The IHBC’s sixth IHBC Research for Practice Digest has been issued to networks and subscribers features French public agency for ecological transition alongside our regular updated on Research and Guidance; Calls for Papers, Abstracts & Researchers and our ‘Broader Context’ of research & news – sign up HERE.
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The IHBC writes:
Welcome to the IHBC’s sixth issue of its Research for Practice Digest. For this issue we feature Elodie Héberlé, who is a French engineer in building physics. She is working at Cerema, the major French public agency for ecological transition. As a multidisciplinary scientific and technical expertise centre, Cerema works on cutting-edge topics, while focusing on the public interest.
Since 2007, the Cerema agency of Strasbourg is specialised in energy efficiency of historic buildings. Elodie joined in 2011. In 2016, she, her colleagues, and other partners of Cerema funded the CREBA. CREBA is now the leading resource centre on the subject in France and provides guidelines, tools (including a French transposition of the Guidance Wheel), and resources to help professionals carry out restoration and renovation projects on historic buildings while preserving their heritage value, improving energy efficiency and avoiding moisture problems.
In 2023, Elodie and her colleagues joined the CALECHE project with the STBA. This 36-months EU-funded project brings together a consortium of experts, scientist, industrials, sociologists and historians. It aims to develop a multi-benefit toolkit for the renovation of historic buildings, design to assist institutional project owners and consultants in balancing values like heritage preservation, social acceptance, climate action, and cost-effectiveness. and to develop three innovative products : interior bio-insulation render, a protocol for the assessment and the improvement of wooden windows and adapted BIPV modules. Both the toolkit and the products will be applied to four real use cases.
To provide a clear frame for the CALECHE’s toolkit, one of the first work was to benchmark other methodologies, tools and databases dealing with energy retrofit of historic buildings. Elodie presented an article, co-authored by STBA’s director Michael Netter, at the 5th EEHB international conference, that took place in Krems, Austria, in October 2025. It raised several questions about the scope of the toolkit, business models, social engagement, user experience, and user interface design, which were translated into key features for the CALECHE’s future toolkit.
The next major project of Elodie and her colleagues, apart from CALECHE, will be the organisation of the 6thEEHB international conference in Strasbourg, France, in October 2026. Communication about this conference will be launched soon!
We welcome links to heritage research that we might include in our next edition. We’re also curating a list of potential research topics, to be included in forthcoming issues of the Digest, so if you have any suggestions, please send them to Michael Netter, IHBC Professional Services Officer, at services@ihbc.org.uk
Heritage Research & Professional Practice – Research and Guidance
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Publisher |
Title & Description |
Publication Date |
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Historic England |
England’s Suburbs 1820-2020: a major study of the heritage of England’s suburbs |
9 May 2025 |
|
DCMS |
24 Apr 2025 |
|
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Arts Council England |
Spillover impacts in the publicly funded arts and culture sector |
18 Apr 2025 |
|
Historic England |
Value of Heritage-led Regeneration for England’s High Streets |
18 Apr 2025 |
|
House of Commons Library |
11 Mar 2025 |
|
|
Historic England |
5 Mar 2025 |
|
|
Bennett Institute |
21 Feb 2025 |
|
|
Historic England |
14 Feb 2025 |
|
|
Newcastle University & RSA |
Skills Mismatches in the UK’s Creative Industries – A Creative PEC State of the Nations Report |
12 Feb 2025 |
|
UK Parliament |
12 Feb 2025 |
|
|
A Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centr |
State of the Nations research series: Skills Mismatches in the UK’s Creative Industries |
12 Feb 2025 |
|
University of Edinburgh |
7 Feb 2025 |
|
|
House of Commons Library |
Briefing outlining the impact of the closure of high street services in rural areas |
3 Feb 2025 |
|
Centre for Cultural Value |
Feb 2025 |
|
|
DCMS |
Feb 2025 |
|
|
DCMS |
new technical research outputs on ‘Culture and Heritage Capital’ |
29 Jan 2025 |
|
Journal: Heritage |
24 Jan 2025 |
|
|
IHBC |
LA conservation jobs in England: ‘Market Intelligence’ Research Note from IHBC’s 2024 ‘Jobs etc.’ posts, via our ToolBox |
17 Jan 2025 |
|
Radical Geography: Antipode |
Heritage Protection as Progressive Urbanism? Modernist Social Housing in England |
8 Jan 2025 |
|
DESNZ |
Deterioration of retrofit insulation performance (DRIP): Phase 1 |
7 Jan 2025 |
|
Building Services Research and Information Association |
New study finds that a retrofit skills gap is stalling Net Zero progress |
6 Jan 2025 |
|
Historic England |
Air and Vapour Control Layers (AVCLs) in buildings of traditional construction. A literature review to understand appropriate use |
31 Dec 2024 |
|
DCMS |
17 Dec 2024 |
|
|
Buildings & Cities |
15 Dec 2024 |
|
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DESNZ |
Nov 2024 |
….
Calls for Papers, Abstracts & Researchers….
….
Broader Context Research & News
Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, and Cadw have published a new Course Handbook for the Level 3 Award in Energy Efficiency Measures for Older and Traditional Buildings.
The National Heritage Science Forum (NHSF) is undertaking a User Needs consultation on behalf of HSDS, as part of the Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme. RICHeS was launched in October 2024, when UKRI Arts and Humanities Council (AHRC) unveiled 31 projects to create a distributed infrastructure of heritage science collections and equipment to grow the UK heritage economy and protect cultural heritage for future generations. If you create or use Heritage Science data as an employee, volunteer or student, we invite you to complete this survey. Your feedback is important for shaping and building a new Heritage Science Data Service (HSDS) with capacity to advance understanding, preservation, and management of UK heritage.
ESPON provides an update of the regional indicators, maps and graphs of the CIRCTER project, gathering evidence on the progress in European regions towards a circular economy.
AHRC-DCMS Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Research opportunity funds international projects to boost capacity for climate action. Five new research projects have been announced to mitigate climate change and build capacity for climate action. The projects will examine cultural heritage and environmental policies in countries including India, Indonesia, Jordan, and Brazil.
DESNZ is developing a detailed inventory of all the buildings in Great Britain. This will include all domestic buildings (houses and flats) and non-domestic buildings (offices, shops, warehouses, schools, hospitals, to name a few).The database will include information such as the size, age, construction and energy performance of each building. Find out more at https://nationalbuildingsdatabase.org/
The Dendrochronology Research Framework for Scotland was proudly funded by Forestry and Land Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland. This framework summarises the range of applications of dendrochronology in Scotland. Each section highlights recent developments and areas of good practice, followed by key research questions and recommendations that should help guide future uptake and development of dendrochronology in Scotland.??The Dendrochronology Research Framework for Scotland is the first update to the Archaeological Science section of the original ScARF National Framework which was completed in 2012.
The ACHTaxonomies Project examines how we can develop a framework and linked taxonomies to better articulate the value of arts, culture and heritage on an economic platform. The project is part of the wider Culture and Heritage Capital (CHC) programme.
English Heritage and Historic England have published the fourth round Adaptation Report, as part of the process under the Climate Change 2008 Act.
Glasgow University reports that the AHRC Place-Based Research Programme Report Series, has issued a programme update on ‘Developing a People Centred Place-Led Approach: The Value of the Arts and Humanities’.
Buildings and Cities writes about challenges ahead: collecting, managing, integrating and sharing comprehensible findings on actual performance from cradle to grave.
For more background see the IHBC NewsBlog
