Korea National University of Cultural Heritage (Acting President Yongjae Chung), together with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), will hold the international course on Managing World Heritage: People Nature Culture (PNC22) in Seoul and Buyeo, the Republic of Korea from 1 to 12 August 2022.

PNC22 is a flagship foundational course of the World Heritage Leadership programme dedicated to site coordinators, and heritage practitioners working with World Heritage properties and other heritage places around the world, who contribute to the management of the heritage place. The World Heritage Leadership programme is jointly delivered by IUCN and ICCROM to promote the nature-culture linkages in heritage management, in collaboration with ICOMOS and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. It is funded with the generous support of the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment, with contributions from the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA), the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), and other partners. It is a capacity building programme focused on promoting links between people-nature-culture in the management of heritage places and securing heritage a more dynamic role in wider sustainable development. The PNC22 course is supported by the Cultural Heritage Administration of the Republic of Korea in collaboration with the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage.

This year, 21 heritage field managers from 18 different countries (Sweden, Australia, Mexico, Armenia, Albania, Mauritius, Tanzania, Botswana, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Nepal, Cambodia, Jamaica, Oman, Ecuador and the Republic of Korea) will be participating in the PNC22. In addition, 13 heritage experts from around the world, including Australia, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Argentina, Kenya, Egypt, and the Republic of Korea, will participate as resource people during the course.

On 2 August, the opening ceremony for PNC22 will be held in the main auditorium of the National Palace Museum of Korea. Cultural and natural heritage officials and experts are invited to an open session where the background and purpose of the World Heritage Leadership Programme and the PNC Course will be shared. In the open session, ▲ Why do we manage heritage? Heritage Place and Sustainable Development (Sarah Court, Independent Heritage Consultant), ▲ Aims and objectives of Course, World Heritage Leadership (Eugene Jo, Programme Manager, World Heritage Leadership Programme) ▲ Heritage Management: Management systems and cycles (Leticia Leitao, Steve Brown, Independent Heritage Consultants), ▲ Introduction to Korean heritage management system (Kyounghee Lim, Researcher, Cultural Heritage Administration), and ▲ Introduction to World Heritage in Korea (Jihong Kim, Deputy Director, Cultural Heritage Administration) will be presented and discussed.

From 2 to 12 August, PNC22 will be promoting the ‘heritage place approaches’ to heritage management focused on understanding how to conserve the multiple heritage values of heritage places in their wider social, environmental, and economic contexts to enhance benefits provided to the society at large. This includes applying place-based and people-centred approaches to working with diverse communities. Participants will also learn more about World Heritage in South Korea and have the chance to meet and exchange with colleagues from the Cultural Heritage Administration, the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage, and other national and regional institutions. The course will provide an opportunity to better understand the Korean heritage management system and how management efforts are planned and implemented at different World Heritage sites and heritage places, such as Gochang Getbol, one of the serial components of ‘Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats’; the ‘Baekje Historic Areas’; and one part of the ‘Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen Sites.’

In the future, as an implementation partner of ICCROM, the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage plans to seek future directions for the conservation and management of cultural and natural heritage through the World Heritage Leadership Programme and the PNC course and strive for active international exchange in education and research in the field of cultural and natural heritage.

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