In the framework of the Underground4Value project (COST Action 18110 – Underground Built Heritage as Catalyst for Community Valorisation, funded by the European Union), a series of teaching materials and training activities, online and in-presence, were produced, providing tools, skills and methodologies useful for starting or enhancing initiatives for the valorisation of underground built heritage (UBH) that have a positive impact on society.
Training School
Intensive workshops and seminars lasting one or two weeks, dedicated to urban planners, decision-makers, promoters and facilitators of local development, offering vertical training related to underground heritage, promoting the adoption of innovative methodologies and tools and best practices in the field and training new professionals in the fields of cultural design, strategic planning, ecological and cultural transition and community-building.
The first U4V training school took place in February 2020 in Naples, inside Castel dell’Ovo, the city’s oldest fortified citadel. It involved twenty experts, including lecturers and tutors from all over Europe, and focused on the conservation and management of UBH, focusing in particular on technologies for monitoring sites of historical and artistic value located underground, on reuse and valorisation strategies, and on community empowerment, on STPs (Strategic Transition Practices) and also provided participants with the necessary skills to organise Living Labs, experimentation and co-design environments in which participants actively collaborate with end users (in this case citizens and/or local communities) to develop, test and implement new product or service ideas, identify new paradigms and propose solutions to pre-existing problems.
This was followed by three other training activities held in Murcia (Spain) in 2021, Ayia Napa (Cyprus) in 2022 and Mellieħa (Malta) in 2023.
COST Action Networking Tools: Training Schools
U4V e-Learning Platform and Toolbox
The underground4value.eu platform hosts a series of free and on-demand digital resources – videos, lectures, infographics, workflows, scientific papers, podcasts – useful for all those working in the heritage sector.
Handbook
The project culminated in the publication of a detailed and comprehensive guide, Underground Built Heritage Valorisation. A Handbook, which can be downloaded or consulted online, edited by Giuseppe Pace, researcher at the CNR and Scientific Director of Underground4Value, and Renata Salvarani, historian of Christianity and religions and lecturer at the European University of Rome.
