Home

Perspectives: The Series Heritage Studies

The academic book series “Heritage Studies” seeks to paradigmatically comprehend and enhance our understanding of the heritage of humanity. The series explores diverse constructions of heritage—ranging from material to immaterial to documentary, from static to dynamic, from individual to social—and presents these explorations in a way that makes heritage and its associated meaning more accessible. One of the series’ most important goals is promoting global awareness about the thematic, content-related and culturally diverse approaches to heritage protection and utilization, as outlined in the UNESCO Conventions and Declarations. The series achieves this by featuring authors and editors from different regions of the world and thus also contributes to the process of decolonizing knowledge in the field of heritage. We have taken significant steps towards this goal with our previous co-edited volumes, all of which display perspectives from across the world. The book, “50 Years World Heritage Convention: Shared Responsibility – Conflict and Reconciliation”, was written by 61 authors from 28 countries and published in open access. In only one year, the book has achieved 195 K downloads, highlighting the success of our inclusive approach. We invite you to publish your visions on the topic of the "Heritage of Humanity" in our series. more ...

Publications: Diversity of our Heritage

Heritage in its significance for human identity and development is a constituent part of the approach of the Institute Heritage Studies and it’s book series. As such, the protection of heritage and its sustainable utilisation is understood and disseminated as a potential for creating identity and peace. This implies a concept of heritage that, in contrast to classical concepts of heritage protection and utilisation, represents the diversity of our world and thus reflects the coexistence of people in diverse trans-social, trans-cultural or trans-political communities.

Recently published:

Cultural Heritage Re-Imagined. A Systemic Approach to Theory, Practice, and Management.

2026 · Editors: Matthias Ripp, Sushobhan Majumdar, Claire Cave · This book offers an innovative perspective on cultural heritage, blending theory, practice, and management through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary lens. It proposes a systemic approach to understanding heritage as a dynamic and evolving entity, emphasizing its interconnectedness with social, cultural, environmental, and technological systems. more ...more→

Heritage Narratives and Experiences. Exploring Conservation, Tourism, and City Identity in Historical Urban Contexts.

2025 · Author: Tianchen Dai · This book examines how visitors, researchers, and authorities perceive the value, authenticity, and atmosphere of heritage in historical cityscapes. It analyzes the narratives created by corresponding stakeholders and sheds light on how such perceptions influence decision-making regarding heritage management, heritage consumption, and the formation of the city's image. more...more→

Perspectives: Heritage and Sustainable Development

At the IHS, Heritage Studies is positioned as a critical discipline that derives interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research questions and topics, explicitly from the constantly changing realities of daily life for the people of the world. This includes positioning the epistemological interest in the context of the world’s diversity, reflecting the cultural diversity in the approaches and methods of heritage studies worldwide without becoming arbitrary as well as developing strategies for the future, for example, for a sustainable approach to heritage. In other words, about the goal is not to gain abstract knowledge but to explicitly conceive heritage studies paradigmatically for human development and to work on this theoretically and practically through projects.

Project: Education for Sustainable Development

Sustainable Heritage Education: From Conceptual Development to Practical Implementation

Heritage education holds significant potential for fostering sustainable development and societal transformation by highlighting the relevance of heritage to contemporary sustainability challenges. We frame sustainable heritage education as a holistic approach that considers both the individual and societal significance of heritage while providing impulses for shaping a sustainable future.

The project develops both a conceptual framework as well as practice-oriented guidelines that systematically link heritage education with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and transformative learning. The project explores heritage as an agent for transformative learning and sustainable development, emphasizing its role as a space for reflection on sustainable action, climate adaptation and broader processes of societal transformation.

„Young Climate Action for World Heritage. Promoting Climate Action and Sustainability in World Heritage Education”

The project publication celebrates the commitment of students to World Heritage and climate action. It highlights project outcomes, offers guidance on student-centred, action-oriented and transformative education as well as a practical toolkit for exploring World Heritage.

Perspectives: Memory of the World

The Documentary Heritage Network (DHN), established within the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) in March 2026, brings together scholars and practitioners of diverse disciplines, regions and levels of experience working with or interested in documents as heritage. Its purpose is to create an international, interdisciplinary community committed to advancing critical engagement with documentary heritage and the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. These have been underrepresented in heritage research and practice.

With its establishment in 2012, the Institute Heritage Studies (IHS) has identified them as key areas of research. It now consolidates and extends this process through its co-director, Anca Claudia Prodan, who initiated the establishment of the DHN, and jointly developed it further with Dominique van de Klundert, Junsu Seo, Tamara Đokić, and Dagnija Baltina. The DHN will be officially inaugurated in a dedicated panel at the biennial ACHS conference, from 29 November to 2 December 2026, in New Zealand