Condividere i valori. Strategie innovative per la valutazione del patrimonio costruito e delle tecniche di intervento.

In a context of increasing globalization and multiculturalism, heritage conservation will become ever more a social practice, and will play a key role in the recognition of shared values, in managing cultural conflicts and fostering sustainable development. Through the integration of technical and social dimension of the interventions, their quality and effectiveness can be increased.  Within the technological field, the social dimension of innovation is addressed through processes of Technology Assessment. They adopt consensus building techniques and involve different social actors in a debate on issues which, despite having a strong social interest, are usually addressed only within groups of experts.  Given the social relevance of heritage conservation, structured assessment processes could be experimented also in this field, implemented at the local level with a twofold objective. First, they could contribute to the recognition of shared values, increasing the fairness of the decisions on operations and management strategies. Second, assuming the techniques as object of assessment, they could help to disseminate innovative products and technologies. At the same time, they could deepen the knowledge of local techniques, which sometimes are more effective or sustainable, providing useful information to orient further research.