HECTOR - HEritage and Cultural Tourism Open Resources for innovative training schemes related to the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe

The HECTOR initiative aims at comparing practices and developing models to forecast the skills needs in cultural management related professions, as well as at designing, implementing and supporting effective coordination between the world of formal and not formal training (Universities, research centers, vocational institutions and organisations active in cultural heritage promotion). HECTOR intends to be in line with the EU general effort to invest on cultural and creative players with skills, competences and know-how that contribute to strengthening the cultural and creative sectors, including encouraging adaptation to digital technologies, testing innovative approaches to audience development and testing of new business and management models. The project also addresses the complex issue of defining/identifying the strategic skills and reflect on transversal skills as an “ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tasks and solve problems” (Cedefop 2010a: 109:110). A state of the art analysis among the partners involved in the project will build up a common ground on the approaches adopted as well as a shared knowledge concerning training processes and training needs in organizations engaged in providing high-quality training on the cultural issues to academics and professionals. Heritage management is a highly interdisciplinary field, involving methodologies and approaches from various disciplines: the capacity to predict future skills needed in this sector endowed with extraordinary potentialities and anticipate trends will allow to up-to-date competencies and professional profiles within a public and private context. Considered this, HECTOR will constitute a sound opportunity both to project partners and target groups to exchange practices, methodologies, approaches and tools to identify, define and reinforce the strategic skills required in the public and private training sector to better create synergies with the private sector, to maintain culture (also) as a driver for social and economic transformation.