‘Communicating World Heritage’ conference 2017 – registration now open

The Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham and World Heritage UK have joined forces to hold special four-day international meeting at the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site near Telford, Shropshire. The first two days will bring together academics from around the world to discuss research and global policy focusing on the communication of World Heritage Values, from 7-8 October.

This will be followed by the third annual conference of World Heritage UK where practitioners will gather to explore the many ways to communicate World Heritage to different audiences, on 9-10 October.

Together, this joint event will take place at Ironbridge Gorge which, in 1986, became one of the first UK sites to be awarded World Heritage Status by UNESCO.  The designation of Ironbridge Gorge as a World Heritage Site recognised the area’s unique contribution to the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the impact of which was felt across the world. The surviving built and natural environment with its museums, monuments and artefacts, serve to remind us of this area’s unique contribution to the history and development of industrialised society.

From 7-8 October, the conference sessions will explore heritage research and global policy, drawing its themes from an AHRC Collaborative doctoral research project between the AHRC, IIICH and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust which examines the relationships that World Heritage Sites share with different communities of interest, and how World Heritage Values are communicated with these groups. The sessions will focus on sharing and discussing research undertaken by four PhD candidates from the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage (IIICH) at the University of Birmingham, which taken together comprises 12 years of research on a single World Heritage Site, while placing it in combination with comparative and contrasting case studies presented by researchers and practitioners from around the world. The sessions will focus on the following research themes:

·         Education within the World Heritage Site

·         Specialist Groups & World Heritage: Ironbridge Gorge as an Industrial WHS

·         Tourism within Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site

·         The communities of the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site

From 9-10 October, delegates will hear from some of the most influential leaders in Heritage before considering the key audiences to target in a series of session themes which will explore how we can best communicate with ‘Governments and the Public Sector’, talk to ‘Business and Funders’, and address the needs of ‘Young People and Communities’, as well as how we communicate with each other (World Heritage Sites, Europe and the UNESCO family) and with the wider world, including the media.

To see our draft programme, and book your tickets for the conference, please visit our website at:

www.communicatingworldheritage.wordpress.com Don’t forget to take advantage of our early-bird booking discount by 31^st August!

If you are attending the conference as a representative of a World Heritage UK Voting Member organisation, that organisation is entitled to ONE free ticket. For this ticket allocation please register via this Eventbrite page:  https://communicatingworldheritage.eventbrite.co.uk