The NICHE 2 partners met in Brussels for the project's fourth international project meeting. The meeting was hosted by the IHF – Institut de Haute Formation aux Politiques Communautaires.
The partners from across Europe met at the meeting to review the project's progress and coordinate the next steps as the project nears its conclusion. The aim NICHE 2 – Nurturing Intangible Cultural Heritage for Entrepreneurshipp – is to enhance the skills and competence of professionals and entrepreneurs working in the field of intangible cultural heritage, with a special focus on green and digital transformation.
One of the main topics of the meeting was Work Package 4 – the pilot testing, validation and update of the NICHE website. Partners discussed the implementation of the pilot test, where the NICHE 2 educational materials are tested and evaluated with the participation of representatives from the project's target groups. The updated NICHE web platform plays a key role in this process, offering an accessible digital environment for training, networking, and the dissemination of knowledge and good practice among intangible cultural heritage practitioners and other stakeholders.
Special emphasis was also placed on Work Package 5 – the exploitation and dissemination of the project's results, which IHF leads, and on the project's long-term sustainability. One important milestone in this work is the establishment of the NICHE 2 network, which is intended to bring together institutions, professionals and other stakeholders interested in intangible cultural heritage, entrepreneurship, education and training, alongside green and digital transformation. The network's aim is to strengthen collaboration, the sharing of knowledge and good practice, and to create new opportunities for cooperation beyond the project's consortium.
NICHE 2 network is open to all interested institutions and stakeholders. You can register here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeppgmf8zzdRAppLx-JTN-w_vHAjvsXv0HmXFLPZbQNTFKuKg/viewform
At the meeting, the partners also coordinated the next steps in the development and dissemination of guidelines on empowering those who work with intangible cultural heritage and the NICHE 2 policy statement. These are two important outputs of the project, intended to summarise the lessons learnt from the project and support the use and transfer of NICHE 2's results across Europe. The meeting in Brussels marked another important milestone in the NICHE 2 project. It strengthened collaboration between participants and laid the groundwork for the project's final phase and the further use of its findings among those working with intangible cultural heritage in Europe.
Further information about NICHE 2 can be found on the project's official website:
https://www.nicheproject.eu/