards in the category Dedicated Service to Heritage.

Dr. Moussienko is currently a leading research fellow in the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine in Kyiv. She is an expert of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation in cultural heritage. She studied philosophy at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, where she obtained her master’s degree and subsequently at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine where she received her doctorate. She is the author of numerous articles and five books on the theory and history of culture, cultural diplomacy, urbanism and cinema and has been published internationally.

Dr. Moussienko initiated and organised four Cultural Diplomacy Forums in Kyiv, notably “Cultural Heritage matters to Cultural Diplomacy” in June 2018 in the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage. Furthermore, she serves as a Board Head of the Ukrainian Fulbright Alumni Association that produced a Ukrainian translation of the Europa Nostra documents.

Dr. Moussienko is a voice for cultural heritage on a national level, writing for national magazines “Ukrainian Culture”, “Monuments of Ukraine” as well as a national weekly newspaper, “Culture and Life”. In addition, she was co-editor of three issues of “Agora”, a publication devoted to the theoretical bases of cultural diplomacy and its practical application.

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.

Professor Alex Torpiano is an architect and structural engineer by profession, having studied in Malta, Imperial College under Sir Alan Harris, and the University of Bath under Sir Ted Happold. He has served as Dean of the Faculty for the Built Environment of the University of Malta for the last 14 years, and previously served as Head of the Department of Building and Civil Engineering, and later of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design. In the late 1980s, he set up the Institute for Masonry and Construction Research, which later became a Department of Conservation and Built Heritage in the same Faculty. In the University, he is a member of the Senate of the University, and of the Council of the University. He is currently also Executive President of Din l-Art Helwa, the National Trust of Malta. He has served as President of the local Chamber of Architects and Civil Engineers. He is a founding partner of a private architectural and structural engineering office, TBA periti, and has collaborated with Arup Associates, Ian Ritchie, Walter Hunziger, and Antonio Belvedere on projects in Malta. His specialisation is the structural restoration of masonry structures.

Nicki Matthews MRIAI joined the Built Heritage Policy Team of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, as a Senior Architect in 2018. Her role includes the delivery of a range of
progressive policies for cultural heritage including the contribution on cultural heritage objectives to the Regional Assemblies, the National Heritage Plan 2030 renewal, the National Policy on Architecture, as well as devising strategies for delivering heritage-led urban regeneration and climate change mitigation. As a member of the SEA Forum, Nicola contributes to the Environmental Protection Agency in respect of environmental impact of strategic, national infrastructural projects such as flood relief CFRAM programme, Irish Water, Energy, Transportation and Port Infrastructure etc. where proposals impact on cultural heritage. With regard to the delivery of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht policies through funding programmes, Nicola provides the technical support to the various funding programmes currently operated including the Built Heritage Invest Scheme, The Historic Buildings Fund, the Historic Towns Initiative and the Heritage Council-run Irish Walled Town Network (IWTN).
Prior to this, Nicola was the Architectural Conservation Officer (ACO) for Dublin City Council, with the remit to communicate the built heritage significance of the historic city and its regeneration through the reuse and repair of historic vacant buildings for residential use to meet the housing crisis – in particular the roll out of the ‘Living City Initiative’, to address the vacant upper floors of the historic centre of Dublin.

Georgios Toubekis is a researcher for heritage-led innovation at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT (Germany); member of the international scientific ICOMOS committee CIPA Heritage Documentation; reviewer and field mission expert for ICOMOS in the framework of the reactive monitoring of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and was previously a Jury Member for the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards in the category Research. Toubekis studied architecture at RWTH Aachen University. His research focuses on the use of advanced information systems for the conservation and valorization of cultural heritage in post-conflict scenarios.

Velika Stojkova Serafimovska is an ethnomusicologist, a researcher and UNESCO trained Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) facilitator. Her research focuses on sociological and anthropological perspectives on transitional processes in popular and traditional music and culture and in safeguarding and promoting the intangible cultural heritage on national and regional level. She has published widely on these topics in various multi-authored volumes including ICTM Yearbook of Traditional Music and Routledge publications. As an Associate Professor, she teaches courses on World music, Ethnomusicology and ICH on graduate and postgraduate (MA and PhD) level. As part of the Network of ICH experts in Southeastern Europe she is involved with projects that protect and promote intangible cultural heritage on national and international level participating in Erasmus+ and UNESCO projects. She was part of the team that inscribed all five Macedonian ICH elements on the UNESCO ICH RL, including two multinational nominations. She is part of the international ICTM network since 1999 and Chair of the ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe, thus participating and organising different academic and artistic events on a regional level. She has participated in numerous international scholarly conferences, symposiums and meetings around the world. In the last ten years, she has also been involved in creating and implementing the national strategy and cultural policy on national level thus cooperating with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia and other cultural stakeholders in the field of culture. As MP and part of the inter parliamentary Green group of the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia, she is also involved in the monitoring and implementation of the Green agenda, climate change and protecting natural heritage issues on national level.

Marita Sakhltkhutsishvili is a young heritage professional specialized in museology. She has obtained her degrees at Tbilisi State University, BA in Art History, and MA in Museum studies. She is an experienced cultural heritage project manager and lecturer, also, she leads the authorship rubric in the scientific/popular style journal. Sakhltkhutsishvili works on cultural heritage, contemporary art, and museum issues. She was the coordinator/researcher of scientific projects and the author and co-author of numerous articles.

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.