On 12 June 2025, the second project meeting for the NICHE 2 project took place in Pescara, Italy, at the headquarters of IDP European Consultants, one of the project's partners. The meeting brought together representatives of the Knowledge Network, the project coordinator, and all partners to review the project's progress, discuss key findings, and plan the next steps.<\/p>\n
The NICHE 2 project, with reference number 2024-1-IS01-KA220-VET-000243941, is a partnership project in the field of vocational education and training (VET), co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The project's aim is to equip professionals working in the field of intangible cultural heritage with the knowledge and tools needed to lead green and digital transitions, in line with the goals of sustainable development. Building on the success of the previous NICHE project, NICHE 2 promotes capacity building through customised training materials and encourages innovation and sustainability in the cultural heritage ecosystem.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, the partners worked on the project's needs analysis (Work Package 2), which is a key component for identifying the challenges and training needs faced by professionals in the cultural heritage sector when implementing sustainable practices. This analysis was carried out both at a national level in the partner countries \u2014 Croatia, France, Spain, Italy and Iceland \u2014 and at a wider European level. Together, the partners analysed the findings to define the competences and topics that will shape the NICHE 2 training curriculum to be developed in the coming months. In particular, it emerged that climate change is still rarely part of cultural heritage policymaking. Cultural heritage, in turn, is rarely mentioned in discussions and policymaking on climate change, both at the EU level and domestically in the partner countries.<\/p>\n
The study also revealed a lack of various key elements that hinder the integration of intangible cultural heritage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to climate action (SDG 13), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12):<\/p>\n
In the coming months, the partnership will present these findings to stakeholders in the cultural heritage sector \u2014 the project's main target group \u2014 to design innovative collaborative training materials that address their real-world needs. In addition, the meeting served to coordinate further project activities, including the development of a sustainability, dissemination and communication strategy, the next steps in project management, and quality assurance procedures.<\/p>\n