On 27-30 October 2020, ROCK invited you to join its Open Knowledge Week “Cultural Heritage Leading Urban Futures”, a virtual conference for city officers, policy-makers, urban researchers, cultural actors and civic changemakers. This digital event marked the closure of ROCK, a European-funded project led by the City of Bologna and engaging 33 partners across 13 countries in exploring how cultural heritage can be the driving force behind urban sustainability.

Over the past three years, ten ROCK cities – Athens, Bologna, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Lisbon, Liverpool, Lyon, Skopje, Turin and Vilnius – have worked with service providers and knowledge brokers to test and advance numerous tools and approaches aimed at shaping sustainable, heritage-led urban futures. At the ROCK Open Knowledge Week, interdisciplinary research met innovative action, enabling the dissemination of knowledge and the creation of new synergies at European level.

The event offered an extensive programme of 20 sessions engaging 50+ speakers and hundreds of participants over 4 days. During ROCK CityTalks and Campfire Sessions held on the first three days, city representatives presented their flagship urban interventions implemented at the local level, shared stories of change and discussed lessons learnt.

New insights on the nexus between cultural heritage and urban transformation were offered by two inspiring keynote speakers, Prof. Giovanni Leoni from the Department of Architecture at the University of Bologna (IT) and Lia Ghilardi, Founder of Noema Culture and Place Mapping (UK). A reflection from the European Commission added a policy perspective to the discussion.

Thematic Online Seminars on the final day of the conference brought together academic experts, city representatives and local stakeholders to discuss theoretical and practical approaches to cultural heritage from three perspectives – Accessibility, Sustainability, and Innovative Partnerships, the three ROCK pillars. The afternoon programme featured six parallel Open Knowledge Sessions, where key ROCK outputs were presented to stimulate a dialogue between researchers and the audience.

Throughout the ROCK Open Knowledge Week, participants had the opportunity to ask questions and interact with speakers, while ROCKnRoll Networking activities enabled them to have random one-to-one virtual meetups. Outside of the live sessions, participants were invited to visit the ROCK Exhibition to discover virtual booths of the technological solutions developed by ROCK partners and learn about other relevant EU-funded projects focusing on cultural heritage. Welcome words by political representatives of the City of Bologna, live visual recording of sessions as well as a final Music Performance by Teatro Comunale di Bologna brought a touch of local hospitality to the virtual sphere.

Participation in the ROCK Open Knowledge Week was free of charge. All sessions were held in English, with international sign language interpretation provided live.