Protection through Connection: Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in Scotland

‘Protection Through Connection’ is a two year, innovative project that will help communities to record, showcase and safeguard their own cultural traditions. The project will create long-lasting, collaborative connections between communities who practice Intangible Cultural Heritage and (ICH) and culture and heritage organisations.

‘Protection Through Connection’ has been developed by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Partnership in Scotland. A group consisting Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS), TRACS (Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland), Historic Environment Scotland (HES) and Creative Scotland. It is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players.

‘Protection Through Connection’ will partner an ‘ICH Community’ – a group or individual who is the tradition bearer of a cultural practice – with a culture/heritage organization to develop a project that benefits them both. The project must raise the visibility and help safeguard the ICH Community’s culture. Funding of up to £10,000 per project is available.

From July to mid-September, we are encouraging expressions of interest for this fund. If you are an ICH Community, a ‘tradition bearer’ of a custom, skill or tradition; or if you are a culture/heritage organization, please contact our ICH Project Coordinator, Peter Hewitt to discuss your project.

Peter and the ICH Partnership will answer any questions you have, and can help you shape your project application.

Protection Through Connection is offering funding to support partnership working between ICH communities and cultural/heritage organisations. The resulting partnership projects will help to research, document, preserve, or promote ICH practices, or support the passing on of skills, or education of the public/wider community. This a pilot project, that will inform wider learning about the nature of ICH support in Scotland.

Awards of up to £10,000 can be applied for to support your project. These could be awarded to either the culture/heritage organisation, or to the ICH community/’tradition bearer’. However, the main applicant must be a constituted organisation with an organisational bank account.

Application process

Applications can be made via the Museums Galleries Scotland online Grants portal, MGS-Online.

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday October 10th 2025.

Successful projects will be notified shortly after. Delivery of projects will take place between October 2025 and June 2027. All successful projects will receive support from the ICH Project Coordinator, the ICH Partnership Group, and other stakeholders relevant to your project.

Eligibility

Practitioners/ICH communities may be an individual or group that is currently practicing a custom, tradition or craft, that broadly fits into one or more of the following categories (established by UNESCO and DCMS):

• oral traditions
• social practices
• customs, rituals, festive events
• knowledge and practices concerning the nature and the universe
• traditional crafts
• culinary traditions
• sports & games

For this project, culture and heritage organisations are broadly defined as:

• Museums
• Galleries
• Heritage sites/centres
• Community development trusts (incl. community woodlands)
• Landscape partnerships, i.e., organisations that develop projects based around a specific geographical area
• Libraries
• Archives
• Community centres or hubs, performance spaces
• Arts organisations

Culture and Heritage organisations must be a constituted body, with a organisational bank account (not personal), and have staff capacity to develop a project with a community group over two years.

If you have any questions about your eligibility please contact our ICH Project Officer, Peter Hewitt.

Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)

Your application must show that the ICH community/practitioners you are working with are currently practicing a form of ICH as defined by the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The extended definition of ICH can be found in the UNESCO Infokit “What is Intangible Cultural Heritage?”. In practice, ICH takes the following forms:

1.  Oral traditions and expressions (including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage)
2. Performing arts
3. Social practices, rituals and festive events
4. Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
5. Traditional craftsmanship
6. Culinary traditions
7. Sporting traditions

We are following an ‘ICH in Scotland’ approach through this funding, and will fund any ICH currently being practised in Scotland, regardless of whether that practice originated in Scotland itself.  Crucially, however, the ICH must be ‘currently practised’: for the purposes of Protection Through Connection we are not funding projects that seek to revive dormant traditions, and in line with DCMS/UNESCO guidelines, will also not fund projects if the ICH in question contravenes human rights law.

At Risk Heritage

A key purpose of this fund is to help safeguard intangible cultural heritage that is deemed ‘at risk’. We need to know if you have explored the status of the ICH in your application. For example if your project is working with traditional craft, does that type of craft practice appear on the Heritage Crafts Red List?

If there aren’t any formal ways to assess your ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage) practice, but you believe it’s at risk, we’d like to hear why you think that. Please include any information or examples that support your view. You can also look at UNESCO’s Nine Threats to ICH visualisation website or the accessible PDF version and think about how you might apply there to your ICH community/practice. If your project is about trying to understand the risk level to the ICH you are working with, tell us how you hope to achieve this.

Other contributing factors to ‘at risk’ heritage might be the demographics of the ICH community you will work with or who you represent. If your project aims to advance equality of opportunity for groups with Protected Characteristics as per the UK Equality Act 2010. Please explain this in your application.

UNESCO Safeguarding Principles

Once you’ve identified the risk your project aims to address, you can use UNESCO’s seven Safeguarding Principles to show how your project responds to that risk.
These principles are:

1. Identification
2. Research/documentation
3. Preservation/Protection
4. Promotion/Enhancement
5. Transmission
6. Education
7. Revitalisation

All of these contribute in some way to helping to safeguard ICH and can be used either to prevent risks from occurring, or to mitigate the impact of risks that are already happening.  For example, if a form of ICH is at risk because current practitioners are retiring and not being replaced, then promotion and transmission can help to counteract that. In your application, tell us which safeguarding activity you plan to take forward, and how that will address the risks you’ve identified. Please tell us your plans and give as much detail as you can.

Strengthening Relationships

This fund is designed to help build strong partnerships between culture or heritage organisations and communities or individuals who practise Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). If the type of ICH is tied to a specific place, such as a local festival or tradition, then we will prioritise partnerships with organisations based in that same area. For example, if a custom happens in a particular town or rural region, it should ideally be supported by a local organisation. If the ICH is more widespread or national in scope, then working with a national organisation may be more suitable.

We’re also looking for projects where both organisations and ICH communities working as partners can learn from each other or grow through the work.

If you’re an academic or independent researcher working with an ICH community, you can support the project as an advisor or facilitator. However, the main applicant must be either:

• a formally constituted culture or heritage organisation, or
• an ICH community or practitioner.

Impact of projects for participants

Each project will have different results depending on it’s situation. However, we will give priority to applications that show a clear effort to protect and support the ICH practice, helping it grow and continue. To do this well, we expect projects to build strong partnerships between ICH community members and the cultural/heritage organisation.

We expect the Protection Through Connection fund to have a high number of applications and there will be strong competition for the funding available. Successful projects will be selected based upon various factors such as geographic spread and demographic diversity.

Deliverability

We acknowledge that timelines may change and details may develop within project delivery, but the following documents are required to help us assess the overall strength of your project.

•  A Partnership Agreement drawn up by lead applicant and their collaborator that shows that the project can be delivered by June 2027. This document should be an honest assessment of how much time both partners can give to the project, with a breakdown of clearly defined roles and expectations.
•  An outline of the financial relationship for your project. For example, if the culture/heritage organisation is the main applicant, how will you pay the ICH community? (if required). Where possible we would expect practitioners to be paid for their time.
• A budget document to indicate what you are planning to spend
• A project plan with appropriate timelines. A template project plan is available in the download section below if needed.

Potential applicants must have discussed their project with ICH Project Coordinator – Peter Hewitt at PeterH@museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk. Please get in touch if you wish to make an application but haven’t spoken to us yet.  

An exemplar copy of the application form is available below. Please do not use the pdf document to make an application. Applications must be made via Museums Galleries Scotland online Grants portal, MGS-Online.

For any technical difficulties accessing the online Grants Processing System system, please contact admin@museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday October 10th 2025.

THIS FUND IS NOW CLOSED.