Ghent by Mislav Marohnić (Creative Commons - CC-SA 2.0)
The Belgian Federal Scientific Policy Office will fund a two-year initiative (2019-2021) focused on fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange between the University of Oxford and several Belgian organisations.
The Heritage stone Monitoring and Remediation: knowledge exchange placements (KNOWMORE network) will be coordinated by the Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) and connect researchers, practitioners, and policy makers working on stone-built heritage in the UK and Belgium. In addition to the School of Geography and the Environment (University of Oxford), other key actors in the network are Ghent University and the Belgian Building Research Institute.
The network will enable expert meetings and knowledge exchange placements in both countries. Additionally, it will coordinate an international Summer School on heritage science and stone conservation in Ghent in August 2019.
"The challenges facing stone-built cultural heritage are complex and numerous... The opportunity for this network lies in identifying cross-scale opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaborations and linking laboratory and field investigations... [and identifying] relevant monitoring and documentation procedures... set in the context of uncertain changes in climate in the UK and Belgium, which face similar issues."
KNOWMORE Framework Outline