HI-People and Empaths have been progressing since the start of the year – Here’s an update on what has been happening.
HI-People is a 4-year project funded by the EU Creative Europe programme designed to capitalise on IE’s efforts over the last ten years to promote and develop value-based heritage interpretation and cement IE’s position as an international reference, or hub, in the matter.
This focuses on fostering a common understanding, or Framework of Reference, among European heritage stakeholders of people-centred and value-based heritage interpretation. This refers to what exactly is meant when we use the term, its component parts, common principles and ethical guidelines to use it consistently in different situations.
Over the next four years, a small team led by IE’s Cultural Heritage Coordinator, Patrick Lehnes, will prepare and run a consultation process to identify those essentials mentioned above, starting with a research and scoping core group of expert advisors from the European heritage sector then to a wider, inclusive consultation, ultimately including all IE members. The Framework of Reference will be a platform for exchange with the potential to evolve further instead of ceasing at a fixed standard. The work begins now, so look out for further updates on the HI-People projects page from this autumn onwards.
HI-People is also designed to grow the IE network, build the capacity of interpreters, promote their role and the contribution of heritage to critical challenges in European society. Training, a keystone of IE’s offer and identity, consequently features highly. In June, we held our first trainers’ summer school in Vrsar, Croatia, as part of the project, where participants took part in modules and module upgrades, capacity building and trainer workshops. Such occasions to meet in person over several days are invaluable to inject new energy, ideas and a sense of community. The post-event evaluation is underway and we will act on the findings to further improve and shape an annual programme of summer schools that best responds to real needs.
The Learning Landscapes initiative also features in HI-People, notably as it is a very important test-bed to train heritage professionals from outside IE in value-based heritage interpretation principles and practice. The plan is that HI-People will help support a second cycle of territories to co-create interpretive strategies and deliver IE courses, with additional opportunities for our expanding community of trainers.
A further exciting development is a new Certified Interpretive Trainer course to be held in Frankfurt, Germany, on 2-6 February 2026, when we look forward to welcoming a new generation of IE trainers! Linked to this, work is starting with an experienced Italian cultural consultancy firm, Melting Pro, to provide a mentoring and peer support programme for interpretive trainers and freelancers.
HI-People is also about networking, advocacy and visibility. To that end, our community of country coordinators will hold a series of regional/national networking events to promote heritage interpretation and IE to professionals from heritage, tourism and more as a common thread to connect different sectors and disciplines. We plan to hold the first events towards the end of the year. The idea is that coordinators can mobilise growing numbers of national members to present, demonstrate and promote the merits of HI and generate collaborative opportunities in their countries.
IE will finally have a formal communication and dissemination strategy by the end of the summer. Recent online consultations and workshops have also been held to identify annual themes for membership campaigns as well as materials for trainers and coordinators to promote IE and deliver their activities. Improved consistency and quality in our communication, from podcasts to video pills, GAHI webinars and world cafés, coupled with a redesigned website with greater opportunities for exchange among members, is vital to IE’s next stage in its growth and development which the HI-People will help us achieve over the next four years.
Our second project, Empaths, is a 30-month European Erasmus+ transnational cooperation project with Greek, Italian and Austrian partners. It began in October 2024 to research, design, test and promote a training programme on participatory heritage interpretation. The aim is that it can be used by heritage professionals to better run co-creation processes involving local communities, reflecting the democratisation of heritage and the shift to value-based heritage interpretation.
The research phase to gather details and experiences of participatory practices in the heritage and heritage-related sectors is now complete and the results will gradually be published on the project platform: https://empaths-project.eu. Many thanks to those of you who responded to questionnaires and took part in online consultation meetings. Your contributions are invaluable.
Work to draft the training programme guidelines and content has now begun, starting with interviews with our piloting partners and other local heritage stakeholders to identify needs and local contexts when running the pilot training in autumn 2026. This was all the more important as the interviewees are also potential training participants.
We are also producing a skills manifesto, a document designed to promote the subject, the course and benefits to future participants.
The remaining tasks include the creation of the training programme curriculum and syllabus with online and onsite training materials (by September 2025), an independent evaluation (by EVTA) and uploading the learning materials to the Empaths website.
Special thanks must go to our IE friends, Claudia Grünberg and Sebastian Zoepp, for their expertise and experience to help us produce the training course and training guidelines.
Empaths is smaller and shorter in comparison to HI-People but will expand our knowledge and experience in participatory value-based heritage interpretation in other territorial settings alongside the ongoing Learning Landscapes Initiative involving a selection of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Look out for more news on both HI-People and Empaths on the IE website and social media!
Alexander (Sandy) Colvine is IE’s Project Manager for both European projects. He can be contacted at: alexander.colvine@interpret-europe.net.
To cite this article: Gkini, Penelope (2025) ‘A haunted house or just a national hero home-museum?‘ in Interpret Europe Newsletter 1-2025, pg.22.
Available online: PDF Newsletter Spring 2025
