We often think of cultural heritage just as monuments, objects of significance, or traditions and art forms inherited from the past. Yet, it is something much broader: it is a foundation of identity, memory and belonging, expressed in ways that shape how communities understand themselves, relate to one another, and envision their futures. Embedded in the everyday, it connects people to place, knowledge, and meaning.
Heritage is therefore one of humanity’s most powerful resources. Its value lies in the ways communities, institutions, and individuals cherish, care for, reinterpret, and transmit it across generations.
A Legacy Renewed for a Changing World
For 70 years, ICCROM has worked to conserve and safeguard cultural heritage as a shared resource for humanity. Its mission remains unchanged. At the same time, the landscape in which heritage operates is changing rapidly, demanding new approaches, renewed partnerships, and forward-looking action.
In response to the profound transformations affecting communities across the globe, heritage has an even greater role to play in building more resilient, participatory, sustainable and thriving futures. Moving past preservation of places or traditions in isolation, it is critical for conservation to activate and recognize heritage as a dynamic force for strengthening communities, driving economic growth, and fostering social cohesion and stability, thereby protecting our planet and enriching human well-being.
In the face of ongoing and emerging challenges, business-as-usual approaches are not enough. The future of heritage will be stronger when people are empowered to make decisions about that future through heritage itself. This is the foundation of the ICCROM Strategic Plan for 2026-2031 and its CARE vision: an integrated approach for heritage and the future.
What is ICCROM’s Vision?
The ICCROM Strategic Plan 2026–2031 marks an important moment in the Organization's journey: an invitation to think differently, act with purpose, and collaborate widely to unlock the power of heritage in addressing the needs of our time.
It places heritage at the center of developmental actions and decision-making processes, recognizing heritage as living, evolving, and deeply connected to people and the planet, for the generations of today and tomorrow. It is built around three interconnected Strategic Directions:
Conserve
Through Conserve, we are upskilling and adapting to meet new conservation challenges, ensuring cultural heritage endures, adapts, and thrives. It places special emphasis on:
- Conservation and risk management capacities
- People-centred and participatory heritage management
- Anticipation in the heritage sector
Activate
To Activate is to accelerate positive change and sustainable socio-economic growth through heritage. It prioritizes:
- Heritage for durable climate solutions
- Heritage for social cohesion
- Heritage for better lives and livelihoods
Recognize
By Recognize, we aim to strengthen policy inclusion and coherence, and support for heritage. This requires promoting:
- Evidence for the wider benefits of heritage
- Cross-sectoral engagement around heritage
- Heritage integration within broader policy areas
These Strategic Directions form a continuous, mutually reinforcing cycle: Conservation strengthens the conditions that allow heritage to be better activated and experienced in meaningful ways. Activation deepens recognition of heritage's value. Recognition, in turn, builds the support and commitment needed to safeguard heritage for the future.
Why Conserve, Activate and Recognize? Why Now?
Climate extremes, conflict, urbanization, displacement, environmental degradation, and growing social fragmentation continue to reshape both the conditions in which heritage exists, and the future communities are trying to build.
These interconnected and long-term challenges call for approaches that are adaptive, inclusive, and responsive to risk and change.
To conserve heritage is to safeguard the relationships, knowledge and resources that communities rely upon in times of disruption. To activate heritage is to harness its potential to support resilience, well-being, long-term development, and better lives and livelihoods.
To recognize heritage is to ensure that its value, and the responsibilities associated with its care, are understood and supported by society, institutions, and decision-makers.
“As Director‑General of ICCROM, my vision is clear: to place transformative capacity building at the centre of our Vision, Strategies and Programmes. Transformative in its objectives, because it must change the lives of people and communities; transformative in its process, because it must act in synergy across three levers to generate long‑term impact.To be truly transformative, indeed, capacity building must move three levers together: people, institutions, and the political‑social context.This is the Vision underpinning the ICCROM Strategic Plan 2026-2031: no longer fragmented individual training, but transformation of systems.This means equipping professionals with the technical expertise and skills needed to drive innovation, strengthen communities, and mentor future generations; strengthening institutions through enhanced governance, accountability, and capacity so that investments in heritage deliver long-term benefits; and ensuring that cultural heritage is integrated into broader policies and agendas, including economic development, disaster risk reduction, climate action, and sustainable tourism, generating impact at societal and macro levels.In 2031, I will not count the courses we held, I will count the changes we made – and how will we measure success? When communities are strengthened, institutions are transformed, and policies are shaped through the inclusion of cultural heritage as an integral dimension and not as a peripheral appendix.Together, let us Conserve, Activate, and Recognize heritage as a legacy entrusted to us and as a unique force for building a better and more sustainable future. Leaving heritage behind is not an option.”
— Aruna Francesca Maria Gujral, ICCROM Director-General
