Polish Presidency of the Baltic Region Heritage Committee 2025 – 2026

Poland holds presidency in Baltic Region Heritage Committee 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, taking over from Estonia.

Having in mind: activities to date of the Committee; current challenges in security and heritage protection; priorities of the Polish presidency in Council of the Baltic Sea States; long-term priorities of the Council of the Baltic Sea States; Polish presidency in the Committee will focus on the importance of documentation and methods of collecting and sharing data on tangible and intangible heritage as fundamental and critical activities for its management and security.

The systematic collection and sharing of heritage data facilitates the exchange of information and benefits efficiency where heritage protection intersects with other areas of state activity, such as spatial planning, building procedures, infrastructure investments, maritime safety, enforcement of sanctions and combating money laundering. It also serves to assure society that heritage is a recognized resource with specific parameters, social significance, and financial value. It therefore becomes something defined that must be considered. A thorough understanding of what heritage contains, facilitates the development of protection standards. Digitizing heritage data makes it more accessible and closer to the people, which is extremely important because it unlocks the potential of heritage for integration, which in turn provides a foundation on which we can build a resilient society.

Digitalisation, including technologically advanced three-dimensional documentation, digitisation and sharing of archival documentation, and the creation of databases based on those elements, is crucial for effective heritage protection. To name just a few examples: it facilitates the preparation of strategies for times of armed conflict; creates new opportunities for collecting, analysing and managing multidisciplinary spatial data – including meteorological data, vegetation cover, buildings’ geometry, in order to predict the effects of climate change and natural disasters; it assists in decision-making in urban planning and infrastructure construction, and supports the prevention of crimes related to movable cultural property, such as smuggling and money laundering.

In this context, ensuring the long-term quality, reliability, and usability of heritage data is essential. This includes consistent capture procedures and maintaining standards, interoperable and preferably open formats, robust metadata, documented provenance, agreed verification mechanisms, and long-term preservation. Accordingly, the regional cooperation may also cover aligning approaches to capture standards and to assessing the quality and completeness of documentation, so that the data remains usable years later, including when resources are constrained.

Digitization processes also bring several benefits to scientific research, as they enable broader, almost unlimited access to information. In terms of regional cooperation, it can support initiatives promoting culture and heritage and support activities in cross-border regions by creating tools that facilitate the exchange of information and the search for common elements between tangible and intangible heritage resources. The need to digitize and systematize information will sooner or later affect heritage protection, as it will other areas related to public services. The European Union’s efforts to digitize public administration and strengthen interoperability are also significant. Our common task is to ensure that heritage is considered in this process.