UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

The Future of the Past: War and Heritage at Golestan Palace

2026-03-11

by Leila Papoli-Yazdi

Golestan Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was severely damaged on 2 March 2026 during the USA–Israel war against Iran. According to Khabaronline (2026), portable artefacts had been transferred to storage during the twelve-day war in June, and only the buildings themselves were affected by the explosions. The palace dates back to the fifteenth century and includes several buildings, gardens, exhibition halls, and galleries. It was used and developed mainly during the Safavid (1501–1736) and Qajar (1789–1925) dynasties, and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2013. It remains the only UNESCO-registered site in the capital city of Iran.

One of the most significant aspects of the palace is its vast archive, which includes more than 60,000 historical photographs, 9000 negatives and videos, and around 1,520 albums. For many years, independent scholars, researchers who do not work for the Iranian state, had great difficulty accessing this archive. In June 2024, however, an anonymous individual or group uploaded part of the photographic collection online (about 3200 photos). Their identity has never been revealed, and it remains unclear how they were able to access, digitize, and publish the albums in the public domain.

When the archive became available, I began to reflect on why access to these materials had been so restricted. The albums contain hundreds of photographs from the late nineteenth century, particularly images from the court and the harem of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (1831–1896) and his many wives. These photographs reveal social norms or communities that the Islamic Republic has long denied or labeled as “westernized”: enslaved people, men holding hands, same-sex lovers, the king’s wives posing semi-nude before his camera, and a society far more complex and diverse than the homogenized image of the past promoted by the state.

Among these albums, one is especially important for understanding the concept of heritage in modern Iran: Album 137. I first learned about this album in 2011 after one of my students (S.) told me she had encountered it in Golestan Palace while she was there for another reason. She mentioned that the album contained photographs related to the archaeological excavations at Susa.

Maryam Dezhamkhooy, S., and I went to the palace to search for it. By chance, we met Dr. Chahriar Adl (1944-2015), an Iranian archaeologist, there. He kindly helped us obtain permission to make copies of the photographs. This was something that would have been nearly impossible without his support.

These photographs were later made public together with the rest of the archive. Album 137 contains 27 photographs related to the excavations at Susa led by Jean-Jacques de Morgan (1857–1924). According to the album’s description page, the photographs were taken in 1899–1900 (1317 A.H.) by a man named Heidar Milani while he was passing through Susa on his return mission from the southwestern province of Iran (Arabestan at the time and now, Khouzestan). In his note, Milani uses the phrase hasab-al amr-e al-a’laa, indicating that he took the photographs following an order from a higher political authority.

People consisting of de Morgan (Figure 2), his assistant (Figure 3), and workers (Figure 4) appear in eleven of the photographs, offering a rare glimpse of how he conducted his excavations. De Morgan, originally a geologist,  used mining techniques to excavate archaeological sites and caused considerable damage to sites in Iran and Egypt, such as Susa. He dug a large tunnel through the main mound at Susa and destroyed the archaeological layers, made big holes that compromised the preservation of the site very difficult till now. Milani’s captions note that the workers visible in the photographs were indigenous Arab inhabitants of the region.

Another revealing detail appears on the cover of the album: a note written by a retired Iranian archaeologist who, after the 1979 revolution, had been responsible for overseeing archaeological institutions (Papoli-Yazdi, 2023). The note is dated 10 April 2011 and records that three other members of the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization and the University of Tehran accompanied him on his visit (which indicates the importance and formality of the visit).

In the photographs where de Morgan appears, he is always positioned at the center. The large groups of local workers surrounding him remain anonymous through the photographer’s lens, or their bodies are only used as a scale to promote the size of an archaeological finding (Figure 5).

French missionaries, antiquarians, and archaeologists played a crucial role in shaping the modern idea of the identity of Iranians as a nation-state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They transformed a largely mythical past into one defined by monuments and archaeological sites such as Susa, without considering the narratives of local communities and indigenous researchers.

During the past century, heritage in Iran has repeatedly been at the center of tensions between state power and nationalist narratives. At times, these two forces have overlapped, jointly marginalizing the perspectives of indigenous communities as well as those of independent researchers. Yet there has always been a third force, colonialism, one whose influence is often denied by both the state and nationalist discourse. Iranian nationalism frequently frames the country’s heritage as exceptional and uniquely its own, leaving little room to acknowledge external structures of power.

Today, however, the role of colonialism is bolder. The buildings of Golestan Palace have been damaged by explosions for the first time in their long history, despite standing in the center of a city that has endured Russian imperial influence, revolutions, coups, invasion by Allies, and two world wars.

However, Golestan Palace is not merely a collection of buildings. It also houses one of the largest historical archives in the world, whose preservation ensures the possibility of recovering at least part of the past, which has been mainly written by the states and colonizers; the preservation of this archive allows the denied and ignored heritage and past to be reinterpreted, re-narrated, and rewritten in the future. The destruction of Golestan Palace will transform the future of the past.

This destruction raises new questions about the future of the palace and its archive, as well as the future of archaeological narratives and the history of the heritage idea in Iran. Where is the archive? Is it possible that authorities/colonizers destroy unwanted parts of it? Will independent researchers be able to access the materials of Golestan Palace in the future? Or will the next political order conceal, reinterpret, or selectively reveal them in order to shape a new narrative in the future about Iran’s heritage and the history of archaeology within the country?

Leila Papoli-Yazdi
Archaeologist of the contemporary past and Garbologist and member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures

leila.papoli-yazdi@garbonomix.com

References:

Khabaraonline (2nd March 2026) Golestan Palace damaged in airstrike. https://www.khabaronline.ir/ (in Persian)

Papoli-Yazdi, L. (2023) Confessions of a Green Notebook: Reading Unpublished Documents About the Oppression of Iranian Archaeology Professors During the 1980s. Archaeologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-022-09468-9

Captions:

Figure 1- Debris at the historical monument Golestan Palace after it was damaged in an Israeli and U.S. strike, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 3, 2026. Photographer: Majid Asgaripour

(https://www.admiddleeast.com/story/irans-unesco-listed-golestan-palace-damaged-in-us-israeli-air-strikes)

Figure 2 – The caption reads: “Monsieur de Morgan, himself giving instructions to the workers” (photo 137-7-1, from Album 137). Photographer: Heidar Milani.

Figure 3 – The caption reads: “The man with the black hat is Monsieur de Morgan, and the man with the white hat is Monsieur Jacquier (?), present at the work taking place in the mentioned ditch” (photo 137-7-4, Album 137). Photographer: Heidar Milani.

Figure 4 – The caption reads: “Arab workers digging the mentioned ditch” (photo 137-10-1, from Album 137). Photographer: Heidar Milani.

Figure 5- Victory of Naram-Sin over the mountain tribe of the Lullubi and their king Satuni, Louvre. The caption describes the scene of the stele (photo 137-13, from Album 137). Photographer: Heidar Milani.

Heritage for Global Challenges

2026-03-06

Cornelius Holtorf visited the Leverhulme Heritage for Global Challenges Research Centre established in 2022 at the University of York, UK. All the Centre’s work “begins from the premise that there is an urgent need to develop new ways of thinking about and managing heritage.”

The Leverhulme Centre is housed in the historic King’s Manor building and led by Professor Emma Waterton (centre) and Dr Hayley Saul (right).

During the morning, Holtorf met 14 researchers at the Centre to discuss their ongoing research. Later gave a lecture entitled “Decolonising the Future: From Preserving Memory across Generations to Sustaining the (Re-)Generation of Memory” for a combined physical and digital audience of around 50 (5-6 March 2026).

Becoming human in the age of AI

2026-03-04

Anders Högberg published a paper in which he discusses the significance of Artificial General Intelligence in the context of human cognitive co-evolution.

ABSTRACT: This perspective article brings to focus the unpredictable trajectory of AI-human cognitive co-evolution. Challenging the notion of a fixed ‘Stone Age brain’, it emphasizes the adaptive and plastic nature of human cognition shaped by millions of years of technological engagement. Underlining the need for anticipatory thinking, it asks: What do we need to know now, to be able to recognize what people need to understand in a yet unexplored future of AI-human cognitive co-evolution? Rather than presenting empirical findings, this theoretical and exploratory piece seeks to stimulate reflection and dialog on how AI’s integration into human life may transform our notions of humanness, as AI systems are reshaping human cognition, relationships, and socio-technical practices.

Högberg asks: how might AI-human collaboration redefine future understandings of what it means to be human?

Högberg, A. 2026. Becoming human in the age of AI: cognitive co-evolutionary processes. Frontiers in Psychology, 16:1734048. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1734048

Humanity’s Uranium

2026-02-24

Claudio Pescatore gave a research seminar for 20 staff and students at the Linnaeus University Centre for the Environment (CENWIN) in Kalmar, Sweden.

The title of his talk was “Humanity’s Uranium as a Planetary Liability – Its Chemical and Radiological Toxicity, Ecological Debt, and the Governance Gap.” Here is a 10-point summary:

  • Uranium in the Earth’s crust belongs to geology: dispersed, buffered, and governed by natural timescales.
  • Once extracted, it leaves geology and enters history — becoming part of human systems, decisions, and liabilities.
  • Less than 1% is fissioned for energy; more than 99% remains as a long-lived material stock.
  • Uranium is not consumed — it is redistributed into tailings, depleted uranium, fuels, and wastes.
  • Its decay chain regenerates over time, while the uranium parent remains essentially undepleted.
  • The hazard is therefore persistent, combining chemical mobility and radiological renewal.
  • Remediation can manage flux and exposure, but it does not erase the underlying inventory.
  • Dilution depends on finite environmental buffering capacity and cannot be a durable solution.
  • Long-term safety requires working with natural processes — containment, geochemical stability, and stewardship — rather than assuming closure against them.
  • A sustainability debate that ignores this enduring, mobilised uranium inventory rests on an incomplete material accounting.

Decolonising the future

2026-02-21

Cornelius Holtorf was invited to present the 9th Annual Heritage Lecture at the Cambridge Heritage Research Centre, University of Cambridge, UK (20 February 2026). In front of an audience of 60+ students and researchers in cultural heritage he gave a lecture on decolonising the future:

Decolonising the Future: From Preserving Memory across Generations to Sustaining the (Re-)Generation of Memory

Resprouting tree in front of the Ishinomaki Kadonowaki Elementary School

The field of ‘heritage futures’ explores the roles cultural heritage plays in negotiating relations between present and future societies. In many contemporary contexts, cultural heritage is to be preserved explicitly for the benefit of future generations. Such efforts are typically grounded in the assumption that present-day values and narratives of heritage will be shared and appreciated in the future. The preservation of cultural heritage may indeed create benefits, much as a less polluted, better preserved, and more sustainable natural environment is likely to benefit those who come after us. Implicitly, we expect our preservation practices to ensure that we will be remembered as good ancestors.

Yet to what extent do the tangible and intangible legacies we leave behind constitute attempts to establish control over future human (and indeed some non-human) beings? Does heritage preservation inadvertently colonize those who will live in the future by imposing our present-day values and priorities upon them? If so, is this problematic in ways comparable to the colonisation of living peoples in the past, a legacy with which we are still grappling today? Do we therefore need to decolonize the future?

I address this challenge by asking how we might make sense of the past through memory in a world where the future is not what it used to be. Two case-studies will help me to explore what this shift may entail. Both concern forms of memory and heritage created in the present to benefit the future, and both relate to nuclear power, a domain that has long provoked existential questions about the future of humanity. First, I examine the memorialisation of the 3/11 disaster, following the major earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan’s northeastern coast in 2011 and led to the nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Second, I consider strategies designed to preserve awareness of nuclear waste repositories across many generations and for up to one million years.

In conclusion, I invite the audience to consider an alternative approach to heritage futures that may, in fact, reflect how memory has always functioned (because the future may never have been what it used to be). I propose moving away from present-day strategies aimed at transmitting memory unchanged across generations, towards an acceptance of continuous processes of (re-)generating memory and the changes this entails. My point is that it may not be the values we currently ascribe to heritage that endure over time, but rather the processes through which heritage is continually revalued. Can and should such a post-preservational approach contribute to decolonizing the future?

Uranium: What We Leave Behind Comes First

2026-02-20

Uranium, heritage futures, and environmental assessment

When uranium is discussed, the conversation usually starts with risk: toxicity, radiation, standards, limits. But risk is not the beginning of the story.

Before uranium becomes a health concern, it becomes something else:
◻︎ a long-lived inheritance.

Heritage is whatever persists beyond us and must be dealt with by those who follow. Some of it is chosen. Much of it is not. Industrial societies, in particular, generate large amounts of unintentional material heritage: substances, residues, and infrastructures that remain active long after their usefulness — and often their caretakers — are gone. Uranium belongs squarely in that category.

Long before we calculate doses to people or compliance margins, uranium has already become a durable inheritance that future societies must manage. This is where heritage futures and environmental assessment intersect.

Why Risk Frameworks Matter — but Come Later

Because uranium persists, institutions attempt to manage it through risk frameworks.

Historically, these frameworks have made a clear division:

▸ uranium → treated mainly as a chemical toxicant
▸ radium → treated as the radiological concern

This separation is deeply embedded in regulations, monitoring programs, and safety assessments. It has also shaped how responsibility is understood and communicated across time. But it carries an implicit assumption:

▹ that radium, not uranium, controls radiological ingestion risk.

What the Research Shows

In my latest paper, published in Science of the Total Environment, I tested this assumption directly. Two key results emerge:

▸ Uranium is not radiologically negligible, even where international guideline values are fully respected.

▸ Dose delivery is controlled by mobility, and groundwater systems are typically charged far more with uranium than with radium.

In other words, although radium is more radiotoxic per decay, uranium often dominates radiological ingestion risk simply because there is much more of it dissolved in water.

Why This Matters for Heritage — Not Just Compliance

Seen through a heritage lens, this result has a deeper meaning. The continued use of radium as a universal proxy for uranium-related radiological risk is not just a technical shortcut. It is a legacy assumption, inherited from earlier regulatory cultures.

That assumption:

▸ fragments what is chemically and physically unified,
▸ hides part of the long-term burden, and
▸ narrows how responsibility is framed across generations.

Turning the Perspective Around

The main message is not that past frameworks were wrong. It is that the material heritage we have created no longer fits comfortably within them.

Uranium is not just the parent of radium in a decay chain. In water-mediated environments, it often becomes the parent of dose — and therefore of risk.

Recognizing this does not overturn radiological protection. It strengthens its internal coherence. And, more importantly, it clarifies what kind of heritage we are actually passing on — material, persistent, ethical, and administrative, and inescapably shared with the future.

Further Reading

C. Pescatore (2026). Integrating uranium radiological ingestion risk into environmental safety assessment alongside radium.
Science of the Total Environment, 1011, 181055.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.181055

Claudio Pescatore
Claudio Pescatore is a member of the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University

Hopemaking

2026-02-04

As many as four of us (Emily Hanscam, Gustav Wollentz, Marcy Rockman and Cornelius Holtorf) participated actively in a stimulating workshop in Höör (Scania, Sweden) on Hopemaking, bringing together artists, an art curator, and scholars at Linnaeus University in English Literature and us in Archaeology with different agendas exploring common ground.

The project explores hopemaking as a way of countering the paralyzing predisposition to imagine future disaster as inevitable and of nurturing alternative cultures of hope and resilience. In the project, we collaborate with three local artists and Kalmar Art Museum in the context of their exhibition entitled “Survival Kit”.


Particularly exciting was to meet the two artists behind Kultivator, Malin and Mathieu. In their experimental work, they combine art with agriculture. For our project, they are keen to contribute to hopemaking by visualizing different futures. We are very excited! 🙂

New histories for new futures

2026-01-11

Historian Sandra Mass reflected in an important new book on Zukünftige Vergangenheiten (Future Pasts) on what it means, and could mean, to be writing history in the Anthropocene. This is a timely topic very relevant to the concept of ‘heritage futures,’ for it addresses ‘history futures’. By that I do not only (even mainly) mean the future of researching and teaching history, as she mostly does, but rather the significance today of composing stories of the past that enhance people’s capacity of meeting the challenges of the future (but see her discussion on p. 46-7). As I see it, the primary question is not which future pasts (i.e. descriptions of our present) future historians should be presenting but which present and future histories (i.e. accounts of the past) are most likely to benefit future presents.

This does not mean that the future and people’s future needs are predetermined and can be foreseen. But Mass agrees as well that the future is no longer entirely open either, as climate change and nuclear waste, for example, create facts that reduce future human options (p. 33, 103-4). Following Zoltán Simon, it may even be that humanity as such will be threatened in an entirely novel future taking the hit of climate change, nuclear war, and/or artificial intelligence (p. 106). What does that possible prospect mean for future history, potentially lacking significance in an altogether different reality? Could history in such a world cease to exist even without humanity to end (p. 107)?

The end of history? An illustration of the present text by ChatGPT.

Sandra Mass writes particularly convincing and insightful in her extensive discussion of “More-Than-Human-History,” an emerging focus that is particularly pertinent for understanding the Anthropocene and goes far beyond existing environmental history. Such a non-anthropocentric history will be helpful for placing Homo Sapiens into a larger planetary perspective fostering much needed insights and understandings of past, present, and future realities that can push the historic disciplines beyond many past agendas that are possibly losing in significance.

In this context, what Mass missed is not only the many obvious (to me anyway) links to Archaeology and the work of archaeologists. Clearly, she is aware of the potential of archaeology (p. 35) and considers it easy to integrate archaeology and some other neighbouring disciplines into historical agendas (p. 179-80). Fine! More seriously is her omission of the significance of heritage and history culture (Geschichtskultur) for addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene.

Prominent scholars in historically oriented disciplines (including Pierre Nora, David Lowenthal, and Ian Hodder) argued that in a societal perspective, the significance of cultural heritage (and purposefully constructed sites of memory) has been superseding that of history (and living memory of the past). What will matter in future societies, I therefore suggest, is not primarily the extent to which scholarly knowledge will be able to represent important historical path dependencies during our and subsequent presents. Instead, what will matter more is the extent to which stories about the past manifested in cultural heritage relate, or will relate, to people’s lives and inform human behaviour by expressing and reinforcing particular collective identities, values, and mindsets that may or may not be in the best interest of future generations.

I argue therefore that historians, archaeologists, and others have important roles in shaping the future by giving attention to heritage futures now: the role of heritage in managing the relations between present and future societies.

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

Various activities October – December 2025

2025-12-31

Cornelius Holtorf participated in the World Heritage Council Meeting for the World Heritage property Agricultural Landscape of Southern Öland, Mörbylånga, Sweden (3 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting in Yokohama with Noboru Takamura, Director of The Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum, Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, to discuss heritage futures in the narrative of the museum (8 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting in Yokohama with Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Kyoto University of Advanced Science, to discuss his concept and practice of Future Design and how it relates both to heritage futures and to futures literacy (8 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf took part in the annual meeting of the Academic Advisory Board of the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology (LEIZA) in Mainz, Germany. He also chaired a meeting about a joint book project of the Board (15-17 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf contributed ideas about “The power of culture to advance intergenerational fairness” to the EU Citizens’ Engagement Platform informing policy-making on Intergenerational Fairness (25 October 2025). See https://citizens.ec.europa.eu/participation/processes/intergenerational-fairness/f/134/proposals/26071 .

Anders Högberg and Cornelius Holtorf started a course at Linnaeus University on Futures Literacy for Humanities Research (4.5 HEC) for nine research students from various Swedish Universities including Uppsala University, Malmö University and Linnaeus University. The introductory day on 27 October 2025 featured, among others, two lectures on aspects of heritage futures and futures literacy. The remainder of the course included supervision and a final seminar where the students’ work was presented and discussed.

Cornelius Holtorf lectured for three hours on “Cultural and heritage tourism – making choices for the future” for ten mostly international students taking the advanced-level course on Tourism and Sustainability in the Anthropocene 15 hec in Tourism and Recreation Studies at Linnaeus University, Kalmar (28 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting with representatives of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation in Abu Dhabi about a new project they are developing in “Emirati Futurism”, a distinct way for shaping the future involving the arts, culture and heritage (29 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting about Future Archaeology with Robert Duffley, Caitlin Nasema Cassidy and Helene Larsson Pousette in relation to a project entitled “Ungovernable” they are developing at Linnaeus University (30 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf lectured for two hours on “Background for Fieldwork on tourism in southern Öland” for twelve mostly international students taking the advanced-level course on Tourism and Sustainability in the Anthropocene 15 hec in Tourism and Recreation Studies at Linnaeus University, Kalmar (30 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf gave an invited online lecture entitled “Heritage Futures – what it is and why it matters” for MA and Doctoral students as well as researchers at the Centre for Heritage Revitalization and Sustainable Tourism Development linked to the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Tourism in UNESCO Designated Sites at Fudan University, Shanghai, China (31 October 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting with Rune Bjerkestrand and Bendik Bryde of the Arctic World Archive Foundation in Norway (3 November 2025). With their origins in the tech company Piql, their mission is to “preserve the world’s memory — securely, sustainably and freely accessible to all for generations to come.”

Cornelius Holtorf discussed informally future collaboration at the interface of heritage futures and cultural tourism with Professor Chaozhi Zhang, Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Tourism in UNESCO Designated Sites at Fudan University, Shanghai, China (4 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf presented an invited lecture on “Towards a Future Agenda for the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland” for around 90 local and regional participated at the annual Knowledge Day for the Word Heritage property Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland 2025, Bollnäs, Sweden (5 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf presented an invited Inspirational Lecture on “Applying archaeology to solving challenges of present and future society: the significance of intersectoral collaboration and interdisciplinary methodologies” for cirka 80 Doctoral students and their supervisors from various disciplines and many Swedish Universities during the first Jubilee Doctoral Students network meeting of the Knowledge Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden (6 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf gave an invited online lecture for 20+ Japanese researchers entitled “Heritage Futures – what it is and why it matters” as the Canon Institute for Global Studies Future Design Workshop #88, hosted by the Future Design Research Center, Kyoto University of Advanced Science, Kyoto, Japan (7 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an online meeting with Sofia Wikelid, researcher for Swedish Television’s planned programme on The Future in Sweden (11 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf gave a talk entitled “From Loss and Damage to Offering Solutions for the Future” at the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research, University of Linköping (13 November 2025).

Anders Högberg svarade på en Remiss om förslag till aktualiserad kulturmiljöstrategi för Kronobergs län 2026–2030 – Kulturmiljöer i en föränderlig tid (14 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf and Anders Högberg contributed to Linnaeus University’s Remisssvar till Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten concerning SKB’s Fud-research program for 2025 (14 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf hosted a guest lecture on “Mind the Gap” by Vicky Karaiskou, Chairholder, UNESCO Chair on Visual Anticipation and Futures Literacy towards Visual Literacy, Open University of Cyprus, in the context of a Doctoral Course at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities on Futures Literacy for Humanities Research, held (18 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf ran a Heritage Futures Workshop at a conference on Charting New Horizons for Education for Sustainable Development, organized by VolkswagenStiftung, German Commission for UNESCO and German Rectors’ Conference in Hannover, Germany (20 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf was invited to the Cultural Heritage Forum 2025 of the Cultural Heritage Academy to attend an afternoon at the University of Gothenburg dedicated to a discussion of the cultural canon for Sweden. He presented a talk entitled “Future canon – from historical to future-oriented frames of reference” and participated in a panel with, among others, Lars Trägårdh who had led the government’s Commission to suggest the content of such a cultural canon for Sweden (27 November 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf had an informal meeting on “past-futuring” with Sophia Labadi, Professor of Cultural Heritage at the University of Kent, in Paris, France (1 December 2025).

During World Futures Day (2 December 2025) at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, Cornelius Holtorf had informal conversations with, among others, Clare Stark, Head of Unit for Foresight and Futures Literacy, SSH; Keith Holmes, Research Coordinator UNITWIN, Education; Maya Prince, UNESCO Chairs manager, Education; Karalyn Monteil, Head of Unit, Culture and Emergencies, Culture; Irakli Khodeli, new Head of Department, UNESCO MOST, SSH; Khaled El-Enany, new Director General for UNESCO.

Cornelius Holtorf submitted comments on the draft version of the ICOMOS International Charter for the Conservation of Earthen Architectural Heritage (10 December 2025).

Cornelius Holtorf participated in the Long-term Governance Network Meeting about ‘Long-term governance and wellbeing economics’ arranged by the School of International Futures (SOIF), featuring Katherine Trebek, Australia (political economist, writer and advocate for economic system change), Gareth Hughes, New Zealand (Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa), and Mads Falkenfleth, Denmark (Wellbeing Economy Lab) (11 December 2025).