Symposium: World Heritage and Society – World Heritage Sites as Places of Negotiation and Education

Since 2016, the Free State of Saxony, in collaboration with partners, has been organising specialist conferences on the topic of World Heritage education as part of the biennial denkmal trade fair in Leipzig. The conference series focuses on the World Heritage Convention and, in particular, its educational mandate, with the aim of further developing educational and outreach programmes in the context of heritage-related issues.

With up to 120 participants at each event, the aim is to facilitate dialogue based on specific topics and projects at cultural and World Heritage sites, in order to identify problems, potential, needs for action and research, as well as possible solutions for educational and outreach work within the World Heritage context. The specialist conferences serve as platforms for networking.

The target audience comprises stakeholders from World Heritage sites as well as experts in the fields of heritage conservation, World Heritage management, World Heritage education and outreach, and research. A distinctive feature is that young people are offered a platform within the framework of the conferences to present their own projects and experiences in the context of heritage and World Heritage.

The aim of the conference in 2026 is to examine the benefits of World Heritage sites for society as a whole, with a focus on civic education. Against the backdrop of UNESCO’s objectives for peace, sustainable development and democratic participation, World Heritage sites are to be discussed both as subjects of democratic negotiation processes, as places of identification that can strengthen social cohesion, and as subjects for education and outreach.

The following questions are to be discussed:

How can World Heritage sites contribute to political education and social cohesion?
How can the potential of World Heritage sites be constructively harnessed as places of learning and action within democratic negotiation processes?
Which themes, formats and methods are particularly suitable for embedding political education within the educational work of World Heritage sites?

Registration for the symposium is available at: buergerbeteiligung.sachsen.de