MODI-FY

The aim of “MODI-FY - Maintaining Historic Buildings and Objects through Developing and Up-grading Individual Skills of Project Managers: Fostering European Heritage and Culture for Years to come” is to develop innovative Training for public organisations, NGO and companies, dealing with maintenance of historic sites/buildings; this includes the recognition of previous learning (already available skills) and the establishment of a European certificate issued by ECQA – www.ecqa.org

Management of historic sites and buildings puts great demands on the responsible organisations; on one hand they are responsible for keeping them in shape – without changing the appearance more than absolutely necessary – and on the other hand they are required to utilise those historic buildings to the best degree possible.

Staff members and volunteers of organisations looking after historic buildings do need specific skills in order to ensure that the historic assets of Europe are still available for future generations – and at the same time can be utilised for several purposes, like hosting offices, flats, museums, shops, cafés and restaurants and many other. In order to do that, the buildings need to fulfil the requirements of modern life and commercial needs.

According to Prof. Wiegand, Vienna University of Technology, added value can only be achieved with well managed mixed use real estates and there are three key factors to this:

the right actors need to come together, they need to master the required processes and they need to know their business. Only the successful operational management of historic buildings creates positive economic effects, which are needed for sustainability of those (“1st European Congress 2012”).

A recent study of the IWI Institute (Industriewissenschafltiches Institut) Vienna shows that 95% of tourists consider a historical ambience a major factor of their decision to visit a town or city. Investments into historic objects in Austria secure directly 1960 full-time employments and indirectly approx. 27.000 full-time employments. The anticipated added value is estimated at around 1.65 billion EUR just for Austria. Heritage is, for example, the largest motivator for domestic and international tourism in the UK, where tourism is the 5th largest sector by GDP, and has one of the highest economic growth potentials of all sectors. Heritage also performs a vital role in helping to define a community’s sense of place/civic pride and also in attracting inward investment.

Therefore the education and professionalization of project managers (PMs) and volunteers (VOL) looking after these historic buildings is an essential step towards the European economic future. Another important factor is the integration of the European Skills Passport as a tool to enable people to better present their skills and qualifications online.

The anticipated holistic concept follows the Best Practice examples of 27 jobs already certified by the ECQA, and provides

• recognition of prior learning, non-formally and informally acquired skills and competences
• certification of already available skills and competences as well as skills to be acquired through the blended courses developed in the project “MODI-FY”
• further education for trainers – train-the-trainer modules, following the structure and principles of ECQA and linking the acquired skills into the European ECVET system.

A short research across Europe has shown that there is no specific VET and/or other education available that contains all required skills/competences for people working in/ for responsible bodies of historic buildings. Partners involved have a high interest in the project results and a certification of their staff and volunteers. Co-operating partners of BHOE e.g. participants of the “1st&2nd European Congress organised by BHOE, already show interest in certification of their staff/volunteers. There is a growing need to sustain historic buildings in all – and especially in new EU countries, as they all have great cultural heritage to show e.g. Cultural Capitals of Europe. However, maintenance of historic buildings is still a big challenge and the lack of appropriate and tailor-made (VET) offers has triggered the idea for this project. Partners have identified increased need for well trained staff, who

• do combine skills and competences of several trades within their skills range,
• hold a recognised certification of formally, non-formally and informally acquired skills
• are prepared to update their skills constantly in the true sense of LLL

All partners involved in “MODI-FY” have identified the need for a holistic and certified education for PMs and Assistant PMs of historic sites – which was also confirmed during the “1st & 2nd European Congress on the Use, Management and Conservation of buildings of historic value” - as they are aware of the gap between education offered on secondary and tertiary level.

Founded by Erasmus+

Project No. 2014-1-AT-01-KA200-001034