Collaborative projects in cultural heritage conservation – management challenges and risks

Abstract

© 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS The concept of cultural heritage has been increasingly enlarged over decades. Many professions are invited to work together in a holistic attempt to preserve inherited tangible and intangible assets. This complexity brings more challenges in organization of collaborative conservation works. Since 1960s project management approach has become prevalent way in which contemporary, non-routine tasks are organized, despite of the industry. A survey was conducted in order to examine how increased complexity of cross-disciplinary setting influences project management challenges and risks in heritage conservation. The findings of the survey outline that there is a number of challenges/risks associated with extremely cross-disciplinary setting of conservation projects, while the practice already provides some useful references how these can be managed and mitigated. This paper offers systematic overview of the most common challenges/risks, some good practice examples and guidelines observed among countries of former Yugoslavia region, which could be further investigated in a call for a tailored approach aimed to reduce project management risks in collaborative conservation projects.