Research and Heritage
Within the Directorate-General for Heritage, the Department for Scientific Policy and Research Steering (DPRPS) coordinates, via a research committee, the sectoral policies of the various heritage departments (museum, archives, historical monuments, archaeology) and elaborates a transversal policy of the research on the heritages and ensures the dissemination of the results.
The challenges of heritage research are linked to the three main stages of the heritage process:
- the census and study,
- conservation and restoration,
- mediation (valorization).
The research is organized around a few major axes:
- identification and history of works and heritage elements;
- renewal of knowledge of materials;
- taking environmental imperatives into account: green conservation, the impact of climate change on heritage;
- analysis of the forms of relation to the past and the temporalities generated by heritage: processes and places of heritage studied under their anthropological, sociological, legal, economic aspects, etc. ;
- investigation of new heritage domains, including intangible cultural heritage, its constitution, knowledge and transmission;
- development of dematerialisation schemes for funds, collections and sites;
- contribution to the provision and preservation of research data;
- development of new modes of mediation, including digital, study of audiences;
- analysis of the effects of tension between globalization and individual approach to heritage, co-construction of heritage (participatory arrangements) at different territorial scales.
