Concept Note 

In 2021, the Fuzhou Declaration was adopted at the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, which highlights a series of important ideas, including a shared future for mankind, global cooperation and the linkage between cultural and natural heritage. The Declaration also calls for academia, civil society and communities’ wide participation, so as to vigorously strengthen the link between heritage conservation and socio-economic development activities.

The year 2022 marks both the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention and the 40th anniversary of China's National Famous Historical and Cultural Cities Protection System. The year is also the 70th anniversary of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) of Tongji University at Shanghai and the Tongji Planning Centennial, the 100th year since the university launched its first planning course. To joining the celebration for “The next 50: World Heritage as a source of resilience, humanity and innovation”, CAUP of Tongji University and World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region (WHITRAP, Shanghai) are organizing a series of academic activities from June 2022 to March 2023.

The 10-month series of academic and public activities jointly planned and organized by the two institutes  include:

Starting from China’s “Cultural and Natural Heritage Day” on June 11, a monthly World Heritage series dialogues has been launched with the themes of 6 sessions successively as “World Heritage and Quality of Life”, “Rural Heritage”, “Digital Tools for Heritage”, “Climate Change and Resilience” and “Large World Heritage and Serial World Heritage” and “Filling the Gap between Culture and Nature”. The dialogues are knowledge sharing in the form of roundtable discussions, aiming to showcase and discuss the conservation and management experience of World Heritage Sites, the strengths and importance of the World Heritage Convention, and better balance and promotion between conservation and development approaches to experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Please refer to the official we-chat account of “WHITRAP” for detailed information and summaries.

On 15 to 16 November, CAUP of Tongji University, WHITRAP Shanghai, the Academic Committee for Conservation Planning of Famous Historical and Cultural City – Urban Planning Society of China, and ICOMOS China, with the support of UNESCO World Heritage Center and ICOMOS, have planned an online international conference on World Heritage and Urban-Rural Sustainable Development: Resilience and Innovation based on Humanity (15 to 16 November 2022) and an online public exhibition on World Heritage Cities: Past, Present and Future(16 November 2022 to 31 March 2023).

The Conference aims to facilitate international dialogue and exchange, to promote the “Policy Document on World Heritage and Sustainable Development” and the World Heritage City Programme of UNESCO, and to implement the “Opinion on Strengthening the Protection and Inheritance of Historic and Cultural Heritage in the Course of Urban-Rural Development” issued by the General Office of the CCCPC and the General Office of the State Council.

The four-and-a-half-month online public exhibition, as an extension of the conference, is also an attempt to expand the exploration of heritage topics beyond the academia to reach to the public domain. The organizers hope to inform the public of the innovative mechanism featuring a spirit of international cooperation forged by the World Heritage Convention in the past 50 years, the knowledge of Outstanding Universal Value and the diversity of World Heritage cities, and the latest cases among the “Historic Urban Landscapes (HUL)” and World Heritage Cities programmes initiated by UNESCO World Heritage Center. The event also aims to present the profound culture and the unique oriental charm of Chinese historical cities, and to give an introduction to the “Imagination of Heritage: Original Paintings of Pingyao Picture Books”, a cocreation programme among professional institutions, public welfare teams and a group of young artists. A series of activities will be organized during the exhibition to lead the public into a more detailed realm of the World Heritage cities/famous historical and cultural cities, where the essence of human civilizations has crystallized, be it from the past, in the present or for the future, so as to explore more creative and diversified approaches to the protection, interpretation, presentation, and utilization of those heritage.