On October 27 at 1:00 PM KST (Korea Standard Time), the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (Director General Lim Jong-Deock; hereafter, NRICH), under the Korea Heritage Service (hereafter, KHS), launched “CollAsia”, a capacity-building training program for cultural heritage preservation professionals, in collaboration with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (hereafter, ICCROM), a UNESCO-affiliated international organization.

*CollAsia: Abbreviation of “Conservation and Use of Southeast Asian Collections.”

The CollAsia Programme has been supported by a trust fund of the KHS since 2013, and the NRICH has been dispatching our experts in cultural heritage conservation since 2014. Since 2023, NRICH and ICCROM have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and have jointly managed related projects.

*The fund was established under a trust fund agreement between KHS and ICCROM (2013–2027, renewed every five years) and supports the implementation of the CollAsia Programme as well as the World Heritage Managers’ Forum (PNC: People, Nature, Culture).

The CollAsia Programme is being held at the Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan for three weeks, from October 27 to November 14, under the theme of “Observation, Documentation, and Diagnosis of Collections.” Around 30 emerging cultural heritage conservation experts from the Asia-Pacific region, including Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, are participating in a variety of programs, such as lectures, hands-on workshops, discussions, and field visits. Two experts from NRICH and from Korea National University of Heritage (KNUH) respectively, are participating throughout the program. They will give lectures highlighting Korea’s best practices: “Preserving Heritage, Sharing Globally: Collection Stewardship at the National Museums of Korea” (Art) and “Monitoring the Conservation Environment for the Preservation and Management of Cultural Heritage” (Conservation Science). In addition, cultural heritage experts from various countries are joining as lecturers to provide training on artifact conservation principles, as well as technical sessions such as photography and 3D scanning of artifacts.

Uzbekistan, the host country of the 2025 CollAsia Programme, has been a key partner of the KHS since 2022, with the establishment of the National Heritage Integrated Management Center in Samarkand. Through this partnership, both countries have been implementing various collaborative projects, including archaeological excavations and site management, building digital heritage archives, and supporting the development of cultural tourism. Uzbekistan will continue to build a sustainable framework for cultural heritage cooperation, leveraging the professionals trained through the programme.

At the opening ceremony, Director General Lim Jong-Deock stated, “Through ongoing cooperation aimed at the preservation of World Heritage sites, we will continue to widely share the excellence of K-Heritage conservation technologies with emerging cultural heritage professionals and further strengthen their capabilities, enhancing our positive impact in the field.” Moving forward, NRICH will continue to cooperate with ICCROM to strengthen collaboration and networks among heritage professionals in the Asia-Pacific region, widely promote Korea’s outstanding K-Conservation technologies to cultivate skilled professionals, and work toward establishing sustainable conservation environments for World Heritage sites.