Cultural Heritage as a Source of Societal Well-being in European Regions
During the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018, over 23 000 events were organised, reaching more than 12. 8 million participants. This clearly shows the potential impact that cultural heritage can have on economic development and people’s quality of life.

During the last decade, policymakers have increasingly acknowledged the role of cultural heritage as a strategic resource for economic growth, employment and territorial cohesion. This is reflected in several European policy documents, more recently the “New European Agenda for Culture”, adopted by the European Commission in May 2018, and the “European Heritage Strategy for the 21st Century”, adopted by the Council of Europe in April 2017. 

Cultural heritage has been gradually streamlined in different policy areas, such as the EU Cohesion policy, thus showing the growing strategic importance that the topic has gained on the European agenda. Several initiatives at the European level contribute to the general appraisal of cultural heritage, such as the European Heritage Days, the European Heritage Label, the European Heritage Awards and the European Capitals of Culture. Despite recent efforts to improve cultural heritage statistics by the European Commission, it is still a challenge to fully capture the significance of its impact on the economy and society.

On 7 December 2018, the European Commission presented the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage which among other things calls for evidence-based decision-making in the cultural heritage field and enumerates a number of projects that are going to be carried out in order to address the issue of measuring the impact of culture and cultural heritage on economy, society and local development. The Framework mentions that ESPON’s study “Cultural Heritage as a Source of Societal Well-being in European Regions” (2020–2022) will play an important role in providing evidence and data on the impact of cultural heritage on societal well-being.

The objective of this research is to develop a pan-European methodology and territorial analysis on the impacts of cultural heritage on society, considering well-being, social inclusion and other aspects. The research shall cover both material and intangible cultural heritage and the impact should be associated with:
-	Presence of material cultural heritage (stock of buildings and other objects).
-	Consumption and use of cultural heritage.
-	Digitalization of cultural heritage.
-	EU funded investments in cultural heritage.
-	Activities (policies) aimed at increasing the positive impact of cultural heritage and diminishing the negative impact.