Project “Together Against Crime by Education” No. 2015-1-CZ01-KA202-013916 of Erasmus+ programme was primarily designed for forensic technicians and forensic experts. The target of the course was to create, for these groups of policepersons, new courses of further specialist training that would be, within the frameworks of an identical curriculum, taught at the police schools of all the three participating countries, it means the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The complete project documentation was approved at international project meetings that formed the spine of the project. To be able to verify the correctness and completeness of the content of the courses and of the pedagogical strategies of the teachers, altogether seven 5-day pilot courses took place and these were attended by forensic experts from the police forces of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Four pilot courses were for a group of forensic technicians and three pilot courses were for forensic experts. A course evaluation in the form of a questionnaire represented an inseparable part of each course. Every successful participant of a particular course received a certificate. The content of the newly created courses will be integrated into the police education which means that sustainability of the outcomes of the project will be ensured. Meanwhile the participants of the pilot courses have taken the role of trainers at their workplaces and inform their colleagues about the course of the project and they pass their knowledge and skills on their colleagues. To ensure dissemination of the project, information brochures are distributed to forensic and expert police workplaces and also the project coordinators may take part at events concerning forensic and expert activities. An information video represents another outcome of the project and it introduces policepersons to the Erasmus+ programme, project activities and the project outcomes. 140 policepersons and civilian workers of the police forces of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia were engaged to control, organize and carry out the whole project. The project was executed between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2017. The project was provided the EU grant money of € 185,759.

<< Background >>Europe's cultural heritage is the world's most diverse and rich patrimony that attracts millions of visitors every year. This heritage is an important component of individual and collective identity: in both its tangible and intangible forms, it contributes to the cohesion of the European Union and plays a fundamental role in European integration by creating links between citizens. In particular, the huge heritage of manuscripts and early printed books held by public and private libraries, archives, museums and collections across the Europe contain the “memory of Europe”. Written heritage has a dual status: libraries, archives and manuscripts constitute material cultural properties, but are simultaneously carriers of intangible heritage, such as ideas and, by extension, identity. Unfortunately, most of the European written heritage is facing various risks, from environmental degradation and climate change to natural and man-made hazards, from the strains of global tourism to economic crisis and budget cuts, from negligence or inappropriate conservation actions to the mere passage of time itself. Proper written heritage protection against several threats requires specific skills enhanced by a wide degree of collaboration between philological, paleographic, codicological and material science disciplines (physical-chemical and biological). Interdisciplinarity is also necessary for the training, teaching and education of the professionals in this sector and for competing at a national and international level. In the past this aim was random and fragmented, but now it must be the result of a more specific and comprehensive project. In this sense, the SAFECULT project addresses the development of key competences and complex skills required in disaster prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery of written heritage reaching the objective to have conservators, archivists and librarian ready and coordinated to face the emergency.In fact, although a lot of knowledge is available on the mechanisms of physical damage due to the stress induced in organic components of cultural objects (parchment, leather, wood, textiles or paper materials) when their climate-induced dimensional change is restrained by a rigid construction, or by assembling components responding differently to climate variations, this knowledge serves the practice of cultural heritage protection only in limited way. Obviously, it supports institutional, national or international guidelines and standards containing recommendations which can relate to cultural heritage resources in general, however these can be just a starting point for individual strategies for the protection of a specific written object, as each object with its individual original structure and conservation history, acclimatized to a particular environment in which it has been exposed, needs individual levels and ranges of the environmental parameters. The development of such individual strategies requires considerable engagement of professionals specialized in modeling and monitoring the response of heritage objects to environmental conditions. Such highly-specialized competence is not available for a majority of institutions managing written heritage, which creates a barrier in exploiting the available basic knowledge in the conservation practice. Therefore, the fundamental aim of the SAFECULT project is to construct a framework for skills in disaster risk management for European libraries, archives and museums and build the capacity to deploy preventive and intervening measures to mitigate the risks and the inherent impacts of natural hazards affecting the written heritage. The expected impact is to enrich competencies and strengthen the skills required in disaster risk management of cultural heritage operators dealing with written heritage, from manuscripts to books, in libraries, archives and museums, etc.<< Objectives >>It is essential to understand that risk management, both for prevention and emergency management, is not a separate topic, but rather an integral part of the set of skills necessary to manage the cultural institutions. This involves the staff, the visitors and the entire heritage and it is also linked to many other activities carried out by the institution, such as financial planning, classification, training of staff members. Thus, adopting a multidisciplinary approach enhanced by a strong collaboration between the academies and the cultural institutions, the SAFECULT specific objectives are:(1) Assess the state of art of the disaster risk prevention and governance in the cultural Institutions of the EU and the rest of the world.(2) Develop a European network addressing the issues of both disaster risk management and first response intervention, in order to foster cross – border cooperation and assistance. (3) Elaborate courses, programs and materials to support the education of the operators working in the field of written heritage.(4) Improve the key competencies and skills of such operators (mainly archivists and librarians), also addressing the issues related with cross-border cooperation and assistance.(5) Establish a resident international course in the premises of the partners to support the continuous education of the managers and operators of libraries, archives and cultural institutions owning written heritage throughout Europe.(6) Deploy a platform with materials and best practices allowing for sharing and further improving protocols, standards and procedures to mitigate disaster risks and manage emergency situation, targeted to help the cultural institutions of Europe.(7) Increase the consensus of the policy makers and cultural institutions on the fundamental role of risk management approach and its inherent benefits in terms of minimization of costs and maximization of cultural assets protection.<< Implementation >>The project methodology is based on the following structure. (1) horizontal activities, devoted to (1) Management and Coordination of the Project, and (2) Dissemination and exploitation; these will run for all the project duration. (2) Survey and analysis at European and national level- some multidisciplinary and participatory activities will define an upgraded picture of risk mnt approaches applied to written cultural heritage in Europe, through several analysis. Specifically, the phase will last 10 months (M1-M10) and foresees:R1. Study the cases of disaster risk management approaches and the practices adopted for the first response to an emergency affecting the written CHR1/A1. Assess the most important EU Projects and the international studies in the field of disaster risk managementR1/A2. Assess the state of art of continuous training courses on disaster risk management.R1/A3. Survey of the status of the emergency planning and disaster risk management adoption in the public and private cultural organizations in the partnering countriesE1, E2, E3, E4. SAFECULT national living labs (BNCF, SNA, BAR, BBK)R2. Dynamic knowledge-base on disaster risk management and cross-border first aidR2/A1. Network building and animationR2/A2. Design of the SAFECULT Open Educational PlatformR2/A3. Development of the SAFECULT Open Educational Platform (3) Developing the curriculum for cultural operators, as well as the course materials and the capacity building programme. Training materials will elaborate and transfer to operators those good practices, background, reference material, methods and skills useful to operate before and during an emergency affecting the written cultural heritage. The training curriculum will provide a detailed overview of each of the modules offered during the course. The training materials will be developed as face-to-face courses and as MOOC-based modules, which will be accessible from the website. The phase will last 12 months (M9-M21) and foresees:R3. Improved curricula of professionalsR3/A1. Develop contents through the project networkR3/A2. Design the skill card and the curriculumR4. Design and development of course materials (OER)R4/A1. Develop the MOOC-based modulesR4/A2. Elaborate the practices, procedures and methods to support the effectiveness of the courseC1. SAFECULT Training - Academic StaffC1/A1. Selection of target participants through the submission of surveys for the pre-assessment of competencesC1/A2. Training and mobility, capacity buildingC1/A3. Validation of the SAFECULT Model (materials, guidelines, etc.) C2. SAFECULT Training - Cultural Institutions StaffC2/A1. Selection of target participants through the submission of surveys for the pre-assessment of competencesC2/A2. Training and mobility, capacity buildingC2/A3. Validation of the SAFECULT Model (materials, guidelines, etc.)(4) Validation and transferability of the SAFECULT outcomes- the materials and the practice are further delivered through national multiplier events. In particular, the trainers participating both in C1 and in C2 (the previous phase) will further engage local and national operators in piloting the same courses, gaining valuable feedback, to deploy guidelines for operators and professionals in the field. The phase will last 5 months, starting in month 19 and running till the end of the project. The phase will concentrate on the development of the good practice, the roadmap for addressing future challenges and pragmatic suggestions. The outcomes of the guidelines will be translated into an interactive document. A decision support tool will be developed to support the up-scaling of the SAFECULT. the phase foresees the following activities:E5, E6, E7, E8. SAFECULT capacity buildingR5. The Eu framework for the management of risks and emergencies for written CHR5/A1. Eu guidelines for the management of risks and emergencies for written CHR5/A2. Eu collaborative cross-border response tools.<< Results >>Result 1. Establish a multidisciplinary European network/framework for the continuous education on disaster risk by linking together the fields of conservation of cultural heritage and in order to elaborate specific disaster risk management plans, and a mutual intervention plan to collaboratively respond to disruptive natural hazards. This will eventually constitute a robust international network and build institutional capacity over an extended period of time.Result 2. Increase the European capacity to manage the emergency situations (especially, concerning the first aid) in the field of written heritage by creating an interconnected network of specialists and fostering other institutions to join the network.Result 3. Assess the state of art of disaster risk prevention and management for written cultural heritage, specifically addressing the partner countries, through the establishment of living labs continuous activity in which many institutions will be invited to share their specific scientific knowledge and technical expertise on disaster risks reduction, fill the gaps with new knowledge and co-create a harmonized approach.Result 4. Develop new courses on disaster risk management and provide multidisciplinary training for participants, thus improving their specialized curricula. The courses will provide teaching/pedagogical tools in an organised manner, in the form of case studies, checklists, and workshop formats that may be adapted depending on the thematic focus of the course. The trainees will acquire new competencies and abilities and will be equipped to: - undertake integrated disaster risk assessment of different (tangible and intangible, immovable and movable) cultural objects by analysing their vulnerability to disasters caused by natural and accidental human induced hazards;- build comprehensive systems for disaster risk management that incorporate prevention/mitigation procedures as well as preparedness, response and recovery measure to be integrated into the governance systems of the cultural heritage institutions;- elaborate disaster risk management plans pertaining to a geographical and cultural context, and cross-sectoral supporting mechanisms;- use practical tools and methodologies enhancing the disaster risk management approach, such as (1) cost benefit analysis, (2) value assessment, (3) budgeting, (4) risk and disaster communication methods and (5) business continuity; - recognize the different values of the cultural objects during an emergency, and use this understanding to prioritize and provide a more effective cultural heritage first response;- elaborate on-site damage and residual risks assessment during the emergency situations, while providing guidelines and behaviour to ensure the safety of the cultural first aiders;- secure, save and stabilize a variety of cultural materials and structures;- create and coordinate teams that effectively communicate and collaborate with with the local community and other stakeholders at each stage of the disaster risk management process;- use the data on damage, risks and needs collected during the first aid provided in emergency situations to obtain further insights and promote early recovery of cultural objects.Result 5. Provide scalable solutions for staff training on disaster risk management for written cultural heritage. We have dedicated a whole Intellectual Output focused on design, development, and piloting an online platform as an effective knowledge transfer system where all research-related data and documents, methodologies, good practices and training materials will be uploaded and made available to all professionals involved in disaster risk management for written heritage. Result 6. Improve internationalization of participating countries through joint staff training Programmes attracting international students and audiences, together with guest speakers and trainers from abroad. Increase international mobility and participation.