Project ‘O Património é Teu!’ (‘Heritage is Yours!’), developed last year during IN2PAST’s first Doctoral School, will be at EPoCH 2025. Emerging Perspectives on Conservation and Heritage, annual scientific conference this time dedicated to the subjects of Communication and Participation, which will be held in Porto, Portugal, at the end of March. Entitled ‘Heritage in a Digital World: AI & Ethical Challenges in the “O Património é Teu!” Project’, the accepted presentation will be delivered by team member José Caetano (IHC – Universidade de Évora / IN2PAST). The challenge, states the team, ‘is to assert that digital platforms facilitate citizen empowerment without constituting passive engagement’.

The communication ‘critically examines digital participation in heritage conservation based on the example of the project “O Património é Teu!”, that introduces Artificial Intelligence (AI) to citizen science to monitor heritage’, write authors José, António Carrapiço (HERCULES – University of Évora / IN2PAST), Joana Camacho (CRIA – NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST), and Teresa Lança Ruivo (IHC – UÉvora / IN2PAST) on the presentation abstract. ‘O Património é Teu!’, a project for an app open to the active participation of the population in heritage conservation and monitoring, is the result of the collective transdisciplinary work carried out during IN2PAST’s Boot Camp 2024, held in Évora between May 18th and the 24th.

Through this project, the team of IN2PAST PhD candidates argues that ‘digital engagement should not only be a method of collecting data, but also an ethical system of co-management of heritage’. In this communication, they focus on challenges in heritage decision-making, from the study and valorisation of cultural heritage to the return of cultural property and the approach to contested heritage, while also discussing digital heritage governance, responsible use of data, ‘and a balance between technological innovation and responsible conservation’.

EPoCH 2025 takes place at the School of Arts of Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP), from March 27th to the 29^th. Organised by the Heritage & Conservation-Restoration Focus Area of UCP’s Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR), it is designed as a forum for discussions on future directions in heritage and conservation-restoration research. Registration is €10 for participants without communications.