U4V e-Learning Platform
These modules aim to provide training resources that develop new skills in Underground Built Heritage (UBH), heritage valorisation, community engagement, sustainable transitions, and the application of new technologies in the heritage sector. They are intended for students, academics, practitioners, planners, decision-makers, heritage managers, local development facilitators, and other professionals involved in heritage and territorial development.
The training introduces innovative approaches to surveying, analysing, monitoring, and testing UBH, while promoting the use of new tools that empower local communities and support planners and decision-makers. It integrates multidisciplinary knowledge of underground heritage within the Strategic Transition Practice (STP) framework, fostering new professional profiles in cultural planning, strategic spatial planning, and transition management.
These emerging profiles strengthen collaboration with local communities, spread innovative thinking, and apply adaptive, forward-looking methods to explore alternative social and territorial pathways.
TRAINING TOPICS
Structured in lectures, the training addresses four main topics
The training modules are based on scientific approaches (regional sciences, urban geography, computer sciences, and economic policy), with the input of disciplines in the humanities, for considering cultural issues, as well as strategies and tools for urban/rural regeneration policies, sustainable tourism, community empowerment, and UBH conservation.
Lectures contribute to producing a training toolkit for decision-makers, practitioners, stakeholders and local communities. In particular, the training expands the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) framework by developing new specific modules about UBH and introducing Strategic Transition Practice (STP). It provides the participants with tools for stimulating, developing and supporting real-life experiments (Living Labs) in a practice-oriented modulation, aimed at shaping processes of strategic dialogue, co-evolution and co-creation.
U4V Training Schools
The U4V Training Schools offered an intensive learning environment dedicated to the valorisation of Underground Built Heritage. Conceived to equip planners, decision-makers, promoters, and local development facilitators with innovative tools and methods, they unfolded across four editions held in Naples, Murcia, Ayia Napa, and Malta.
Through a blend of multidisciplinary lectures, teamwork, and close interaction with tutors experienced in UBH living labs, participants engaged in a shared learning process that dissolved traditional boundaries between teachers and trainees.
This collaborative format encouraged critical reflection on conservation practices, valorisation strategies, and participatory approaches, enriched by the diverse backgrounds of attendees from across Europe. Continuous feedback helped refine the programme over time, leading to enhanced modules, preparatory webinars, and the production of handbooks, case-study volumes, training videos, and a dedicated MOOC.
Together, these Training Schools built a solid foundation for advancing UBH management and empowered a new generation of professionals committed to community-centred heritage practices.
Focal Points of the U4V Training Schools
- Explicating and sharing the Action’s accumulated knowledge through structured training modules.
- Enabling a collective learning process where trainers and trainees work together intensively over five days.
- Offering interactive lectures that combine theories, methodologies, practical experiences, and case-based insights.
- Promoting collaborative research teamwork and the intensive development of new research ideas.
- Strengthening both academic and professional capacities in UBH management and valorisation.
- Integrating multidisciplinary perspectives on Underground Built Heritage with an innovative and forward-looking planning approach.
