4) Citizens Engagement & Awareness-raising

Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou is a Civil Engineer with a Master’s in Protection, Conservation, and Restoration of Monuments, a Master’s in Environmental Planning, a PhD in Architecture (digital cultural heritage), and a postdoc in Digital Heritage at the University of the Aegean. In 2015, his research project HERMeS earned him the prestigious European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra Award. The Council of Europe has recognised HERMeS as part of the Best Practices for Strategy 2021 and is currently being expanded to several historic cities. He has been invited as a guest speaker at international events, including the EU Cultural Forum, Best in Heritage, EU Best Practices in Public Administration, Digital Heritage, and Strategy 2021. Pavlos was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the UNESCO Chair for Digital Heritage at the Cyprus University of Technology. Currently, he teaches digital cultural heritage at the University of the Aegean, serves as Chairman of the Jury for the European Heritage Awards/Europa Nostra Awards in the category Citizens’ Engagement and Awareness Raising, and is the Co-founder of the non-profit NGO Heritage Management e-Society (HERMeS) for the digital management of heritage. He is also Chairman of the Syros Institute’s board of directors and Project Officer for EU Funding in the South Aegean Region. Since June 2024, he has been appointed Managing Director and Scientific Responsible for the Historical Museum of Hermoupolis, a collaborative initiative of HERMeS NGO and the Lyceum of Greek Women of Syros. In this role, he oversees the development of innovative, inclusive activities, positioning the museum as a centre for Syros’s knowledge and cultural heritage.

Dr. Natalia Moussienko is Europa Nostra Vice-President. She served as a member of the jury for the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards in the category Dedicated Service to Heritage (2019-2020) and later as a member of the Selection Committee in the category Citizens Engagement and Awareness Raising (2021-2022). Furthermore, she was on the Selection Committee for the European Heritage Hub Competition (2024).

Natalia Moussienko is a leading research fellow at the Modern Art Research Institute of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine in Kyiv. She studied philosophy at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and subsequently at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine where she received her doctorate. She is the author of numerous articles and books on the theory and history of culture, cultural diplomacy, urbanism, and cinema.

Dr. Moussienko pays special attention to the issues of art and cultural heritage at war: she lectures internationally and speaks on radio, television, and other mass media. In 2022–24 she presented her lectures in Ukraine, USA, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Cyprus, Serbia, Germany, and Italy. She was a coordinator of the International Heritage Solidarity Fellowship for the Ukrainian Defenders of the Cultural Heritage, launched by Europa Nostra (2022-2023).

Natalia Moussienko is the author of the research on the strategy and institutional development of cultural diplomacy and an educational course for Ph.D. students “Cultural Heritage as a Vector of Cultural Diplomacy”. She initiated and organized four Cultural Diplomacy Forums in Kyiv, notably “Cultural Heritage Matters to Cultural Diplomacy” in the framework of the European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018).

Flora Bacquelaine Vidal de Llobatera SPAIN She holds a PhD in Humanities, Heritage and Cultural Studies and her professional activity combines cultural management, project evaluation, university teaching and scientific research focused on cultural studies. She has been the coordinator of the Culture and Tourism Commissions in the European Association for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) Euroregió Pirineus-Mediterrània until November 2024. She currently takes part as a team member of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s research project “Franco’s regionalism from Catalonia: centripetal practices and discourses” (PID2021-125227NB-I00), an activity that she combines with the task of collaborating lecturer in the Master’s Degree in Cultural Management at the UOC-UdG.

Árpád Bőczén has been the founding president of the Association of Cultural Heritage Managers (KÖME), since 2012. He graduated as an architect at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and as a cultural heritage expert at the Corvinus University of Budapest. His main interest is the human and especially the socio-cultural aspects of our living environment. Encouraging people and communities to take an active part in shaping their environment and living spaces whilst developing existing heritage based on value has played a significant role in his practice. Building spaces and structures are equally as important to him as building communities. He is a certified interpretive writer and a certified interpretive guide and trainer. He has been the initiator, manager and evaluator of many international projects dealing with a wide range of cultural and natural heritage including built assets, archaeological values, landscapes, memories, objects, digital works, music and many more. He always attaches high importance to the establishment and follow-up of good cooperation among different disciplines and cultures. He was the manager of Interpret Europe’s 2018 conference “Heritage and Identity”. This event was part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage programme.

Davida de Hond is a member of the management team of Museum Arnhem, a museum located in the eastern part of the Netherlands. As head of public and program, de Hond is responsible for education, marketing, communication, programming and exhibitions. Previously she has worked as an entrepreneur in the cultural field, focusing on heritage and community building. She has a focus on participation and education through heritage and art. She also worked for Erfgoed Nederland, the national heritage agency, with a role in the team that focussed on heritage from an international perspective. For the Reinwardt Academy, she has worked on international cooperation projects that focussed on new museology, eco museology, community building and innovation in heritage education.

Besides her different employments, she is also active as an advisor on committees regarding culture and heritage subsidies. In the recent past, she has worked for the Mondriaan Fund, for the municipality of Rotterdam through the RRKC, the Provincial Committee on Culture and Heritage in Gelderland and the fund for Cultural Participation.

Simon O’Connor is a composer and the first Director of the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), a collaboration between University College Dublin and the National Library of Ireland. Since 2019, MoLI has won the Business to Arts Best Philanthropic Support of the Arts Award 2021, Red Dot Best Exhibition Design 2020, IDEA Exhibition Design Gold Award 2021 & shortlisted for the European Mies Van Der Rohe Architecture Award 2022 and the European Museum of the Year Awards 2022. It won the European Heritage Award/Europa Nostra Award in the category Citizens’ Engagement and Awareness Raising in 2023 and was also recognised with the Grand Prix. Simon was the founding curator of the Little Museum of Dublin, a winner of the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award in 2016.

Irene Reyes is a young professional specialising in International and European Law passionate about fostering connections between citizens and policymakers. Through her work at prestigious institutions like INTERPOL and UNESCO, she has gained valuable experience in public policy, project management, and international cooperation, focusing on the European and global landscape. Irene’s commitment to civic engagement extends beyond her professional roles—she actively contributes as an Editor at the European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage (ESACH), where she empowers young voices in the field of cultural heritage.