The European Cultural Heritage Skills Alliance (CHARTER), funded by Erasmus+ within 2021 and 2024, has released its 12 recommendations, a roadmap for actions that enhance and sustain the heritage sector, by addressing skills gaps, boosting lifelong learning, and fostering professional mobility. Moreover, they aim to ensure equitable career paths and promote comprehensive data analysis and evidence-driven decision- making in sector governance.

These recommendations grunds on 4-years studies and reseaches that demonstrated the lack of visibility and social and economic recognition that suffer the cultural heritage professionals and the sector as a whole. They focus on countering the loss of traditional skills, integrating transversal skills like digital and entrepreneurial expertise, and ensuring access to work-based learning opportunities. They also call for improved quality assurance in education, recognition of non-formal learning, and enhanced data collection for evidence-based policies. With tailored actions for stakeholders at all levels, the roadmap positions heritage as a driver of sustainability, inclusion, and innovation. They will also foster the fundamental potential and agency of heritage, and make evident its contribution to collective and individual identities. This approach not only supports the flourishing of the sector but also aligns with a more integrated and democratic values-based and sustainable future for Europe.

1. Establish skills strategies for the heritage sector for a systemic change
Encourage coordinated skills strategies at the EU, national, and regional levels to align education and labour market demands, ensuring heritage’s role in achieving societal and environmental goals.

2. Counteract the loss of heritage skills
Combat the loss of traditional heritage skills caused by disrupted generational transfers, shrinking markets, and precarious employment. Emphasise their relevance for addressing modern challenges like sustainability and climate resilience.

3. Complement core heritage skills with transversal skills to foster inter- and trans-disciplinarity
Equip heritage professionals with communication, digital, entrepreneurial, and ethical skills alongside core competencies in preservation and governance to navigate evolving challenges and interdisciplinary roles.

4. Offer future-focused education and training
CHARTER identifies eight pathways for adapting or developing curricula: community engagement, sustainability in built heritage, heritage crafts, new heritage conservation, digital heritage, participatory leadership, heritage policy design, and international relations. These pathways address current and future sector demands.

5. Promote a Lifelong Learning area for the heritage sector
Encourage continuing education (CET) to upskill and reskill professionals in areas like digital content creation, conservation, and management, ensuring flexibility to adapt to emerging needs such as AI and digital outreach.

6. Foster the recognition of non-formal and informal prior learning
Expand recognition of skills gained through non-formal and informal methods, such as on-the-job training and traditional crafts, using tools like micro-credentials and validation processes to improve mobility and career access.

7. Ensure work-based learning for professional development and early-career progression
Enhance access to internships and traineeships by improving coordination, offering fair remuneration, and ensuring better integration into education programs to bridge gaps between training and the workplace.

8. Strengthen quality assurance in heritage education and training
Standardise quality assurance in vocational (VET) and continuing education (CET) to ensure consistent standards across the EU, particularly for work-based learning, which is vital for heritage professionals.

9. Strive towards a viable, diverse heritage workforce
Address workforce precarity by improving job stability, promoting gender equality, and increasing representation of disadvantaged groups to foster diversity and resilience in the heritage sector.

10. Foster professional recognition and facilitate mobility
Harmonise standards and improve recognition of qualifications to support the mobility of heritage professionals across the EU, addressing gaps in tools like ESCO and improving alignment with national frameworks.

11. Develop and use robust socio-economic indicators for evidence-based policies
Improve data collection and monitoring using updated methodologies and taxonomies to ensure reliable statistics that reflect the sector’s dimensions and inform effective policymaking.

12. Develop intersectoral cross-pollination of heritage knowledge
Recognise and enhance heritage’s intersection with other sectors like tourism, sustainability, and urban planning, while improving procurement standards to include heritage-related activities and attract skilled professionals.

To explore these recommendations in greater depth, along with detailed insights into the sectors challenges, proposed solutions, and the broader impact of the CHARTER initiative, we invite you to read the full recommendations document. Each recommendation is supported by specific implementation actions, clearly categorised by the relevant stakeholders. Additionally, the document provides detailed sections tailored for recommendations involving the European Union, Member States and Regional Authorities, Education and Training providers, and Heritage institutions and employers, ensuring a comprehensive and actionable roadmap for the sector.

Dive into the full version to understand how CHARTER is shaping a forward-thinking and sustainable future for the heritage ecosystem.

CHARTER Skills Strategy lays out 12 concrete recommendations to strengthen the heritage sector by addressing key gaps in education, training, and labour market needs. These targeted actions aim to ensure sustainability, inclusivity, and innovation while positioning cultural heritage as a driver of social, economic, and environmental progress.

About CHARTER
CHARTER, the European Cultural Heritage Skills Alliance, brings together and represents the whole range of the cultural heritage sector in Europe. The 47 project partners strive towards making apparent the value of cultural heritage and creating a resilient and responsive sector.
CHARTER works towards creating a lasting, comprehensive strategy that will guarantee Europe has the necessary cultural heritage skills to support sustainable societies and economies. The Erasmus+ funded project maps the current and future needs of the sector to bridge the gap of skills shortages and mismatches between the educational and occupational fields.

CHARTER – European Cultural Heritage Skills Alliance (2021-2024) set up the Blueprint for sectoral cooperationon skills for cultural heritage thanks to an Erasmus+ funding. The project’s mission was to sustainably protect, promote, and enhance European cultural heritage by creating a lasting and comprehensive sectoral skills strategy, bridging gaps between education and vocational systems and employers’ needs, and proposing training and curricula for the development of new skills for heritage professionals. As with other Blueprints, CHARTER built on previous work by the European Commission to address sector skills mismatches. EU frameworks such as EQF, ESCO, and EQAVET were analysed to gather information that later fed into EU tools such as CEDEFOP’s Intelligence portal or improved the ESCO platform. The ultimate goal was to develop a sector skills strategy that could be rolled out at national and regional levels. The final skills strategy addressed the needs of the future, integrating transversal competences in the fields of innovation, digitalisation, new technologies, green/blue economies, and sustainability.
CHARTER worked to impact and benefit the following target groups: universities, higher education institutes and academics; VET centres and trainers; students; the cultural heritage industry and professionals; and networks.