On 12th June 2025, the second Transnational Project Meeting of the NICHE 2 project took place in Pescara, Italy, at the headquarters of IDP European Consultants, a partner of the project consortium. The meeting brought together representatives from all partner organisations to review progress, discuss key findings, and plan the next steps of this strategic European initiative
The NICHE 2 project, under the reference number 2024-1-IS01-KA220-VET-000243941, is a Cooperation Partnership in the field of Vocational Education and Training (VET), co-financed by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission. The project aims to empower practitioners in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate and lead the green and digital transition in alignment with sustainable development goals. Building on the success of the previous NICHE initiative, NICHE 2 promotes capacity-building through tailored training resources, fostering innovation and sustainability across the cultural heritage ecosystem.
During the meeting, project partners worked collaboratively on the needs assessment phase (Work Package 2), a key component of the project designed to identify the challenges and training requirements faced by cultural sector professionals in adopting sustainable practices. This mapping exercise was conducted at both national levels in consortium countries — Croatia, France, Spain, Italy and Iceland — and at a broader European level. Together, the partners analysed the results of this assessment to define the skills and topics that will shape the NICHE 2 training course to be developed in the coming months. Specifically, the results highlighted that climate change considerations are still rarely integrated into cultural heritage policymaking, and conversely, cultural heritage remains largely absent from climate policy discussions, both at the EU and national levels.
The research has also revealed several key gaps that hinder the alignment of ICH practices with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to climate action (SDG 13), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12):
- Many cultural institutions lack personnel trained in sustainability planning, energy efficiency, or environmental impact assessment;
- Practitioners are often unfamiliar with available tools or innovations that could support sustainable transitions, due in part to weak links with the innovation and start-up ecosystem;
- There is a shortage of leadership and governance skills needed to embed sustainability into core cultural processes and decision-making;
- A critical gap exists in understanding the environmental cost of digitalization, which can contradict decarbonization goals if not managed consciously;
In the coming months, the consortium will present these findings to cultural sector stakeholders —the primary target group of the project — in order to co-design innovative training solutions that directly respond to their real-world needs. Additionally, the meeting served as a platform to coordinate further project activities, including the development of a sustainability-promoting network, dissemination and communication strategies, project management planning, and quality assurance processes.
For more information, visit the NICHE project’s official website at https://www.nicheproject.eu/index.php or contact our team via email at nicheproject2@gmail.com
