Networked Heritage
Heritage shapes how people identify with the places they live, work and play. A publication from the RSA, in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund
Heritage shapes how people identify with the places they live, work and play. Yet a role for heritage is frequently missing in conversations and plans for how we want places to develop into the future.
Our recommendations are for heritage organisations large and small to become more open and better connected — both within organisations and between organisations; within the heritage sector and beyond. This will support pro-active heritage citizens to step up as producers, participants and co-commissioners in managing and using heritage — already evident in many instances across the UK. We want to see a broad, inclusive and dynamic heritage model that delivers valuable, discernible social impacts. We call this ‘networked heritage’.
Networked heritage means having sufficient connections in a place for heritage to be understood as and treated as a common public resource — drawn upon and enhanced by the full diversity of citizens and organisations. The role of the heritage sector will still include facilitating access to heritage assets, but it is by enabling others to integrate heritage into their thinking and their actions that networked heritage can have a transformative impact on people and places, helping communities create heritage for themselves.
Explore our Networked Heritage publication
The 5 principles of Networked Heritage:
