Sustainable Management of Cultural Landscapes

The key goal of the project is to improve the societal ability to operate stewardship, management and sustainable development of cultural landscapes, by establishing a joint framework for master’s education and training of professional managers for conservation of cultural landscapes and regional development. The present educational situation does not sufficiently meet the need for integrating different core subjects such as natural conservation, cultural conservation, urban and land-use planning, to name a few.A classical definition of ‘cultural landscape’ is a landscape fashioned from a natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent, the natural area the medium, the cultural landscape the result. Following the European Landscape Convention formulated in 2000, ‘landscape’ means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors and covers:- natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It includes: - land, inland water and marine areas. It concerns:- outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes.This project is theoretically contextualised following the classical definition, and has its problem formulation and application orientation guided by the ELC. The project is thus interdisciplinary in character combining conservation of cultural assets and natural resources into one holistic system where preservation, remediation and sustainable development are integrated. The objectives are:•to formulate a master’s structure for interdisciplinary education based on a number of jointly shared premises,•to perform case studies covering the full extent of the interdisciplinary range of the master’s structure, and edit all case studies into a digital didactic resource for both education and professional practice.•to develop an Internet-based land-use decision support system, for both education and professional practice.•to establish an Internet-based platform providing open access to the didactic and practice oriented resources developed in the project.The broad overarching intent is not only to reach achievements and results ending this project, but rather achieve long-lasting activity with this project as the initial phase.The members of the partnership are:European Ecocycles Society (ECyS), HungaryGaia Education, Findhorn Scotland, UKHungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Georgikon Campus, HungaryInstitut Polytechnique Unilasalle, École de Metiers L'environnement, Bruz, FranceLake Balaton Development Coordination Agency (LBDCA), Siófok, HungaryMendel University, Brno, Czech Republic Slovak Agricultural University, Nitra, SlovakiaUniversity College of Tourism and Ecology (WSTiE), Sucha Beskidzka, PolandUniversity of Applied Sciences Dresden, GermanyUniversity of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden (coordinating institution)University of Palermo, ItalyUniversity of Pécs, HungaryUniversitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Catalonia, SpainFor the different contributions by the partners, see scetion 5.The driving activity of the project has been around 100 case studies on diverse aspects of integrated approaches to landscapes and their sustainable development. The formulation and operation of the cases has also resulted in a number of organisations established as de facto associated partners. A principal structure of subjects to be covered on master’ studies level has been formulated as the agreed base for development of the master’s structure among the partners. Initially a fully developed master’s program will be launched by the University of Palermo with the support of the project partners through contribution of lectures but also courses as electable resources to the Palermo program.The SUMCULA-project is in principle based on a former Erasmus+ project that resulted in The European Ecocycles Society (EES). For the continuation, the SUMCULA-project will be integrated within the framework of EES and be made publically available through the Internet-site of EES. Thereby availability will be provided to the master’s activities in terms of program and courses, the knowledge bank that represents a dynamic anthology of case studies and editorial texts, and the software for land-use decision support. Through EES all case studies has been or will be openly accessible through the journal Ecocycles. The long-term benefits of the project aims at establishing a creative meeting place between the academia and the practice field where heritage perspectives – whether natural or cultural – are regarded as assets and necessities to reach a sustainable development of all kinds of landscapes. This will be achieved through expanding the SUMCULA activities through the EES network to include new organisations, institutions, and activities on different societal levels, into cooperation in education, in research, and in professional practices.