MESH-In
A mesh emerges when threads meet, cross, tangle and hold together, generating a relational pattern and becoming more resilient than any thread alone. Follow MESH-In as it takes shape! Add a thread!
Summary
“Merging Engagements with Synergies in Heritage - Initiative”, for short MESH-In, conceived and led by the Institute Heritage Studies (IHS) is a long-term, large-scale, partnership-based undertaking, building on twenty-five years of work across heritage policy, research, education, and practice. It brings together two complementary approaches to heritage synergies: UNESCO’s policy-driven efforts to enhance coherence across its standard-setting instruments; and practice‑based synergies that arise naturally from engagement with heritage.
Its added value lies in its focus on outcomes emerging organically from practice, its holistic understanding of heritage extending across policy types, and its flexible partnership model. MESH-In continues the legacy of Prof. Dr. Marie‑Theres Albert (1948-2026).
Rationale
In recent years, UNESCO has increasingly highlighted the importance of heritage synergies as a means to strengthen the implementation of its standard-setting tools. This policy-driven agenda focuses on improving coordination across the system by aligning procedures, harmonizing tools, and promoting holistic approaches, as outlined in various policy statements. Independently of these, the IHS, through its long-term work observed that synergies emerge naturally from heritage practice itself, where diverse actors, with different understandings and motivations interact. These practice-based synergies emerge from local realities but generate forms of cooperation that directly lead to UNESCO’s policy goals. MESH-In brings these two trajectories into dialogue, demonstrating how practice-based synergies can support policy-driven approaches, leading to more integrated and effective heritage protection. The relevance of practice-based synergies lies in their potential to reinforce multiple strands of UNESCO’s agenda at the same time, advance policy priorities, and connect local knowledge with global frameworks.
MESH-In has been conceived and designed as an eight-year initiative, combining longitudinal research with context-sensitive engagement, reflecting the cultures of the world. Its main purpose is to map, describe, monitor, evaluate and systematize the diversity of synergies that emerge from heritage practice; identify their features and harness their contributions to policy-driven efforts. Led by the IHS in close cooperation with its core partners - International Centre for Documentary Heritage, Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Foundation for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Nigeria and the German Commission for UNESCO - MESH-In will generate unique comparative insights into cross-convention collaboration. It complements and strengthens existing efforts by UNESCO’s National Commissions, Advisory Bodies and others through its distinctive features, i.e. (a) focus on outcomes that emerge organically, rather than being planned or intentionally pursued; (b) holistic understanding of heritage beyond mainstream policy, integrating also programmes, such as those for documentary heritage; and (c) its partnership concept based on a flexible and inclusive framework for collaboration across scales and institutional levels.
Background
The establishment of MESH-In results from twenty-five years of collaborative work across heritage policy, research, education, and practice, developed jointly with Prof. Dr. Marie‑Theres Albert (1948 – 2026), as founder and director of the Institute Heritage Studies (2012 – 2016) in Berlin; and of the worldwide first master’s programme in World Heritage Studies (1999 – 2015), the PhD Programme in Heritage Studies (2010 – 2017), and the UNESCO Chair in Heritage Studies (2003 – 2017) at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. This work was grounded in the belief that heritage is a wellspring of human development, whose diversity can only be perceived and understood through particular real-life situations. MESH-In continues this legacy and takes it as its foundation.
