The second INHERIT Multi-Stakeholder Forum on 3 June 2025 focused on energy efficiency in cultural heritage buildings. Experts explored retrofit strategies, digital tools, and socially responsible design.
The second INHERIT Multi-Stakeholder Forum took place on 3 June 2025, focusing on the role of energy efficiency in cultural heritage buildings through the lens of the New European Bauhaus (NEB).
Organised by the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) and the Institute of Communication and Computer Science (ICCS), the event gathered around 40 participants from diverse disciplines to explore retrofit strategies, technological innovation and socially responsible interventions in cultural heritage contexts.
Get a glimpse of the event: watch the sneak peek video here!
This year’s MSF edition featured the NEB Excellence segment, with Martin Rauch (Lehm Ton Erde GmbH, Austria) and Michael Burnard (InnoRenew Centre of Excellence, Slovenia) as invited speakers, whose contributions bridged traditional building knowledge with cutting-edge, health-oriented and environmentally sensitive design.
Rauch emphasised the ecological and cultural significance of earth as a construction material, while Burnard demonstrated how co-creation and restorative design can transform CH buildings into inclusive and dynamic spaces aligned with NEB values.
In addition to the keynote interventions, the Forum featured a Social Life-Cycle Assessment session, which examined the social implications of energy retrofit in pilot buildings across Europe. Results confirmed that while technical deficiencies persist, such as low energy performance and structural limitations, participants favour low-impact and reversible upgrades as well as data-driven strategies that respect heritage constraints.
Behavioural change and user awareness were repeatedly cited as critical factors in sustainable transitions.
ICCS presented two digital services developed under INHERIT: indoor environmental quality optimisation and machine learning-based energy forecasting. These tools support real-time decision-making and long-term efficiency planning while maintaining compatibility with CH values and constraints.
A dedicated Mentimeter session allowed participants to reflect on these services, to express implementation concerns and to assess their policy and funding relevance. Sustainability emerged as the most strongly supported NEB value, with inclusion also widely acknowledged.
Participate in future Multi-Stakeholder Forum activities
The INHERIT Multi–Stakeholder Forum hosts events annually, serving as a temporary hub for mutual learning and transdisciplinary collaboration under the four-year-long INHERIT project (2024–2027).
Become a member of the MSF to learn about upcoming events and to gain access to materials or to suggest questions to be answered in the framework of future Multi–Stakeholder Forums.
Membership is free of charge and comes with no obligations, offering you a unique opportunity to engage with a dynamic, cross-sectoral community.
The INHERIT consortium also encourages early-career CH managers, innovators, and researchers from the social or creative sector to participate in this transdisciplinary Forum.
Register here to become a member of the Multi-Stakeholder Forum!
For more information and to engage with the INHERIT Multi-Stakeholder Forum, please contact: inherit@zsi.at