Underground Built Heritage valorisation: a handbook, proceedings of the first Underground4value training school

Why to publish a handbook focused on Underground Built Heritage valorisation? Why is important to transform tangible and intangible components of underground spaces into active values for local communities? Can researchers, professionals and decision-makers work together to devise a common perspective of innovation? These pages aim at providing a first set of answers, with backgrounds, research’s results, and elements for an operative framework. All different contributions are results from the First Training School organised in the framework of the COST Action CA18110, Underground4Value. The action aimed to put together experts, practitioners, and local officers, for experimenting shared approaches and making Underground Built Heritage sites as fulcrum of activities involving the whole society. To that scope, theoretical, and methodological chapters deal with the issues of defining instruments for management, evaluation and decision-making processes, and stimulating local communities’ engagement and empowerment. Four case studies are presented, by general overviews and reports from scientific missions. Finally, trainees’ research groups described their views and ideas for the case studies’ valorisation. The authors come from several different European, and neighbour countries, bringing various disciplinary competences and professional experiences.