Safeguarding Scotland’s Living Heritage: One Year of Protection Through Connection
Peter supports the Protection through Connection project, which aims to raise the profile of Scotland’s living traditions by building stronger relationships between heritage sites and communities that maintain their own cultural traditions.
This project has been developed by the ICH Scotland Partnership, a national collaboration between Creative Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland (HES), Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS), and TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland). It is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.
In this blog, Peter brings us updates on the two-year project, which launched in March 2025.
Can you explain what the ICH Scotland Partnership has set out to do, and why it matters now?
The ICH Scotland Partnership came together informally many years ago, with the objective of supporting, celebrating and safeguarding Scotland’s Living Heritage. The Partnership is made up of two non-departmental public bodies and two UNESCO ICH-accredited non-governmental organisations and combines expertise, networks and resources to support this work.
Our work recently gained new impetus. In 2024, the UK Government ratified the UNESCO 2003 ICH Convention. This now means that Westminster, working with devolved governments in the UK, has an obligation to create an inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), and importantly, must also find ways to ensure the viability of this heritage through support, research, awareness raising, and funding.
How does Protection Through Connection fit within the partnership, and what was the programme designed to achieve?
Protection Through Connection (PTC) is a pilot project focused on the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). PTC has funded seven projects across Scotland enabling us to understand the threats that these communities face.
We see ICH as part of a cultural ecosystem with many different elements. From an MGS perspective, museums are clearly important nodes in this ecosystem that can support ICH practitioners by passing on knowledge, raising awareness, and providing spaces for transmission.
PTC has been aimed at the individual practitioner or community practicing the living heritage. The main idea of PTC was to give these ICH practitioners a local anchor organisation that could support them. Potentially as a bridge to local authorities, a place of performance, or just a communal space that welcomes their cultural heritage (ICH is often outside the mainstream understanding of what ‘culture’ can be).
One year in, what has the programme shown about supporting living traditions through relationships and partnership working?
I am proud to say that the PTC project leads, and community members feel welcomed, supported, and inspired to try new things and forge new connections. The funding has given them time to undertake research and fieldwork relating to their traditions, including research trips to amazing archives such as the School of Scottish Studies who have been incredibly supportive and helpful. We’ve worked with external stakeholders and bodies who have given inspirational talks, and we’ve also worked hard to think laterally about barriers to existing practices and find practical solutions, with community consent, to overcome them. I think all of this has created, as the project name suggests, a real sense of connectedness, and in the communities themselves, a sense of pride that their tradition matters. But it’s also shown how vulnerable these connections can sometimes be.
What are the clearest signs that PTC is achieving what it set out to do, and what would success look like at the end?
Firstly, we know from our independent evaluators that PTC is recognised as leading ICH policy development in the UK, with strong engagement from policymakers and funders who are looking at PTC as an exemplar of how ICH safeguarding works in practice. Secondly, we collected qualitative data on the practices before the projects began and will reassess it at the end to identify changes. Thirdly, the project’s scoping work has given seven ICH communities a clearer understanding of the threats to their practices. By the end, they will have agreed safeguarding plans and built vital local, national and international connections to continue this work beyond the two-year programme.
Across the first year of the project, what themes, patterns, or challenges have emerged?
It has become clear to me that living heritage, or ICH, is so deeply woven into a place or region’s cultural identity that its everyday presence can make it easy to overlook. Many people who sustain remarkable skills and traditions do not regard themselves as exceptional or as ‘craftspeople’; it is simply what they do. Supporting them means listening to their concerns about the future of their traditions and working together to address them. Language loss is another concern: we are working with communities in North Yell to safeguard traditions, including language. PTC has also highlighted the strong links between ICH and environmental issues such as climate change.
How are the pairings between ICH communities and heritage organisations working day to day?
This model was intentionally left open-ended, recognising that every tradition and community has different needs. Across all projects, relationship building was fundamental. Project teams spent hours visiting communities, listening to practitioners, and discussing the health and viability of local traditions, often using UNESCO frameworks as a guide.
In my role, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with projects and their communities. I loved spending the day haaf net fishing with a group in Annan and being welcomed into people’s homes to discuss the practical realities of safeguarding cultural practices. I learned more about the impacts of climate change from conversations with fishermen than I have from almost anyone else.
Now that the project is well into its second year, what and how does this connect with MGS’s wider strategy and commitment to ‘Connection through Place'?
We already know that there is much more to learn, particularly through engagement with academia and expertise in areas such as data justice, copyright, and digital ethics.
I believe Scotland has a genuine opportunity to become an international leader in ICH safeguarding. Achieving that ambition will depend on maintaining strong relationships with international partners and continuing to learn from their experience while developing approaches that reflect Scotland’s own cultural context.
In terms of MGS’s wider strategy, this is an exciting moment. Through PTC, MGS is already delivering on its commitment to work with regional and national partners to better understand, support, and safeguard Scotland’s living cultural heritage.
ICH has a natural and growing connection to many of MGS’s strategic priorities, including climate action, health and wellbeing, and inclusion. Safeguarding ICH is not simply about preserving traditions but about supporting people, places, and communities to thrive.
