Context 153 - March 2018

C O N T E X T 1 5 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 8 55 Director’s cut Europe and beyond: the IHBC’s international perspective Since first reported here some 12 months ago, the IHBC has been continuing its review of how best to strengthen our international links, including our relations with conservation-related interests in countries outside the UK. This column will update on progress, which has focussed mainly on European opportunities, and conclude by asking for thoughts and suggestions on global engagement issues, and opportunities beyond the largely European focus outlined here. Although clearly a serious issue for an organisation such as ours, looking at an international strategy just now may seem a little late in the day – we are, after all, almost 21. However, many urgent and immediate pressures confronted our members in our early history – from heritage protection reform, back then, and a legacy that includes Trailblazer apprenticeships today, not to mention substantial structural issues such as the terms of our constitution. Building a coherent strategy from the diverse threads of our historic connections outside the UK could not have progressed much sooner. As a charity, the rationale in developing an international perspective to our operations must be based on its potential to help deliver our charitable objects. Today this rationale is firmly rooted in the IHBC’s forward plans, crystallised in our Corporate Plan 2015–20 (CP20). CP20 offers a suitable foundation for the development of the strategy, notably through our IHBC+ initiative. That encourages us to offer support for a more diverse constituency in a process well characterised by past president Trefor Thorpe as ‘experimental evolution’. We must recognise too that the lack of an informed and integrated strategy to set the IHBC firmly in the context of international conservation practice has a grave impact on the IHBC’s own potential. Our current international links are very limited, and almost entirely indirect and informal, as reported four headline benefits for the IHBC’s charitable operations: • Risk management , to help us engage better with the international standards and models that underpin our membership criteria • Reinforcing authority , to help secure a distinguished place on the international stage, countering more parochial and historic perceptions of our work • Offer opportunities , to enhance our brand, corporate reach and member services, for example with new continuous professional development support and training • Enhance our viability and efficiency , including exploring project opportunities outside the UK that would help diversify income and increase capacity. An international strategy framed around these principles will help us fulfil our most fundamental role as a professional body, but resources for existing core operations must not be undermined. Devising the plan initially as a simple extension of our core work – within existing operations and existing budget lines – means that we can continue to support members’ practice standards and career progress, but in a global context. Specific international themes are already being embedded in our core operations, including: • A strong European thread in the 2018 IHBC school, in Belfast in June – especially (although not only) through extending our Irish connections and with our internationally respected keynote speakers, conservation architect and adviser Jukka Jokilehto, and globally recognised artiste provocateur Bill Drummond • A planned European theme for an issue of Context , in addition to this issue on Isle of Man (named in our constitution, but not part of the UK) • Stronger partner ties with bodies boasting international ties, including COTAC, with which we have just finalised a memorandum of understanding below. Even given their modest scale, the lack of integration and the absence of a structured plan means that our connections and resources are not used effectively.Typically, where ties develop, they lack the kind of oversight needed to ensure benefits; or they progress erratically or are disrupted by inadequate support. Consequently, members’ energies, activities and resources across the international stage are either lost, obscured, or ineffectively stewarded. Equally, inconsistencies arising from the lack of clarity in our international planning continue to undermine delivery of our charitable objects. For example, the IHBC’s core object is the ‘promotion of the highest standard of professional skills, and of the successful preservation and enhancement of the historic environment’ (IHBC’s Memorandum of Association , 3.1), with our own principles founded on international standards and models such as ICOMOS’s 1993 conservation training guidelines andWorld Bank environmental project management models. If we ignore international perspectives, how can we claim to be delivering on our duties, either to the conservation skills themselves, to the practitioners offering those skills, or even to the role of either in conservation outcomes? Ultimately, our trustees agreed that an international strategy offers