A Horizon Europe research project implemented by researchers and community development experts from 20 institutions and 12 European countries.
A Horizon Europe research project, coordinated by Babeș-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and implemented by researchers and community development experts from 20 institutions and 12 European countries, which aims to analyse resource management strategies from the last 800 years in rural and urban communities to provide contemporary generations with relevant examples of sustainable development.
18/06/2026
Our summer school series has started in Alțâna, Sibiu, Romania. Teaching kids and young people about oral history is not about transforming everyone into historians (although we would love that! 🤭). It is about engaging them with the recent past and with the heritage of from their communities, and encouraging them to collect and preserve this heritage! - with Restory team from Institutul de Istorie Orală Cluj-Napoca
16/06/2026
Professionals from libraries, museums, and archives across Romania gathered in Cluj-Napoca for an open course on researching and valorising medieval and premodern written heritage in local-history contexts.
The programme combined lectures, discussions and study visits, creating opportunities for learning, exchange and reflection on the preservation and use of written heritage. The course was organised by the TRANS.SCRIPT, Babeș-Bolyai University, as part of the RESTORY project. Congrats, everyone involved!
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The RESTORY – Recovering Past Stories for the Future project brings together researchers and community development experts from 12 European countries and 20 partner organisations. Activities take place between 2024 and 2026, with support from the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme.
20/05/2026
Thank you, Brukenthal National Museum / Muzeul Național Brukenthal, KraftMade and Marlene Herberth, for this wonderful partnership for the Romanian Creative Week. 👏
Thank you, TVR Iasi and Marlene Herberth!
23/04/2026
An inspiring study visit at Centrul de Descoperire Rurală, with Primăria Municipiului Sighișoara and Fundația Civitas pentru Societatea Civilă! We explore ways of turning the intangible cultural heritage of local communities into meaningful projects and stories.
Connecting younger generations with local heritage through direct experience, interpretation, and co-creation is at the core of RESTORY’s approach regarding cultural heritage education.
At the end of this week, 24 children from Cluj-Napoca took part in a full-day activity designed around these principles. The educational programme was organised by partners: Babeș-Bolyai University (Facultatea de Istorie si Filosofie UBB, Institutul de Istorie Orală Cluj-Napoca) and the Municipality of Sighișoara (Primăria Municipiului Sighișoara), with the support of "Emil Racoviță” School, Cluj-Napoca.
The visit combined several layers of engagement: a guided exploration of Sighișoara’s UNESCO-listed Citadel, a visit to the Clock Tower Museum, a painting workshop hosted with the support of the Municipality, and the opening of the exhibition Cetatea Copiilor / Children’s Sighișoara, which brought the children’s interpretations into the public space.
The day also included dedicated feedback moments, in which the children shared what they found most interesting, how they understood heritage, and what they would like to learn more about in the future.
What remains, beyond the activities themselves, is a question we are still working with within the Restory project: how do we meaningfully connect younger generations to local heritage - so that it is not only something they visit, but something they care about, take responsibility for, and use as a resource for building their communities?
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The RESTORY – Recovering Past Stories for the Future project brings together researchers and community development experts from 12 European countries and 20 partner organisations. Activities take place between 2024 and 2026, with support from the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme.
22/03/2026
Join us for a new exploration of cultural heritage within the Restory Talks in Cluj-Napoca, Romania!
Through these meetings, we bring together researchers and practitioners to share approaches, questions, and insights into how cultural heritage is studied, understood, and engaged with today.
This coming week, we will look together into how some images survive in time, for centuries, not by staying the same, but by being reinterpreted, reshaped, and made relevant again by the communities that carry them forward.
In this talk, Dr Ștefana Cristea explores the iconography of Madonna della Misericordia as a case of layered reinterpretation. Looking at archetypal representations of the feminine - the Virgin, the Mother, the Protector, the Mediator - she traces how these symbolic structures persist, shift, and take new forms over time.
Bringing together perspectives from archetypal psychology, cultural memory, and the sociology of images, the talk opens a space to reflect on how visual symbols travel across time and how they become meaningful again for different communities.
Ștefana Cristea is a historian and researcher in visual culture, with a background in archaeology and a long-standing interest in how images, symbols, and social contexts intersect.
We invite researchers, students, and those interested in cultural heritage to join us for this conversation.
📅 27 March 2026, 12:00
📍 Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Institute of National History (Str. Napoca 11)
Come with questions, leave with new ways of seeing.
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The RESTORY – Recovering Past Stories for the Future project brings together researchers and community development experts from 12 European countries and 20 partner organisations. Activities take place between 2024 and 2026, with support from the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme.
23/02/2026
The work of RESTORY is not only about conducting research and discovering everyday heritage in local communities. It is also about engaging relevant actors within these communities to explore and preserve local heritage.
This week, we are training secondary school teachers from across Romania to use oral history and storytelling methods to involve and empower children and young people in discovering, understanding and preserving life stories from the recent history of their communities.
The workshop is hosted and organized by Institutul de Istorie Orală Cluj-Napoca, Facultatea de Istorie si Filosofie UBB - Restory project leader, and in partnership with C.School, partner in this Horizon Europe initiative.
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🇪🇺 RESTORY brings together researchers and community development experts from 12 European countries and 20 partner organisations. The project runs between 2024–2026 and is funded by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe programme.
15/02/2026
Small communities across Europe carry rich and complex local experiences, such as everyday practices, micro-histories, memories and narratives that often remain undocumented or overlooked. Bringing these stories back into the public conversation is not only an academic exercise; it is also a way to understand how communities evolve and how knowledge from the past can inform present and future development.
In a recent episode of the CEU Podcasts, Dr Adinel Dincă, Restory Project Director, discusses how the project team works to rediscover and interpret local experiences and micro-histories from small European communities. The conversation reflects on the connection among archival research, oral histories, and community engagement, and how recovered knowledge can contribute to more inclusive and sustainable local futures.
The episode offers deeper insight into the interdisciplinary approach that guides Restory's work across partner communities in Europe.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation here:
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/restory-recovering-cultural-roots-small-communities
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🇪🇺 RESTORY brings together researchers and community development experts from 12 European countries and 20 partner organisations. The project runs between 2024–2026 and is funded by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe programme.
15/02/2026
After the historical research carried out by the Restory team, our community development experts are continuing the field exploration in local communities such as Cincu. The aim is to better understand how the recently recovered knowledge about the past can meaningfully connect with the community’s present needs and future expectations.
At the end of January, Cincu’s local festival of “scaring the winter away” - Fuga Lolelor Cincu // Großschenker Urzellauf - offered the perfect context for this exploration. It gave us the opportunity to interact with both local residents and visitors at the same time, observing how heritage lives, evolves, and brings people together in the present.
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🇪🇺 RESTORY – Recovering Past Stories for the Future brings together researchers and community development experts from 12 European countries and 20 partner organisations. The project runs between 2024–2026 and is funded by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe programme.
