UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Culture, Heritage, and War

2026-06-22

Cornelius Holtorf participated as a panel member in a LEIZA Dialogue for Democracy entitled “And When Things Become Serious? The Role of Culture and Cultural Heritage in Times of War” in Mainz, Germany (17 June 2026).

The evening attracted an audience of about 100, which engaged actively with an expert panel consisting of

  • Léonie Evers, Project Officer, Culture in Emergencies, Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, UNESCO
  • Torsten Fischer, Administrative Director, LEIZA
  • Cornelius Holtorf, UNESCO Chair in Heritage Futures, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden
  • Thorsten Ilg, Brigadier General, Deputy Commandant and Director of Training, Bundeswehr Command and Staff College
  • Hermann Parzinger, Former President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and Executive President of Europa Nostra.

In my own short opening statement, I emphasized the high number of about two million war casualties in the war in Ukraine to date, reminding us that in a war there are only losers. We therefore have to prevent war. Culture and cultural heritage have a particular responsibility since, as is often said, culture and cultural heritage is what people tend to be fighting for in military conflicts. Indeed, according to the famous statement in the 1945 Constitution of UNESCO, war and peace begin in the minds of people. Culture and heritage do not only express shared values but also collective identities: they define “my people” and thus who is particularly worth defending. I quoted a Swedish official stating that “Cultural heritage gives the nation its flesh and blood.”

In short, I suggested that without culture playing that role there may be fewer wars. We should work towards a cultural heritage that serves human wellbeing and co-existence rather than the interests of competing nation-states for which their citizens are sacrificed. I concluded by calling for the creation of Ministries of Peace in addition to Ministries of Defense.

In the subsequent discussion, we talked, among others, about the need to see the gruel reality of human war victims and the inspiration of successful peace processes such as the steps taken after World War II towards the EU. Also discussed was the significance for human beings of a sense of collective belonging. I emphasized that Russia is part of Europe, European history and European culture. It was suggested that cultural institutions like LEIZA could work for peace by increasing understanding in Germany of contemporary thinking among Russians, for example. Generally, we should appreciate that we have so much more in common with people anywhere on Earth than what ultimately divides us.

The audience was particularly taken by my discussion of the sudden turn in Sweden in recent years towards rapid rearmament and the ongoing militarisation of the entire country. Particular astonished was the audience to learn that in expectation of a coming war, spaces for war graves for 5% of the population are being prepared across Sweden. They were also stunned by the propaganda statement printed in a recent information brochure produced on behalf the Swedish government and distributed to all households:

Brigadier General Ilg suggested in the discussion that in case of war, he would either be fighting at NATO’s Eastern Front or already be dead.

The aims of the event, which I had initiated and co-organised with LEIZA, included to

  • increase the importance and visibility of culture and cultural heritage in society and politics,
  • make multilateral and supranational levels of discussion more visible and thereby strengthen them,
  • encourage processes of reflection among visitors/audiences,
  • provide ideas and inspiration for how individuals can become involved in culture and cultural heritage themselves, and
  • strengthen dialogue between the cultural sector, politics, and defense.

For a full discussion of similar issues as those addressed by the panel see the recent debate in Forum Kritische Archäologie.

Futures Workshop on Nuclear Waste

2026-06-10

Cornelius Holtorf ran on 10 June 2026 a full-day workshop entitled “Futures Literacy Follow-Up Capacity-Building Session” which had been arranged for the international Expert Group on Archiving and Awareness Preservation (EGAAP) at the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA).

About 20 EGAAP members, representing Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K., participated in the workshop.

The workshop chose the so-called Key Information File (KIF) of repositories of nuclear waste as a concrete reference point for illustrating practical implications of the capability known as “futures literacy”. This capability was developed by UNESCO and during the workshop, the Organization was represented by Christine Kavazanjian.

One participant stated at the end that in his opinion, the KIF we design today would be entirely meaningless at the time of repository closure a minimum of ca 100 years ahead. What mattered was, however, the lessons learned during the process of designing it. Some such lessons were learned during the workshop today, e.g. about the need to take a broader range of possible futures and multiple truths about nuclear waste into account.

Proposals for priorities 2027-30

2026-04-17

I contributed to an online discussion with Swedish representatives of UNESCO-related activities as part of the consultation process in the context of developing a new strategy for the Swedish National UNESCO Commission 2027-2030.

Every four years, a new strategy is created in the context of other documents, such as now the Swedish government’s strategy for collaborating with UNESCO 2022-25 and UNESCO’s own Medium-Term Strategy 2022-29.

I made the following concrete proposals:

  1. Swedish interests should also include the world’s needs
  2. strengthen global multilateralism
  3. promote intergenerational fairness (EU Commissioner, UN Pact for the Future)
  4. shape the post-2030 agenda (cultural goal)
  5. strengthen a culture of peace
  6. strengthen trust in societies (important role of culture)
  7. strengthen collaboration with (and among) UNESCO Chairs in Sweden

New publication: Foresight in Heritage

2026-01-07

A new publication focusing on the value of Foresight in heritage was just published with Gustav Wollentz from the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures as a co-author.  The article is named “Foresight in heritage: fostering future consciousness to proactively face change”, by Hana Morel, myself, Sarah Forgesson, Amy Iwasaki and Alison Heritage. 

It is the first academic publication coming out from our engagement with ICCROM’s Strategic Foresight initiative, which has been piloting Foresight in heritage on a global level. It is a collaboration that is important since very little has been done in this area, and so much remains to be done. 

The paper introduces Foresight as a structured approach that is increasingly employed across industries and disciplines for anticipating future change and proposes its utility for the heritage sector. We illustrate how integrating greater Foresight into heritage practice can encourage proactive engagement with emerging trends; develop resilient strategies for heritage research, planning and management; and locate where heritage-based actions can bring transformative change.

Morel H, Wollentz G, Forgesson S, Iwasaki A, Heritage A (2025;), “Foresight in heritage: fostering future consciousness to proactively face change”. Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCHMSD-12-2024-0298

Gustav Wollentz
Gustav Wollentz, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

Futures workshop at World Futures Day 2025

2025-12-04

Compiled by Helena Rydén, Assistant to the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University.

World Futures Day (WFD) on 2 December 2025 explored the theme “Anticipation in an Era of Volatility” at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. One of the highlights was the afternoon futures workshop, “Crisis Preparedness and Beyond: Future-Making Through Culture and Heritage,” where Vicky Karaiskou and Cornelius Holtorf—both UNESCO Chairs—engaged a large (ca 50) and enthusiastic audience.

Vicky Karaiskou and Cornelius Holtorf at UNESCO HQ in Paris 2 December 2025 preparing for the afternoon session.

After statements by UNESCO, the European Commission and CrisisReady*, Vicky and Cornelius took the lead and guided us through the workshop. Both are deeply interested in the culture and values that shape us as human beings—Vicky focusing on the visual dimension.

Vicky Karaiskou explains: “I explore the profound implications of cultural visual narratives, shedding light on how they shape our individual and collective memory, as well as societal perceptions. Visuality examines the origins of our perceptions and assumptions because they deeply influence how we perceive the present, how we engage with the past, and how we envision the future.”

Cornelius Holtorf describes: “Heritage Futures are concerned with the roles of heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies, e.g. through anticipation, planning, and prefiguration.”

The workshop was truly engaging. We began by discussing what forms a collective identity: Who are we? How do culture and heritage make people who they are? Language, food, family and education were among the ideas raised. Next, we reflected on how our collective identities are relevant or affected in an anticipated crisis? We agreed that care—both as a human trait and as something that must be learned—was essential. Finally, we were asked to imagine future scenarios on how our collective identities could be used for crisis prevention, resolution, and recovery in the future?

The goal was to help us focus on the origins of our perspectives and assumptions, which deeply impact how we envision the future. Our group envisioned a natural disaster scenario where our collective identity, empathy, emotions, and local context were crucial for decision-making.

If the aim was to foster empathy, inspire positive change, and promote inclusiveness and social resilience for an equitable future, the workshop certainly succeeded. By envisioning the future beyond the uncertainty of the unknown, we learned how to mobilize and stimulate inspiring thinking, feeling, and acting—unlocking new ideas for creative solutions.

Several participants said this workshop was the highlight of the day, and some even asked to exchange contact details with us, expressing interest in visiting the Chairs for a period.

Want to learn more about the UNESCO Chairs?

  • Vicky Karaiskou’s Chair
  • Cornelius Holtorf’s Chair

    *The session started with short background statements to the topic by:
  • Ana Videkanic, Crisis Coordination Officer, Crisis Response and Preparedness, UNESCO 
  • Karalyn Monteil, Head of Unit, Culture and Emergencies, Culture Sector, UNESCO
  • Anne-Katrin Bock, Policy Analyst, EU Policy Lab, European Commission
  • Andrew Schroeder, Co-Director, CrisisReady, and V-P, Research and Analysis for Direct Relief

A Global Framework for Research and Action

2025-11-28

The UK National Commission for UNESCO has introduced a new Climate Action and Sustainability Framework alongside a Research Agenda, designed to leverage UNESCO sites as living laboratories for climate resilience and sustainable futures.

The publications align closely with the ARCHE (Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, the emerging Horizon Europe Resilient Cultural Heritage Partnership, and UNESCO’s global priorities on climate, culture, and sustainable development. They provide a ready-made platform for UK and international partners to collaborate on transdisciplinary research, Living Labs, open data infrastructures, and evidence-based policy.

Sarah May

Sarah May, affiliated with the Chair, serves as Co-Director at ButCH and is an active member of the UKNC Research & Innovation Group.

ButCH stands for Bureau for the Contemporary and Historic.

It is an organization involved in UNESCO-related climate and heritage research, and in this context, ButCH helps convene and manage the activities of the UKNC Research & Innovation Group, focusing on developing and delivering strategic research agendas around climate resilience and cultural heritage.

UKNC stands for UK National Commission for UNESCO

The publications are available here:

https://unesco.org.uk/news/unesco-uk-launches-framework-for-place-based-climate-research-and-action-through-unesco-sites

Anticipating Change: Exploring Long-term Futures for Heritage

2025-10-23

On the 16th of October 2025 ICCROM organized a workshop on Strategic Foresight in Heritage taking place in Rome, titled Anticipating Change: Exploring Long-term Futures for Heritage. The purpose of the workshop was to found a community for practice surrounding Strategic Foresight in heritage, to build resilience, relevance and agency among heritage organisations in the face of uncertainty and change.

Gustav Wollentz from the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures assisted in the organisation and facilitation of the workshop, contributing with a presentation on the value of Strategic Foresight in heritage and moderating parts of the agenda, which included both a hands-on Foresight exercise, the Futures Wheel, as well as a discussion on how to move forward together.

The goals of the newly established group are to:

  • Connect and amplify foresight and innovation efforts across the heritage sector. 
  • Co-developing and testing foresight methods in real-world heritage contexts. 
  • Building an open repository of trends, tools, and insights tailored to the sector’s needs. 

Together vid ICCROM, the workshop gathered representatives from the International Council on Archives, ICOM (International Council of Museums), IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions), NEMO (Network of European Museum Organizations), UNESCO, the French Ministry of Culture, the Swedish National Heritage Board, the Heritage Alliance, UK, the Fondation des Sciences du Patrimoine, France, the Getty Foundation, USA, and University College London, UK. 

More information on the workshop is available here: https://www.iccrom.org/news/anticipating-change-exploring-long-term-futures-heritage

MONDIACULT 2025 – A commentary and analysis

2025-10-01

MONDIACULT – UNESCO’s World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development took place in Barcelona (29 Sept-1 Oct 2025). UNESCO is the United Nations organization that promotes cooperation in education, science, culture and communication to foster peace, security and sustainable development worldwide. “Culture of Peace” has long been one of UNESCO’s most memorable concepts.

With this in mind, it was surprising that at MONDIACULT there were Ministers of Culture that emphasized culture as the soul of a country and an expression of national freedom, the need for cultural preparedness in the face of military threats, and cultural policy as a form of survival, security and defence strategy, not the least because foreign forces are known to attack first the cultural fabric that binds societies together.

Such language is very different from the general commitment of all states not only to UNESCO as such, including its Culture of Peace programme, but also to cultural rights as a part of global human rights. The logic of war must not trump culture. As Alexandra Xanthaki, the UN Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights, emphasized several times during the conference, cultural rights are about the rights of individuals and groups: they oblige states to implement the rights of minorities, marginalized people and migrants, among others, not to foster or support majority state culture. I would add that culture should not be what sustains people when everything else is taken away from them, but what prevents states or anybody from taking away everything from anyone in the first place.

Similarly surprising to me was that some of the discussions were still about protecting and preserving cultural heritage or returning it to their rightful owners. This is a perspective of culture as a valuable resource and property, something you don’t want to be deprived of as that would mean, according to some, that you lost your “heartbeat” and your past. This is a familiar view that is sometimes also taken regarding cultural heritage. But it chimes poorly with the many statements we heard during the conference that culture is primarily about our common humanity. Indeed, UNESCO’s very constitution from 1945 discusses culture in the context of a general human (and not the nations’) dignity.

There is one additional aspect to this. When some policy makers declared in Barcelona that culture must be safeguarded because “culture is who we are”, I partly disagree. In many respects, the world is not in a good state because of who we were, and are. Culture is also about who we would like to be, or perhaps become, as human beings on our shared planet. That is why it was disappointing to see that MONDIACULT 2025 did not take up the spirit of the 2024 United Nations Summit of the Future and improve on the recognition of culture in the Pact for the Future.

Today, humanity is at a time of profound global transformation, requiring us to change course so that we do not risk tipping into a future of persistent crisis and breakdown. But what exactly does this mean for cultural heritage which is the way in which we today recall the past? After all, as the Spanish Minister of Culture had it at MONDIACULT, “culture is where all changes begin” – it is about transformation, innovation and creativity. In other words, the question is not how to safeguard culture and heritage ahead of threats that may be anticipated in an uncertain future. One key question is rather how we make sense of the past in a world where the future is not what it used to be (as Marek Tamm once wrote). Culture has some of the answers: long-term thinking, embracing change, and understanding what it means to be human.

Finally, what is the way forward? Senior decision-makers emphasized on several occasions the need of evidence-based policy and the benefits of culture for meeting indicators of environmental, economic, and social development as well as for fostering national identities and even as an asset for national defence. But this does not fit very well to Pedro Sanchez, Prime Minister of Spain, declaring in his Opening Speech that “culture invites us to dream”. Similarly, Octavio Paz was quoted as saying that the world is a projection of our images and, one might add, of our narratives and worldviews. Others talked in this context about a holistic perspective we need to take—one that not the least integrates culture and nature. According to that view, we do not benefit from culture when it is part of a fragmented and siloed view of the world, sought to be instrumentalized for various purposes, and regularly assessed for its value, in particular its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP).

Instead, the kind of culture that gives us hope in the present time is what provides happiness and wellbeing for people. That is why we need to develop and implement measures of progress for human work that go beyond GDP. Culture can be the place where such change begins.

Cornelius Holtorf, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden

MONDIACULT 2025

I spent a week in Barcelona to attend MONDIACULT – UNESCO’s World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development (29 Sept-1 Oct 2025). I arrived early to take part in the Civic Agora organised in Barcelona (26-27 Sept 2025).

Both events provided many opportunities to learn about current developments in global cultural policy and also to talk to other UNESCO Chairs, senior politicians, policy makers, and representatives of NGOs about various dimensions of heritage futures.

MONDIACULT attracted more than 100 Ministers of Culture and overall more than 1,200 participants from around the world.

Highlights included several brilliant presentations by Alexandra Xanthaki, the UN Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights. She emphasized the responsibility of states for cultural rights of individuals and groups, while criticizing states caring only about majority cultures and marginalising minorities and people at the margin of society.

Another highlight was the launch av Version 1 for a Culture Goal av Culture2030Goal campaign. Such a goal is very strongly supported by the Ministers of Cultures, and policy makers attending MONDIACULT, as reflected in the Outcome Document. Also significant was the launch of the UNESCO Global Report on Cultural Policies. These documents are the basis for further discussions among various NGOs over he coming years and will serve to influence the UN member states in favour of giving culture a strong position on the Post-2030 Agenda.

(Figure shows the Swedish Delegation incl Secretary of State)

I was able to have many conversations on heritage futures (short and long!), and will be following up many of them, including with the following people:

Politicians and government representatives

UNESCO

NGOs etc

UNESCO Chairs

  • Vicky Karaiskou, UNESCO Chair on Visual Anticipation and Futures Literacy towards Visual Literacy, Cyprus
  • Roland Benedikter, UNESCO Chair in Interdisciplinary Anticipation and Global-Local Transformation, Italy
  • Alicja Jagielska-Burduk, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Law, Poland
  • Julius Heinecke, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development, Germany
  • Chiara Bortolotto, UNESCO Chair in Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development, France

UNESCO MOST Winter School

2025-02-27

I was lecturing this week on ”The Climate Heritage Paradox – towards a paradigm shift in cultural heritage” for an audience of 70+ physical and online participants coming together for the 7th UNESCO MOST Winter School held at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Köszeg (iASK), Hungary.

On the same panel were also also Gábor Soós, Secretary-General of UNESCO Hungary, Klaus Wölfer, former Ambassador of Austria, Anna Zeichner of ICCROM, and Tamás Fejérdy of ICOMOS and iASK, among others

The meeting was organised in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair for Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainability held by Professor Ferenc Miszlivetz at the University of Pannonia, Hungary.

The Climate Heritage Paradox – towards a paradigm shift in cultural heritage

For the cultural heritage sector to address adequately the global challenges of climate change, it needs to resolve the Climate Heritage Paradox which consists of two conundrums. Firstly, in contemporary society, when humanity anticipates and prepares for climate change and associated transformations, cultural heritage predominantly looks backward and emphasizes identities and continuities over time. Secondly, when humanity on Earth needs panhuman solidarity, trust, and collaboration to be able to face enormous global challenges together, cultural heritage is still managed and interpreted within frameworks of regional/national governance. There is, therefore, a need for developing new understandings of cultural heritage that (a) are predominantly about stories of change and transformation rather than continuity and spatial belonging, and (b) express a need for humanity to collaborate globally and overcome national boundaries. Such a paradigm change in cultural heritage will protect and enhance the benefits of cultural heritage for the future in the age of climate change.