Making the Case

Objects and sites of cultural heritage are a crucial part of our individual and collective identities. They enrich our lives in countless ways, connect us to our past, allow us to understand our place in the history of humanity, help keep communities together and provide a foundation for our future. In short, they are part of what makes us human. And yet cultural heritage protection is often overlooked in humanitarian relief and disaster-response mechanisms.

CER aims to change this.

We actively invest in demonstrating the wide-ranging impact of heritage protection, raise awareness of its importance and campaign for its integration in humanitarian policies and relief efforts. We aim to contribute to a more prominent role of culture in response, recovery and sustainable development funding and approaches.

We aim to make the case for the urgency and relevance of heritage protection as a humanitarian issue, to pioneer innovative solutions and motivate the field to move forward.

To do so, we collaborate with other international heritage, academic and humanitarian organisations to develop initiatives to collect data that demonstrates the impact of heritage protection efforts. We also work closely with our partners on the ground to identify best practices, challenges and solutions. We actively share knowledge and disseminate our findings through lobby, advocacy and awareness campaigns.

Panel discussion at TEFAF NYC (2022) with Corine Wegener from The Smithsonian and Sanne Letschert from CER. Moderated by Lisa Pilosi, Metropolitan Museum.