NET-HERITAGE

Cultural Heritage Context

Belgium has a rich and varied cultural heritage landscape (e.g. artefacts, architecture and remnants of its medieval history, its 19th century industrial history and its 20th century art nouveau and art deco legacy). A wide range of national, regional, and local institutions, both public and private, support cultural heritage conservation and research. 

Cultural Heritage Governance and Policy

Cultural heritage governance is a complex matter in Belgium. The responsibility for cultural heritage in Belgium is fragmented. It largely resides with the different regional governments: the Flemish Minister of Culture, the Walloon Minister of Heritage and the Minister of Culture of the French Community of Belgium.

Each community and region has its own legislation, co-existing with the federal government’s legislation. Cultural heritage on the national level is embedded in the Federal Government priorities, with special attention to the 10 Federal Scientific Institutes (FSI) and the digitalisation of their collections under the responsibility of the Federal Minister for Science Policy.

It should be noted that IRPA/KIK (Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage) is one of the 10 FSI’s whose role it is to preserve and restore cultural heritage. Digitalisation is considered as a means of preserving the cultural heritage maintained within the FSI’s as much as a means of offering new opportunities to the general public to have access to this heritage. Digitalisation is also seen as an infrastructure enabling and multiplying research possibilities. The priorities of this strategy were set in a memorandum adopted by the Council of Ministers on 27 march 2009: digitalisation of the collections shall be pursued by means of a PPP (Public Private partnership) over a period of about 20-30 years.

The Flemish Minister of Culture is responsible for the implementation of cultural heritage policy in Flanders. The Flemish government subsidises FARO- Flemish interface centre for cultural heritage, responsible for the sector of tangible and intangible cultural heritage in Flanders. The functions of FARO are defined in the Cultural Heritage Decree (2008) as a cluster of assigments aiming to strengthen and support the cultural heritage field in Flanders within the framework of the Cultural Heritage Decree and with the intention to realise its main objectives, that is to develop an integrated cultural heritage policy, to stimulate qualitative management, long term sustainability and the unlocking of the cultural heritage; to start up a network of cultural heritage organizations to cultivate, to represent, to acknowledge and to valorise the different ways the public participates in and experiences cultural heritage; to stimulate a further development of the different cultural heritage practices, museum, archival and library sciences, and ethnology; to create awareness with regard to cultural diversity within the cultural heritage policy.

Within the Flemish government there is another body called the Flemish Heritage Institute (Vlaams Instituut voor Onroerend Erfgoed, VIOE); since 2004 this Scientific Institute is responsible for research and inventarisation of architectural, archeological, landscape and maritime heritage in Flanders.  Research conducted by the VIOE constitutes the scientific basis of the heritage policy conducted by the Flemisch government.

On the side of the Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium, cultural heritage governance and policy is fragmented between several authorities. No heritage policy supporting institutes exist under these authorities. The Ministry of Culture of the French Community of Belgium runs a Policy Department « Service général du Patrimoine culturel et Arts plastiques » with a subdivision « Direction du patrimoine culturel » which includes a special service for museums, a service for movable cultural heritage, a service for administration of the collection, a service for ethnologie and immaterial heritage, a service for publications, a service for communication, a service for heraldy and a service for the archives.

Since 1988, the administration of tangible cultural heritage is a competence of the Walloon Region. The Ministry of Heritage of the Walloon Region is in charge of the immovable cultural heritage of historical, archaelogical, scientific, artistic, social and technical value (monuments, architectural goods and archaelogical sites). The « Départment du Patrimoine » includes several directions and employs more than 250 civil servants. In its taks, the Department is assisted by an advising independant committee, the Commission royale des Monuments et Sites (CRMSF) that exists since 1835, and is now divided in three regional wings (the Flemish, the Walloon and the Brussels Capital region).

In 1999 L’Institut du Patrimoine wallon (IPW) was also created that administers endangered immovable heritage objects, organises training sessions in heritage professions and organises the Journées du Patrimoine. The legal dispositions with regard to Heritage are recorded in the « Code wallon de l’Aménagement du Territoire, de l’Urbanisme et du Patrimoine ».

Cultural Heritage Funding

Conservation, management and research on cultural heritage depends on different national and regional entities: the federal government, the regional governments, local entities and private entities. Therefore an estimate of the funds devoted to cultural heritage is a difficult task. The overall budget of the federal Digitalisation programme is about 200 million €. The process of finding a private partner is ongoing.

The total budget dedicated in Belgium to research on cultural heritage is also difficult to estimate due to the dispersed nature of funding sources and the general lack of specific programmes dedicated to cultural heritage. The Belgian system of financing research is principally investigator-driven or bottom-up. It allows researchers to apply for grants in all research areas and has no priorities defined by the government.

Cultural Heritage Research

Many cultural heritage initiatives rely on the scientists that present research projects at calls from institutions such as the Fonds Voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek – Vlaanderen (FWO) for the Flemish community and the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) for the French community. At present, Belgium has no national programme for cultural heritage research.

Cultural Heritage Education and Outreach

In Belgium there existed traditionally two different paths for official training in cultural heritage and conservation: a 3 years diploma in conservation and restoration in an official school or academy of Fine Arts (a non-university degree more or less equivalent to a bachelor’s degree) or a four years university degree in History of Art, Archives, Archaelogy, Architecture or (other) conservation-restoration scientific disciplines. Recently, some universities have introduced post-graduate/complementary master programmes in conservation-restoration.

With the participation of Belgium in the Bologna process to create a European Higher Education Area, these training schemes are now being adapted to the European model. In Belgian universities the research in the field of cultural heritage is generally dispersed. Apart from universities, cultural heritage education also takes place in other levels of education and is also organised by other institutions such as public and private museums, libraries, archives and other heritage organisations.

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