Our Story

The LIVIND project sprouted from international networking and collaboration. In summer 2019, a seminar convened in Hanasaari, Espoo (Finland) at the initiative of the Finnish Heritage Agency. There, experts, NGO representatives, and practitioners of living heritage from Northern Europe met and discussed together sustainability-related themes. This event inspired to think whether the discussion of the connections between living heritage and sustainable development should be more focused, in the form of a joint project. The LIVIND project was born as a response to this need.

As the project funding was confirmed in summer 2021, the start followed a few months later. A lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic was the use of video conferencing. To start the process, each project partner was contacted for a short call to cover the project goals, tasks, hopes and expectations. These meetings soon became known as 'teacup calls'. During the project lifetime, rounds of teacup calls were repeated approximately twice a year.

As an international kick-off, the LIVIND Opening Webinar was organised already in November 2021. This was followed by a series of thematic webinars, each one specialising on one of the four aspects of sustainability (economic, ecological, social, and cultural).

To plan the webinar series, the project partners were called together to to discuss, share ideas and brainstorm topics for each of the webinars. These virtual meetings we called the 'thematic sessions' and they turned to be a vital starting point for our joint learning process. As a result of these sessions were also created the 'sets of labels', conceptualisations of topics that our partners found to be relevant when addressing living cultural heritage and sustainable development.

The arrangements for pilot projects started in autumn 2022 with the call for candidates. Project partners took the role of disseminating the message and encouraging their national networks to send in applications, using forms that were created for this purpose. At the same time, the forms also collected some background information for the LIVIND project's Resarch Team.

Majority of the pilot projects were implemented during the winter and spring 2023, with a few exceptions a bit earlier and a bit later, according to the situation of each pilot project organiser.

The LIVIND project built on international networking that was enabled by different digital tools, such as video conferencing, virtual learning platform Howspace, and other tools for online facilitation.

Therefore, the three face-to-face meetings, were warmly welcomed. The first physical meeting took place at the premises of the Finnish Heritage Agency in Helsinki in June 2022. The second meeting, in June 2023, brought together not only project partners, but also the pilot project organisers. Presentations of pilot projects was a central part of the meeting.

Lastly, we gathered together in May 2024, again in Helsinki. The three-day event allowed several rounds of discussion and time for planning next steps, but the programme also included celebratory events. 

Do you have questions about the project? Drop us a line and we happily tell more! Also, if you know another interesting project, an initiative, or a website about living cultural heritage and sustainability, please, let us know!