EXCITING NEW COLLABORATION LAUNCHED

ICOMOS-UK and IHBC strengthen their working relationship through a formal agreement

The UK National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS-UK) and The Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC) are delighted to announce a new collaboration. This will establish closer ties and cooperation between these two organisations in the field of heritage conservation.

ICOMOS-UK President Clara Arokiasamy OBE said: ‘We welcome this new Memorandum of Understanding which marks the beginning of a long term collaboration with IHBC in advancing conservation knowledge and skills among practitioners engaged in the preservation and restoration of the UK’s tangible heritage and the associated intangible values. 

We look forward to sharing with the IHBC many of ICOMOS’s international standards produced by its International Scientific Committees as well as jointly creating new conservation responses to emerging issues. For example, the impact of climate change on our built heritage, the relationship between tangible and intangible values, rights based approaches and the decolonisation of conservation practice. These cross-cutting issues inevitably place communities at the heart of conservation which is critical to the sustainability of our heritage.’

IHBC Chair David McDonald said: ‘On behalf of the IHBC, I am delighted to be able to announce this new Memorandum of Understanding with ICOMOS-UK.’

‘With its world-wide connections, ICOMOS gives the IHBC and our members the chance to spread our influence internationally and, potentially, to offer greater opportunities to work overseas’.

‘This event also marks a new step in a journey to bring the potential of informed, interdisciplinary conservation practice – so deeply embedded in the international conservation standards of ICOMOS and in our own conservation practice principles – to a much wider audience.’

The benefits of this new collaboration include:

  • Greater synergies between two independent charities working on heritage conservation 
  • Greater benefits for members of both ICOMOS-UK and IHBC as both organisations share and align their communications and activities
  • Greater opportunities to network internationally in the identification and sharing of good practice.