From Fragmentation to Connection: Cultural Heritage, Memory and Societal Engagement in Europe

Across Europe, the past is often a source of division rather than connection. Monuments, archives, heritage sites, and cultural memories linked to wars, dictatorships, political violence, or disappearing communities are frequently interpreted in very different and sometimes conflicting ways. This project starts from the idea that the main challenge today is fragmentation: fragmented memories, fragmented narratives, fragmented heritage practices, and fragmented ways of understanding the past. Building on the results of a previous UNITA Starting Grant, the project aims to strengthen an existing international research network and to develop new ways of addressing this fragmentation. It brings together scholars from different disciplines, such as history, art history, architecture, sociology, and philosophy, together with non-academic partners including museums, cultural institutions, and other local stakeholders. The project has three main goals. First, it will consolidate and expand the transnational network created during the previous phase of research. Second, it will deepen cooperation with non-academic partners through needs-assessment activities, pilot collaborations, and opportunities for exchange among stakeholders from different countries. Third, it will prepare a large-scale Horizon Europe application on the societal impact of cultural heritage. Methodologically, the project combines online and face-to-face workshops, collaborative work among partners, and activities with local stakeholders. Special attention will be paid to contested, absent, displaced, or fading heritage, and to the plurality of perspectives through which such heritage is remembered, silenced, or reinterpreted. By involving both academic and non-academic actors, the project seeks to develop a more connected, bottom-up, and socially grounded approach to difficult heritage. Its broader ambition is to transform fragmentation from a source of misunderstanding into an opportunity for dialogue, cooperation, and shared reflection. In this way, the project will not only strengthen the research network itself, but also lay the foundations for a future European initiative with meaningful scientific and societal impact.