Project facts

Duration: 2024-06-01 - 2026-05-31
Project coordinator: Dr Francesca Giliberto
Project consortium: University of Leeds, UK (Lead Institution); Politecnico di Torino, Italy; Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), Norway; International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM); The British Council; Innlandet County Authority, Norway; Hull City Council, UK.
Funding bodies: AGREE is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), UK; Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) – Italy; and Research Council of Norway – Norway.
Subject areas: Changing environments, Climate Change, Community involvement, Conservation, Cultural Landscapes, Digital storytelling, Heritage Management, Humanities and social sciences, Norms, Policies, Research collaboration, Resilience, Sustainability, Sustainable development, Threats, Urban Heritage
Contact: f.giliberto@leeds.ac.uk
Budget: 660,000 EUR
Website: https://agreeproject.org/

Presentation

Climate change, a multifaceted challenge interwoven with social, economic, and environmental dimensions, defies simplistic solutions. Despite global efforts, the pursuit of sustainability has fallen short, hindered by a narrow technical focus. This limited perspective has impeded the development of integrated, context-specific solutions. AGREE champions transformative sustainability, emphasising interdisciplinary methodologies and societal shifts. It explores the intricate link between cultural heritage governance, climate adaptation, and community resilience, rooted in responses to flooding in urban contexts.

AGREE promotes the Historic Urban Landscape concept for integrative decision-making in climate adaptation, considering community resilience amidst environmental changes. An interactive Geographic Information System (GIS) platform will illuminate this interplay over time. An innovative AGREE's contribution is a decision-making model grounded in the HUL paradigm. This model juxtaposes current national and local policies enabling cultural heritage integration in climate adaptation with historical data sources revealing urban resilience lessons and changes in the built environment over time. AGREE employs transformative governance concepts to evaluate decision-makers' com-prehension of these synergies and their perspectives. It advances transformative climate adaptation by uncovering potentials and barriers within heritage governance in case studies from the UK, Norway, and Italy.

Beyond research, AGREE will shape policies with multi-scalar and cross-sectoral governance, interpreting climate intricacies through cultural heritage. It will strengthen global, national, and local heritage-focused climate strategies through partnerships with the British Council, ICCROM, and the UK's Department for Culture, Media, and Sport and local stakeholders, such as Hull City Council (UK) and Innlandet Region (Norway). AGREE also engages the public, raising climate adaptation awareness and mobilising collective action, benefiting governmental climate efforts.

Impacts & Results

AGREE explores the intricate relationship between cultural heritage governance levels, climate adaptation, and community resilience historically developed from responses to flooding catastrophes in urban contexts. It aims to:

1) Advance the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) concept as a scientific basis for integrative decision-making in climate adaptation strategies;

2) Evaluate cultural governance’s relationship with climate adaptation in the UK, Norway and Italy at national and local levels;

3) Explore historic urban landscapes as dynamic and resilient laboratories to understand the interplay between cultural heritage and adaptation strategies across time through an interactive Geographic Information System (GIS) platform;

4) Develop a HUL-based decision-making model that advances systemic strategies for addressing climate change, identifying preconditions for its transferability, adaptability, and scalability, and factors impacting the adoption of transformative approaches;

5) Influence policy and decision-making and promote multi-scalar and cross-sectoral governance navigating climate change complexities through cultural heritage.