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IN2PAST Associate Lab was selected as the Portuguese National Node by ICCROM under the Our Collections Matter initiative. The official announcement was made on 18 June, along with the designation of Museus e Monumentos de Portugal (MMP) as the national partner.
This new pilot phase creates national-level coordination mechanisms in six ICCROM member states, also including Brazil, Greece, Latvia, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates, with the aim of testing the effectiveness of this distributed approach in more closely monitoring the needs of museums, libraries, archives, and other collections-based institutions.
In addition to the national nodes, focal points have been set up, to interface with ICCROM, which in Portugal are António Candeias (HERCULES – University of Évora), IN2PAST president, Teresa Reis (HERCULES – UÉvora / IN2PAST researcher), Teresa Lança Ruivo, IHC – UÉvora / IN2PAST researcher and conservator at MNAA – Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (the Portuguese National Museum of Ancient Art)/ MMP, and Maria de Jesus Monge, MNAA director. MMP chairman Alexandre Pais is the national representative, having spoken in the launch event on 18 June, together with Teresa Reis.
The selection of IN2PAST, headquartered in UÉvora, took into account the 7 research centres involved, and their social, scientific and international impact, which make the Associate Lab a reference in Portugal for the study, dissemination and valorisation of cultural heritage, in its tangible and intangible dimensions, actively contributing to the definition of public policies.
© 2025 ICCROM
MMP’s Alexandre Pais and IN2PAST’s Teresa Reis represented Portugal in the National Nodes launch event © 2025 ICCROM
‘A major milestone’
For the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), this new 2-3-year pilot phase marks a major milestone in the global effort to strengthen the integration of heritage collections and collections-based work into sustainable development strategies, and to strengthen the contribution of museums, libraries, archives, and other collections-based institutions for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Our Collections Matter (OCM) initiative was launched in 2020 by ICCROM, which has been ‘centrally’ coordinating it (through the ‘3Ts’ strategy: Tools, Training and Transformation). The main objective of OCM is to accelerate, expand and intensify actions that promote sustainable development through the management, use and conservation of collections, be they museological, archival, bibliographical, communal, religious, digital, seed banks or biobanks.
National Nodes’ commitments
The new national nodes will seek to support the inclusion of Culture in the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) submitted to the UN. The VNRs are processes through which countries diagnose challenges and progress within the framework of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda.
More specifically, the six nodes commit to contributing to: an increase in the number of collections-based organisations that proactively design, implement and communicate the results of collections-based activities, with a view to making a concrete contribution to sustainable development across the full range of the SDGs; new policies to support the integration of heritage collections into SD initiatives at national level; the strengthening of networks and collaborations between collections-based institutions, as well as between different sectors, to achieve the SDGs; and greater recognition and support for collections-based institutions as significant contributors to the achievement of the SDGs at national level.
2025 © IN2PAST. All rights reserved.
IN2PAST – Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory is funded by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I. P. under reference LA/P/0132/2020 (DOI 10.54499/LA/P/0132/2020)
