Abstract
Cultural heritage governance is undergoing a change related to the roles of the public and private sector and the assessment of heritage as an instrument to achieve broader aims, in terms of social, cultural and economic development as the Council of Europe stated in its 2005 Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. These changes have also characterised the Italian institutional framework where the law introduced a series of norms allowing different degrees of involvement of the private sector in the management of heritage sites and museums and/or of the ‘ancillary’ services necessary to favour their fruition (ticket sales, bookshop, cafeteria). The changes in the law facilitated the introduction of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the heritage sphere, and examples of these are becoming more common. This paper considers one of these cases, where a private organisation, specifically a non-profit association—Officine Culturali—cooperates with a public institution—the University of Catania—to realise the activities necessary to enhance a heritage site which hosts one of the university’s departments and is included in UNESCO's World Heritage List. The association stands out for its focus on participation that is clearly set in its mission. Looking at the activities run by Officine Culturali, two aspects deserve a closer analysis: product differentiation and the use of heritage enhancement as tools to obtain far-ranging social effects. The analysis illustrates the institutional arrangements that made possible the involvement of a private association in the enhancement of a publicly owned heritage site through the creation of a partnership between the association and the university of Catania. The chapter will focus on the activities of Officine Culturali considering, specifically, their focus on social inclusion and their capacity to attain it.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships is a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1985. Its activities aim at enhancing the partnership process. See www.ncppp.org
- 3.
In fact, several existing examples of private intervention (e.g. National Trust in UK, FAI and Officine Culturali in Italy, the ‘friends’ of museums associations) show how private organisations and individuals (e.g. volunteers) might decide to contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage and the diffusion of knowledge and awareness about it.
- 4.
They refer to tourism but their statement can be applied to any sector.
- 5.
On occasions, there is a tendency towards an overestimation of the ‘real’ interest of the private sector in investing in heritage sites, especially the less important or least known ones.
- 6.
See Dubini et al. (2012) for the illustration of several cases related to the preservation of heritage. An often quoted example is the Herculaneum Conservation Project made possible thanks to the collaboration between Packard Humanities Institute and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei (the authority responsible for archaeological heritage of Naples and Pompeii) with the support of the British School in Rome.
- 7.
Because of the nature of one of the subjects involved, the case allows some reflections on the third mission of the university which, according to the Green Paper commissioned by the European Commission, “exists to serve and engage with society through education, research and related activities” (A.A.V.V. 2012, p. 11). European universities have traditionally focused on two missions: teaching and research. However, another mission, i.e. the third mission, is being recuperated in order to consider the potential impact universities can have on society. This is attainable giving access to museums, concerts, lectures, voluntary work and consultancy activities both by staff and students. The realisation of this wider set of activities requires the involvement of a broader group of people and the design of new structures and mechanisms to perform them. To overcome the possible limitations set by the legal framework, it is possible to develop third mission activities by cooperating with external institutions. In fact, collaboration between universities and society at large (local authorities, enterprises, non-profit institutions and the community) is fundamental.
- 8.
The number excludes those visitors who, after asking information in the info-point, visited the monastery on their own. See Sect. 3.
- 9.
Due to changes in the organisation of the University of Catania, the whole process started with the faculty of humanities, and the first agreement was signed with it in 2010. Then, the transformation of the faculties in departments and the contemporary process of centralisation led to a change in the partnership, as the university took the place of the faculty ratifying the previous agreement in 2012.
- 10.
The so-called Code of Cultural Goods and Landscape—Codice dei beni culturali e del paesaggio. However, the new law on tenders (Legislative decree no. 50/2016) might introduce changes to the possible agreements between public and private bodies.
- 11.
The monastery is open to everybody and can be visited freely. Officine Culturali organises guided tours that tell the story of the building and of the town.
- 12.
- 13.
See Sect. 3.
- 14.
- 15.
As noted above (sect. 2) PPP can be a useful tool to realize this objective.
- 16.
The project the association is working on is called “Rifugio Antiaereo del Liceo Scientifico Boggio Lera” and is taking place within the national project ‘Alternanza Scuola lavoro’.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
The students said they felt they ‘have a mission’.
- 20.
It is the first museum bookshop opened in town. In April 2015 the Association participated to and won a public tender so it opened a bookshop also in the civic museum.
- 21.
The restaurants and cafes in the neighbourhood also suggest having external, indirect effects in the form of increased income derived from the presence of the visitors to the monastery.
- 22.
- 23.
The use of the ex-monastery in the university’s ambit actually corresponds to its third life given that during the period from 1861 until it was donated to the university, the monastery had been used for non-secular purposes.
- 24.
It is true that these are part-time contracts and the part of volunteer activity by the members is relevant but, still, they can be considered as positive results confirming the idea that culture can be used to create jobs.
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Mannino, F., Mignosa, A. (2017). Public Private Partnership for the Enhancement of Cultural Heritage: The Case of the Benedictine Monastery of Catania. In: Ateca-Amestoy, V., Ginsburgh, V., Mazza, I., O'Hagan, J., Prieto-Rodriguez, J. (eds) Enhancing Participation in the Arts in the EU. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09096-2_14
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