Roots of Resilience II: Enhancing Engagement with Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Research

Roots of Resilience II: Enhancing Engagement with Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Research will enhance engagement with, and impact from, original research undertaken in Build Back Better: A participatory approach to mapping, measuring and mobilising cultural heritage in Brazil's Iron Quadrangle (AH/V006355/1) and the Follow-On project Roots of Resilience: building secure societies through preserving cultural heritage (AH/W006979/1), both of which were supported by the AHRC-DCMS partnership and part of the AHRC/DCMS Cultural Heritage and Climate Change (CHCC) cohort.

The original research produced two key findings: (1) there is a need for local, municipal policies created and monitored in partnership with arts and cultural heritage organisations; (2) young people's lack of awareness of their own cultural heritage is the biggest perceived risk to the capacity of the cultural heritage sector to build resilience to and recovery from environmental catastrophes.

Following these discoveries, we designed a series of impact and engagement activities to share best practice in sustainability and environmental risk reduction focused on young people and a series of municipal policy seminars with network of cultural heritage organisations in Brazil's Iron Quadrangle. We also set up a new partnership with Rio de Janeiro's Municipal Secretariat of Culture, which has led to policy and practice outputs. policy and practice outputs included: training for directors of ten municipal cultural heritage organisations across the city of Rio, and a programme of debates and exhibitions on cultural heritage and the climate crisis as part of series of events being organised by Rio de Janeiro to mark the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that will include the announcement of a new programme to train 350 young ambassadors for arts and climate action.
This Follow-On project will build on the work that has been created with a range of partners in Brazil who are increasingly focused on developing policies and practice that integrate cultural heritage and environmental strategies to enhance engagement with, and impact from, original research. This will include:
1) A Young Ambassadors programme to disseminate new methodologies and strategies for engaging young people in discussions about cultural heritage and climate action with schools/young people/organisations working in Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. We will also make a manual of methodologies/strategies publicly available in English and Portuguese to maximise ongoing impact from and engagement with original research.
2) We will work closely with Rio's Municipal Secretariat of Culture and ICOMOS Brazil Climate Change Committee to engage Secretaries of Culture, Education and Environment and representatives from arts organisations in other municipalities across Brazil in a series of webinars. In the webinars we will share methodologies, frameworks, and assessment tools for strengthening intangible and tangible cultural heritage exposed to high risks from the climate crisis from across our research and the DCMS/AHRC CCHC cohort. We will then offer follow-up online training for those interested in piloting implementation of strategies in their own contexts.
3) A series of public engagement events (available on and offline) to raise awareness about the role of cultural heritage in the climate crisis and environmental catastrophes amongst general and specialised audiences. Activities will include seminars, performance and an exhibition, as well as film-screenings and a podcast.

Our multidirectional approach includes youth engagement, policy development, as well as high-profile activations and partnerships, to ensure original research from across the CCHC cohort is showcased to a diverse range of publics in Brazil, the UK and beyond and impact of research further enhanced.