Emergency Preparedness for Cultural Heritage Under Threat – Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development

The Prince Claus Fund, through its Cultural Emergency Response Programme, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation, through its Funding Initiative Patrimonies has issued a joint call for proposals aimed at “Emergency Preparedness for Cultural Heritage under Threat”.

This second round of the joint call for proposals aims to support the development and implementation of more preparatory measures for heritage buildings, collections and sites to protect in case a disaster occurs. Organisations are encouraged to enhance their emergency preparedness by implementing lessons learned during previous incidents. Special attention will be given to cross-sectoral collaborations strengthening networks, and the establishment of local structures for disaster preparedness and emergency response. The call also aims to step up efforts of both PCF and GHF in the field, raise awareness about its importance and illustrate how preventive concepts can safeguard heritage.

Project Criteria:

• The project must aim to prepare for the protection of tangible cultural heritage in emergency situations caused by an acute, current or impending disaster. 
• The country in which the intervention is to take place must be in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or the Caribbean, and the applying organisation or individual must live and work in one of these regions.
• The heritage involved must be significant for a specific community, whether local, regional, national, or global. 
• Local communities and/or local authorities must be involved in the emergency preparedness, and the legal owner must support the proposed measures.
• The intervention must be able to be carried out within a time frame of twelve months.
• Previous grantees of the Prince Claus Fund and of the Gerda Henkel Foundation can only apply for a new grant when the previously funded project is completely finished and closed before the deadline for submitting the current application.                                                        

Project priority areas:

• Damage and risk assessment: setting salvage priorities, digitalization and inventorying
• Disaster preparedness and the provision of supplies: storage, packing and evacuation
• Improvement of security measures for museums, buildings, archives and sites
• Management of crisis situations: risk evaluation, disaster management and evacuation plans
• Training of professionals for cultural emergency situations
• Strengthening of local networks working on heritage protection or advocating for its importance in other disaster preparedness structures
• Adoption of best practice methods for cultural emergency response or the exchange of these methods and knowledge
• Emergency documentation or excavation of cultural heritage sites under direct threat