Within the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, AER developed several activities in line with the overall goal of encouraging people to discover, explore and boost Europe’s cultural heritage.

In this respect AER organised the 2018 Summer Academy in Maramures (Romania) that brought together over 100 young people from various regions across Europe to discuss about the many benefits that heritage and culture can bring to a region. In the same time during the AER 2017 Spring Plenaries in London and the Autumn 2017 plenaries in Nancy the delegates debated topics that tackled the crisis of cultural heritage on today’s society and provided participants with information on funding opportunities.

The call for European Heritage Stories

AER is enthusiastic to share with its members this funding opportunity that fits so well in the landscape and actions that we are focusing on.

The EHD Call for European Heritage Stories was initiated as a pilot initiative within the framework of The European Heritage Days (EHDs) and is set to be continued on a yearly basis.

The European Heritage Days are the most widely celebrated participatory cultural events shared by people from the 50 European States signatory of the European Cultural Convention. Each EHD event and every visitor to those events represent a unique European Story that communities would like to share and potentially develop into a project.

The call for European Heritage Stories is open to:

1. European Heritage Days communities from the 50 European States signatory to the European Cultural Convention that have organised at least one EHD event in the last three years.

2. EU Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Award winners.

3. European Heritage Label sites.

Each community can submit up to three stories per Call and up to one project proposal to be eligible for the grant procedure (maximum €10 000) connected with one of the submitted stories.

Detailed information can be found in the EHD Stories Brochure.You can also visit the European Heritage Stories page to find out more information regarding eligibility criteria and important dates along with the application form.

The objectives of the initiative are:

• To encourage people to engage with Europe’s cultural heritage and to reinforce a sense of belonging to the European common space.
• To collect testimonies/stories that give an insight into how communities understand the European dimension of local heritage.
• To identify and promote communities working with heritage in line with European values and with a long-term perspective of collaboration.
• To reward communities for their efforts and to encourage them to develop their Stories further.
• To motivate and encourage communities to participate in the EHDs.

Go for it!

The deadline for submission is 18 April 2019, so no time to wait! 

The AER Secretariat is happy to connect the member regions eager to apply for this call.

Featured photo: European Heritage Awards/Europa Nostra Awards