INT-ACT - Intangible Cultural Heritage: Bridging the Past, Present and Future
INT-ACT is a Horizon Europe research and innovation project dedicated to intangible cultural heritage — the practices, traditions and lived experiences that shape identity, belonging and community. The project identifies the Emotional, Experiential and Environmental (3E) dimensions embedded in this heritage and translates them into immersive eXtended Reality (XR) experiences, anchored at tangible cultural heritage sites across Europe. By connecting these dimensions to present-day realities, INT-ACT explores how heritage can respond to pressing societal challenges — including ageing populations, migration, disappearing communities and cultural tourism. The project brings together six partners from four EU member states and the UK, combining expertise in arts and design, social sciences, heritage studies, information technology and territorial development, over a 36-month timeframe (2024–2026).
The project starts from the idea that intangible heritage cannot be fully understood in isolation from the physical places where it originates. INT-ACT therefore develops methods to document how people experience, remember and give meaning to cultural heritage sites, and translates this knowledge into immersive digital experiences that reconnect visitors and communities with the emotional and environmental layers of a place's history. INT-ACT unfolds in stages that move from knowledge to experience to impact. The project begins by gathering and organising what is already known about each heritage site — historical records, archives and existing research — into a shared knowledge base that captures how these places have been understood over time. Building on this foundation, researchers then turn to the people who live alongside these sites today, using interviews, sensory ethnography and narrative workshops to collect present-day stories, memories and emotional connections to each place. This combined knowledge — past and present — feeds directly into the design of the project's immersive XR experiences. Working closely with local communities, the team develops four small-scale digital demonstrators, one for each heritage site, that bring these layered narratives to life for visitors. These demonstrators are then put to the test in the real world: each is used to engage local communities, visitors, policymakers and other stakeholders around a specific societal challenge, through workshops, interviews and hands-on activities that explore how heritage can inform present-day life. Throughout, the project is coordinated to ensure ethical, transparent and well-managed research, and its findings are shared widely with the public, researchers and heritage practitioners across Europe. INT-ACT is tested through four case studies, each pairing a tangible heritage site with a specific societal challenge: Cultural Tourism – Alentejo, Portugal (Cromeleque das Fontainhas megalithic site): mitigating the negative impacts of tourism, such as overcrowding, environmental degradation and erosion of local cultural identity. Ageing Societies – Calanais, Scotland (Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides): exploring how intergenerational relationships around heritage sites affect the wellbeing and healthy ageing of older adults. Disappearing Communities – Koli National Park, Finland: examining how artists can help preserve and reinvent the intangible heritage of small rural communities affected by urbanisation. Immigration and Multiculturalism – Kavala, Greece: investigating how multiculturalism and shared heritage can bridge local and immigrant communities in a historically multi-ethnic region. By the end of the project, INT-ACT aims to deliver: A set of shared ontologies and semantic models for structuring intangible and tangible cultural heritage knowledge. Validated transdisciplinary methods for capturing human narratives and the emotional, experiential and environmental dimensions of heritage. Four XR demonstrators, each linked to a real heritage site, designed and evaluated with local communities. Evidence-based insights into how immersive heritage experiences can support wellbeing, sustainable tourism, intergenerational dialogue, rural regeneration and social cohesion. A replicable framework for stakeholder engagement, enabling other cultural heritage sites across Europe to apply similar approaches to their own societal challenges.
