Social
The project will significantly contribute to the following Social outcomes described below. Worth mentioning is that the following 2 outcomes have dual character and belong also to the outcomes described in the Industrial/Economic/Technological section.
- Up-take by private funding agencies for the transformation of the mines into museums
The identification of best practices for transformation of sites and areas into industrial heritage objects will lead to an uptake by private funding agencies, providing at the end new services by transforming the coal mines into museums.
- Incorporation of best practices regarding transformation of mining sites and places into industrial and cultural heritage – while carrying out of transition processes.
This outcome derives from the use of pathways for the identification of the coal sites as national heritage areas and the study of best practices of site transformation into industrial heritage. The latter will lead to the reskilling of the former mine workers that counteract the job loss from mine closure and achieving better working condition regarding health and safety and the final declaration of coal mines as national or international cultural heritage sites.
Environmental
CoalHeritage supports a general improvement in the quality of the environment through the preservation of cultural heritage in industrial space by using the gained knowledge on the transformation of mining sites and places into industrial and cultural heritage, while in transition.
- Integration of the interregional coal mining heritage network and the Geodatabase as a specific theme route in the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).
The development of a Coal Heritage Geo-database to collect geospatial and text data from the selected coal mines under specific criteria will be a co-created activity with the interregional stakeholder network. The integration of the interregional coal mining heritage network and the geodatabase as a specific theme route in the ERIH will lead to the final declaration of coal mines as national or international cultural heritage sites, thus strengthening the need to identify and diagnose local identities as a basis for building a sense of belonging and activating social activity through the process of preserving cultural heritage.
