The Venice Charter and the European Quality Principles for Cultural Heritage Interventions on Heritage Science: some reflections from ICOMOS CIF

The 1964 Venice Charter highlighted the need of science and technology for the study and conservation of built heritage. This was followed and expanded by the 1993 ICOMOS CIF Guidelines for Education and Training. In 2020, the European Quality Principles for Cultural Heritage Interventions continued to reinforce the Venice Charter principles. Despite these developments, there are currently not clear career paths and enough provision of education and training to become conservation specialists. This should be addressed to ensure competence for the professionals involved in the conservation of built heritage, such as architects, engineers, archaeologists, geologists and scientists. This paper reviews the main developments so far, underlining that the quality of education and training programmes has a direct effect on the conservation of built heritage. Taken the professional competence of conservation scientist as example, it outlines a possible international curriculum for further discussion and validation.