Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be with you today. And, well, during the last years, UNESCO has been promoting initiatives in different regions. For instance, in 2017 in Montevideo in Latin America and the creation of the Asia-Pacific Education Network for Safeguarding ICH in order to advance teaching, research, community services. Moreover, in 2018, UNESCO conducted a survey on ICH in African universities and found out that only one program focused on ICH. However, there are multiple programs related to it. Well, being NCAT, the European Network of Cultural Management and Policy, and having the consultative status with UNESCO, this is a great opportunity for the organization to participate in such debate. NCAT has already worked on ICH-related issues. The organization has produced a mapping on which it was found out that 1,047 educational programs throughout Europe include ICH subjects and which additionally includes recommendations to integrate ICH in higher educational curricula, knowledge sharing, cross-disciplinary pollination, and cross-assessment of policies enlisting the needs of the job market. Here you have the map of Europe, and you have to bear in mind that as any research, there are some limitations. You can see that those countries with the borders in white, the research was carried out in the official languages, and those ones in red only in English, so I'm sure that there will be more programs in the official languages. But at least it provides us with a picture. Well, if we look a little bit closer, we can see that there is a total of 146 programs at all levels that have been found containing ICH subjects, meaning that those subjects or modules contain the term ICH or an equivalent in their title. And you can see the big presence of those programs in countries such as Turkey, Germany, or France. Well, if we look closer, we see that some of those subjects specifically contain the term ICH in their title. Here you can see the title of those subjects. You can see that there are general approaches like introduction to ICH or very specific subtopics. Also, you can see the framework, the program title. They are different ones. Some of them, for example, belong to human sciences and areas like communication, history, ethnology, and so on. And you can also see that the types of programs are of different levels, undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Well, here you can see more examples. And you can also see in this graph the different programs with ICH in title, that they are not so many. Those are all the programs that we found in Europe, okay? And you can see the level of those programs. Most of them are master's, postgraduate programs, but there are some that are also at the bachelor level as well as the PhD programs. As closing remarks of this mapping that we carry out in Europe, I can say that the number of programs involving ICH is significantly high. 3,179 over 1,000 programs analyzed in the mapping in the 45 countries. 146 programs have been found across those countries which include subjects dealing with ICH. And only 36 subjects solely focus on ICH. I can also say that the term ICH is barely used. They use other terms. And only French universities across all the analyzed countries use the term patrimon immaterial. And there are only four programs containing the term ICH in their title. Well, I'm sure that this brings opportunities for further discussion, but now I would like to focus on the topics of this presentation. In order to gather information for today, what we did is the 17th of July, we organized a talk with our members. We invited them to talk like a focus group and try to gather information, real and fresh information, in order to answer the following questions that you can see on the screen. I will start with the first one. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the life of higher education networks, our members, and the individuals and professionals for ICH safeguarding? From their experience, NCAT members agreed that universities had to turn all their higher educational programs into an online format. However, now higher educational institutions are preparing for a blended format, which would allow students to maintain engagement with each other easily than if full online programs were pursued. Also, one example of creative professionals joining forces during these times is that of designers, who have started to create academies as an alternative to their usual tasks in order to share knowledge. However, another relevant issue raised during the discussion is the international contingency. If students only come from domestic circles, this may be problematic, since it may affect many universities where the international students' body is growing. Moreover, ICH studies research involves fieldwork, and this has been particularly problematic for students writing their thesis. In the same line, the field of culture involves participatory work, personal contact, and travel. Therefore, these issues will have to be rethought, given the uncertain length of the COVID-19 circumstances. Depending on the fieldwork concerns, we also have to think about what happens with communities safeguarding on ICH. It is now more than ever important to provide informal educational and teaching to these groups, because they have become quite isolated. Therefore, it is our task now as well as to think what to do and reorganize this contact and flow of info between universities and communities. At the city level, safeguarding ICH is also becoming a challenge nowadays, since, for instance, local festivals cannot be celebrated. And this is also tradition and part of the city's role in safeguarding ICH. Well, regarding the following question, in terms of technical conditions and resource availability, I have to say that NCAP members consider this issue entails a double take, since the situation will vary if we compare communities with higher education institutions. Resources available in higher education institutions will also be different depending on the country's capabilities. Do all universities in Europe have the same availability to resources? It is difficult to address issues of teaching at higher education institutions and then the ICH situation in general. One thing depends on the other to a certain extent, but problems and how to address them are not necessarily similar. Well, regarding how do active networks contribute to increasing young people's interest, I would like to say that in general terms, it is believed that young people involved in ICH activities are already enrolled in ICH or similar studies. Otherwise, it does not seem clear whether participants in such activities, although coming from different sectors and working areas, are really engaged in the activities because they are aware that they are contributing to the safeguarding of ICH. With regards to this matter, NCAP members consider it very important to rethink how to approach these activities to the younger audience, how to make them appealing for young people to contribute. As a successful example, I would like to point out the Maastricht University, the City Hall and the province of Limburg did a cooperation project by which young design students from different European countries were brought to the city of Maastricht, which has an ICH label. The idea was to encourage them to think about Europe and create something of value. And in the end, these students, inspired by the Maastricht Treaty, created a common European fashion program. Therefore, this was inspired by ICH, but portrayed in a different manner. And maybe this is what young students need most in order to feel engaged, to participate in ICH activities. I remember that one NCAP member also raised the importance of making sure we, as cultural professionals, do not open the gap between generations since the situation in the European Union is not the same as in other parts of the world. Well, in order to gather information about how do higher education networks for ICH safeguarding build a relationship with communities, traditional barriers, the larger public in general, we also asked our members and they put different examples on how this is being carried out at the moment. As highlighted in the western part of France, the link with communities, which are most safeguarding ICH, is rather achieved through the office du patrimoine culturel immaterial, done from regional universities. However, this office also offers university courses. Therefore, it certainly plays an important role between communities and universities. Another example set is that of universities closely working with UNESCO on safeguarding the textile tradition of making silk. This is part of a project of cultural tourism in which a connection between different stakeholders is established within the same project. And in terms of the fifth question that we chose, on this occasion NCAP members also show the importance of finding bridges between topics that can bring new perspectives and raise awareness of ICH. One way to achieve so is by doing joint projects of different areas. For instance, even though UNESCO normally organizes a single forum focused on World Heritage, now this has been mixed with the Young Researchers Forum on ICH. On this project, World Heritage young professionals were informed on ICH and they had no notions of its own communities. Therefore, this has been an eye-opener experience for them. Younger generations are not learning at home certain knowledge that does not necessarily come naturally today. Therefore, it is our task to raise their awareness of ICH and its importance since lots of cultural creation, production, communication involves interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity knowledge. Therefore, the question is how to group ICH into different sections in order to make it accessible to the audience. Lastly, I would like to make this conclusion that having a universal model or practice to spread knowledge on ICH is rather complicated. But what is important is to keep in mind the human creativity and the possibility of change and evolution. Cultural heritage was a creation at the time. We tend to forget that we call now cultural heritage was first an answer to a problem and it was a creation. It is important to understand where we come from and this can also help engage the younger generations. Thank you so much for your attention.