The Euromed Heritage programme was a programme (1998-2013) chartered by the Barcelona Declaration and funded through the resulting

Euro-Mediterranean Partnership The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM; french: Union pour la Méditerranée, ar, الإتحاد من أجل المتوسط ''Al-Ittiḥād min ajl al-Mutawasseṭ'') is an intergovernmental organization of 43 member states from Europe and the M ...

. Its purpose was to foster regional inter-cultural dialogue between the member states of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

, through collaboration on the preservation of

cultural heritages Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these grou ...

. Since 1995, Euromed Heritage has obtained funding and embarked upon several initiatives. As of 2010, 400 partner organizations from Mediterranean countries have benefited from funding provided by Euromed Heritage.

Euromed Heritage I

Between 1998 and 2004, the programme focused largely on collecting

heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset is a preexisting thing of value today ** Cultural heritage is created by humans ** Natural heritage is not * Heritage language Biology * Heredity, biological inheritance of physical c ...

inventories and fostering networks of

peoples A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...

and organizations around the

. Other activities included the creation of an encyclopedia, sponsoring

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

exposition Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to: *Universal exposition or World's Fair *Expository writing **Exposition (narrative) *Exposition (music) *Trade fair * ''Exposition'' (album), the debut album by the band Wax on Radio *Exposi ...

s, exhibits and promotions.

Euromed Heritage II

Between 2002 and 2007, an initiative to improve organizational capabilities to preserve heritage was conducted.

Intangible heritage An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered by UNESCO to be part of a place's cultural heritage. Buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts are cultural property. ...

was an emphasis, with several projects involving historic aspects of heritage such as historic Mediterranean coastal defense and navigation.

Euromed Heritage III

Between 2004 and 2008, another initiative of the programme focused on

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide r ...

, as well as

Islamic Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or ''Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the main ...

and

Byzantine culture The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Euromed Heritage IV

The emphasis of the programme from 2008 through 2012 was the appropriation of the various cultural heritages by nations' own peoples, through

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. ...

and knowledge. This project also provided a framework and facilitated the development of

best practice A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...

s for cultural preservation. Euromed IV involved partners from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

and several Mediterranean partner countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Tunisia. Euromed Heritage IV completed its activities on February 15, 2013. Their

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikip ...

remains accessible for public use. The outputs of the programme— knowledge, tools, methodologies— are available on the

e-corpus E-corpus was a collective heritage digital platform founded in 2009 in France by the Centre de Conservation du Livre. Its name is sometimes written in lowercase: e-corpus. It went offline in September 2016. Introduction E-corpus makes known, cata ...

digital library A digital library, also called an online library, an internet library, a digital repository, or a digital collection is an online database of digital objects that can include text, still images, audio, video, digital documents, or other digital ...

platform.

References

Euromediterranean Partnership {{EU-stub