Project facts
Presentation
The HIGHRES project is based on the understanding of the importance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), as recognised by UNESCO in its 2003 Convention, which emphasises the need to safeguard and promote ICH as an essential part of cultural identity. Preserving ICH is vital not only for maintaining the traditions that shape our communities but also for ensuring cultural diversity and fostering social cohesion. However, rural communities face significant challenges in preserving their heritage, including limited resources, opportunities, and access to modern technologies, which threaten both their cultural legacy and their social and economic well-being.
The project directly addresses these challenges, focusing on the digital transition as a solution to bridge the gap between rural communities and the rest of society. Specifically, it highlights the potential of digital storytelling as a powerful tool to bring cultural traditions to life, making them accessible and relevant to wider audiences. By harnessing modern digital tools, digital storytelling helps preserve cultural identity while providing rural communities with innovative ways to share their heritage. This approach goes beyond ensuring the preservation of ICH and creates new opportunities for engagement, economic growth and social cohesion, enabling rural areas to thrive in the digital age.
Impacts & Results
HIGHRES aims to promote the use of digital storytelling as a tool for preserving and promoting intangible cultural heritage, creating new opportunities and tackling inequalities in rural areas. The main objective of HIGHRES is to provide local communities with the necessary competences to know, keep alive, transmit and promote their intangible heritage through digital narratives, thus ensuring that such heritage is not lost but rather used as a tool for the promotion of sustainable local development.
Among the key outputs of HIGHRES will include:
- A Good Practices Manual on identification, participatory management, digital storytelling, and promotion of intangible cultural heritage.
- A framework methodology for digital storytelling of intangible cultural heritage and training pathway design
- Training modules on digital storytelling of intangible cultural heritage.
- A web-based app with all the materials adapted to e-learning format.
Apart from its tangible results, HIGHRES also places significant emphasis on raising awareness about the importance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) as a driver of rural development, social cohesion, and economic growth. We aim to demonstrate how non-formal training aimed at the adult population, and the use of tools such as digital storytelling, can contribute to:
- The safeguarding of European intangible cultural heritage.
- Rural development through cultural tourism.
- Improving the digital skills of the adult population, leading to a long-term impact on rural communities.