Objective: Create added value and enhance the preservation and sustainability of European crafts through a Community Portal to act as a one-stop-shop for education, training, craft design and innovation in Europe.
Methods:
- Build the Community, a place for dialogue on crafts, a forum-like space for exchange among diverse stakeholders, including craft practitioners, researchers, apprentices, and enthusiasts passionate about crafts. This initiative builds on existing communities and networks, strengthened by new members through the project’s strong communication activities. The Community Portal will also broaden its scope by incorporating diverse, cross-sector topics—extending beyond crafts to engage audiences interested in cultural heritage, sustainability, design, and entrepreneurship. Designed with a familiar, user-friendly interface inspired by common social media platforms, the portal ensures intuitive navigation, making it easy for users to connect, share, and engage with content.
- Organise the community into five clearly defined thematic groups to foster targeted engagement, encourage interdisciplinary exchange, and provide users with tailored entry points based on their interests. These pillars serve as the foundation for discussion, collaboration, and knowledge exchange: Understanding & Valorisation; Authenticity & Safeguarding; Transmission & Learning; Empowering Business Models and Documentation & Archiving.
- Weave practitioners into the community identity by featuring their insights, instructions, interviews, demonstrations of techniques and designs, as well as by sharing educational and training materials, interviews with instructors, and masterclasses.
- Disseminate results, content experiences from all pilots and pilot sites and form individual craftsperson and micro businesses through experiential presentations, educational and training services and realistic 3D presentation of craft artefacts
- Ensure long-term relevance and usability by conducting continuous, user-based evaluations of all community features and activities. This process will help refine the user experience, demonstrate the community’s impact, and align platform functionalities with the evolving needs of its users. By hosting and integrating the Community within the madineurope.eu platform, these evaluations will also inform its future development, ensuring a smooth transition beyond the Craeft funding period. This approach lays a solid foundation for sustainability and continuity, allowing the community to grow organically within a trusted and established European platform dedicated to crafts and cultural heritage.
Community – a Place for Dialog on Crafts
The CRAEFT Community Forum is designed to be an interactive and dynamic platform that fosters knowledge sharing, collaboration, and engagement within the crafts and cultural heritage sectors. It is built to serve as a space where professionals, researchers, and enthusiasts can connect, discuss pressing issues, share expertise, and explore new developments in the field. The objectives of the forum are to exchange on the ongoing initiatives in the crafts ecosystem, to promote innovation as well as sustainable practices, and advanced education formats, and to animate a network of players committed to the safeguarding and valorisation of craft.
The primary objective of the Craeft Community Forum is to create a collaborative online environment that facilitates discussions around key topics related to crafts and hence ICH. By providing a dedicated space for dialogue, the forum aims to:
Encourage knowledge exchange: The forum will act as a central hub for the exchange of information, research, and best practices in the craft sector. This will include discussions on methodologies, tools, and new technological advancements, such as the Craeft Protocol for documenting craft knowledge.
Facilitate collaboration: The forum will connect like-minded individuals and organisations, creating opportunities for partnerships, joint projects, and initiatives. By promoting cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration, the forum aims to encourage a more integrated approach to heritage preservation and crafts education.
Promote inclusivity and participation: The forum will be open to a wide range of stakeholders, including craft professionals, researchers, students, heritage organisations, and enthusiasts. Its inclusive nature will ensure that all voices are heard, regardless of geographical location or professional background. It will facilitate the gathering of bottom-up information, which is crucial to better understand the challenges of the sector.
Raise awareness of key initiatives: The forum will be used as a promotional tool for relevant projects or studies, such as the CRAFTOUR Initiative and other EU-funded projects such as – Colour4crafts, Hephaestus, Culturality, MOSAIC and Tracks4crafts and possibly many others. By providing a space for exchange and visibility the forum aims to amplify their impact and attract additional stakeholders who can contribute to the success and outreach of the EU-funded initiatives.
The forum’s applications will be diverse, serving both as a resource for information and as a space for active participation. Members can use the forum to:
Exchange & Access Expert Content
The forum hosts articles, case studies, research papers, and event updates related to crafts and cultural heritage. The content is regularly curated to ensure relevance and quality, providing valuable resources for those looking to deepen their understanding of the field.
Participate in Discussions
Members are encouraged to start discussions, ask questions, and share insights on topics of interest. Discussions will be moderated to maintain a constructive and respectful environment, with clear guidelines for participation.
Network & Collaborate
The forum provides tools for members to connect with one another, fostering networking opportunities within the community and stimulating new collaborations.
Growth & Strengthening
Overall, the information, knowledge, experts, case studies, and overall resources gathered within the Community should significantly impact the revitalisation of the crafts sector, making it more resilient, sustainable, and fostering its growth.
Community Pillars
In order to address the vast and diverse craft sector, the five core forum pillars—Understanding & Valorisation, Authenticity & Safeguard, Transmission & Training, Economics & Innovative and Sustainable Business Models, and Documentation & Archiving—aim to comprehensively tackle the key challenges and opportunities facing the crafts sector today. These themes reflect the sector’s most pressing needs, from preserving heritage and ensuring authenticity to fostering education, promoting economic sustainability, and securing long-term documentation.
By structuring discussions around these interconnected areas, the forum provides a collaborative platform for craft practitioners, policymakers, educators, and researchers to exchange knowledge and co-develop strategies that support the sector’s evolution. Ultimately, these pillars contribute to a holistic approach to strengthening crafts as a vital part of cultural heritage, economic development, and social cohesion in Europe and beyond.
Additionally, the forum supports cross-topic posts, enabling conversations that bridge multiple themes. This flexibility fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and highlights the deep interconnections between various aspects of craftsmanship, ensuring a more comprehensive understanding of the sector’s challenges and solutions.
Pillars explanation
1.Understanding & Valorisation: Understanding crafts and highlighting the values they embed as an asset for heritage preservation, sustainability, social cohesion, economic development… The process includes understanding the dexterity of gesture through, developing self-valorisation of craftspeople themselves, and sharing values with the public.
2.Authenticity & Safeguard: Definition of crafts at EU level. Recognising and valuing authentic products over imitations, safeguarding genuine artisanal craftsmanship and territorial heritage diversity. Mapping crafts (techniques + materials + use + design) that have territorial roots and are part of heritage. This can also be implemented and help the further development of Geographical indications for craft and industrial products.
3.Transmission & Training: Mapping, analysing, testing, and promoting new formal and non-formal educational paths and formats, including hands-on experiences, digital learning, VR, augmented reality, and hybrid formats. Map of endangered skills and transmission opportunities / best practices. Certification models.
4.Economics and Innovative and sustainable Business Models: Attracting the next generations into the crafts sector is a condition for the safeguarding of crafts and European diversity. Empowering small crafts businesses’ attractiveness relies on the capacity of crafts businesses to generate sufficient revenues for future generations. New business models are necessary to face globalisation, that integrate innovation in the design/making/marketing process / (new income perspectives, tutoring…).
5.Documentation & Archiving: Despite efforts to safeguard and transmit crafts to future generations there is a certainty that some crafts might be lost, in practice, forever. There are many indications and constant research findings confirming this, among which are the alarming The Red List of Endangered Heritage Crafts in the UK developed by the Heritage Crafts Association and since this year the German Manufactory Route (Deutsche Manufakturen Strasse) list in Germany. Therefore, thinking about documenting and archiving crafts techniques, gestures and tools is of crucial importance. In addition, these innovative and advanced contributions to crafts documentation can also be of significance to UNESCO and the way crafts as part of intangible cultural heritage are documented currently.