From July 19 to 29, the 48th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee convened at BEXCO in Busan, Republic of Korea. The World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (WHITR-AP), hosted at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP), Tongji University, participated throughout the session and organized two flagship side events on July 22 and 23.

On July 22, WHITR-AP Shanghai, together with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, UN-Habitat, and ICOMOS Korea, co-organized the side event Heritage Action for Sustainable Development. The event gathered over 100 participants — including representatives from ICOMOS, ICCROM, IUCN, and World Heritage Convention States Parties — and was attended by Mr. Lazare Eloundou-Assomo, Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Prof. Shao Yong, Secretary-General of WHITR-AP, presented The Heritage HUB: Urban-rural Heritage for Sustainable Development, a five-year cooperative programme (2026–2030) jointly initiated with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and UN-Habitat. Grounded in the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, the programme seeks to bridge urban and rural heritage conservation in service of the UN 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda. A roundtable moderated by WHITR-AP Special Advisor Dr. Gamini Wijesuriya featured reflections by Mr. Francesco Bandarin and Prof. Mike Turner, who underscored the need to extend HUL approaches across urban-rural continua.

On July 23, WHITR-AP partnered with the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations (WFUCA) to host Future-Oriented World Heritage Education — Youth-Centered Innovation. Moderated by Prof. Shao Yong, the event launched the 2026 edition of the Global World Heritage Education Innovation Cases (AWHEIC) initiative. Dr. Li Xin, Deputy Secretary-General of WHITR-AP, outlined the programme's evolution toward a global incubation platform, while Dr. Li Guanghan, Executive Director of WHITR-AP Beijing, chaired a youth case-sharing session spanning digital tools, community collaboration, and heritage study programs.

The two events reaffirm WHITR-AP's role as a regional hub for heritage capacity-building, advancing Asia-Pacific experience and Chinese practice in support of the World Heritage Convention and global sustainable development.