IIT is a pioneer at national level in the field of cultural policy development and evaluation for the public authorities. We have developed policies since 1999 in a participative system – with a bottom-up approach and founded on sociological research and ex-ante statistical data and with ex-post evaluations. They rapidly became good practice examples and have been disseminated at national and international level by the Ministry of Culture, the Romanian Parliament – Chamber of Deputies, The European Commission Delegation, Council of Europe and the European Cultural Foundation.
The Timis and Arad counties and Oradea, Arad and Timisoara Municipalities have directly benefited from cultural strategies that have guided the development of the field, have laid the foundations of programs such as the European Capital of Culture for Timisoara in 2021 or have contributed to the capitalization of the cultural heritage for further development, in the case of Oradea Municipality.
The mapping of cultural resources and the sustainable capitalization of the cultural heritage through strategies and proposals for the development of cultural tourism have been areas of interest for IIT ever since 2008, when it started implementing projects, directly or in partnership, at regional or cross-border level, in the Romanian and Serbian Banat, Țara Hațegului (Hațeg Country) and Ținutul Pădurenilor (Pădureni Area), Drobeta Turnu Severin Municipality, the Synagogue in the Citadel (Cetate), Mocioni Manor. The collaboration for the development of the Local Development Strategy 2017-2020 of Vulcan Municipality, which was designed as a community-led local development, occupies a special place in this picture.
The cross-border cooperation with organizations from Hungary and Serbia has a long tradition. Since 1997 we have developed cross-border cooperation projects with Hungary; in 1998 we were the first Romanian organization to initiate partnerships with civil society organizations from Serbia; and between 1999 and 2002 IIT was actively involved in the activities of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. Throughout the years, we have collaborated in regional cooperation projects with Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and other countries in South-Eastern Europe.
Read more about our projects in the field of culture and cross-border cooperation here.