Looking Forward: the EAC past, present and future

In March 2025, the EAC held workshops in Gdańsk, and invited members and colleagues to share their priorities in the context of the Valletta and Faro Conventions, to guide the activities of the EAC in the coming years. The workshops were based on four topics identified as priorities in a survey conducted the previous year, namely: heritage crime; citizen science and public benefit; landscape management and archaeology; and climate change and sustainability.

The technical report from the workshops was issued online in December, and this will be followed by summary publications in March 2026. The technical report contains notes from the workshops, along with questions, ideas and calls to action for addressing the topics discussed. This week, the EAC also publishes its first ever Annual Activity Report, summarising the work of the organisation in 2025.

This next phase of EAC activities will continue to build on the Amersfoort Agenda, published in 2015: this was the EAC's response to addressing the challenges laid out in the Valletta Convention. The Making Choices initiative was designed to create EAC guidance and support to address the priorities outlined in the Agenda. In 2024 and 2025, we began to launch the range of new EAC guidelines resulting from this initiative, which will complete in 2026, with the publication of guidelines on Articulating Significance.

Museo di Altamira

With the conclusion of the Making Choices workplan on the horizon, that is why the EAC began the 'Looking Forward' survey and workshops in 2024-2025. The first topic raised, heritage crime, forms the subject of the 2026 Heritage Symposium, at Altamira, Santillana del Mar, Spain.

The remaining priorities also need action in 2026, and the EAC Board urges any member who is interested in participating in work on these topics to get in touch. In this month's European Affairs Update, you can find a call for participation from the EAC/ EAA Working Group on Farming, Forestry and Rural Land Management who are running a session at this year's EAA conference.

As the EAC looks forward to its future work programme, it is fitting to thank all members, past and present, for their participation and engagement. The publication of the Amersfoort Agenda in 2015 was accompanied by a memoriam piece for William Willems (EAC Occasional Paper 10), one of the founders of EAC and architects of the Agenda, and 10 years on, we continue to celebrate his vision, and the hard work and dedication of all our colleagues in heritage management.