Abstract:

Higher education is facing more and more challenges in training students for the job market. In fact, the constant vicissitudes arising from competition, economic and social crises and the need to develop solutions based on efficiency and sustainability, require the professionals of the future to have a critical thinking capacity and skills that enable them to use the abstract scientific and technical knowledge they have acquired to solve concrete situations and problems. These are the skills that organizations expect from higher education training.

The project proposal we present in our paper, was developed as part of the Cultural Management unit assessment, in the Tourism, Cultural and Heritage Management degree. Its main objective was to challenge the students to apply the knowledge they had acquired and to develop feasible proposals for the preservation and profitability of the built cultural heritage.

We believe that the use of problem-solving methodology in this unit helps students to develop critical thinking skills and real-world application abilities, as well as promotes independence and self-confidence in problem-solving in them, as future qualified professionals. In this sense, the result of the applied research is the development of a project proposal to improve the cultural management of the Ilustre Casa de Ramires, located in the municipality of Resende, which is part of the Douro demarcated wine region, a world heritage site, since 2001.

Defining cultural management is complex (in some countries we talk about cultural management, but in others we talk about arts management). Based on the meaning of the words that make up the concept - "management" and "culture" - it would consist of managing certain resources, in this case, a cultural asset or product/service. In general terms, cultural management seeks to promote, encourage, design and carry out cultural projects. Cultural and heritage management, therefore, plays a key role in preserving and promoting a nation's culture and heritage. It is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to the administration, preservation, promotion and enhancement of a nation's cultural heritage. This includes tangible and intangible assets such as monuments, archaeological sites, museums, traditions, crafts, music, dance and much more. Cultural and heritage management plays a crucial role in maintaining a society's cultural identity and strengthening the connections between past, present and future.

Due to this subject complexity and the need of multidisciplinary knowledge and approach, the use of problem-solving methodology, constantly guided by the teacher, enabled students’ confidence, through collaborative learning, to accomplish the project proposal, according to the actual data collected.

Therefore, in this paper we present not only the learning path taken throughout the semester, but also the results achieved. We also intend to demonstrate how the construction of the cultural management project contributed to consolidating the students' knowledge of the content covered and to increasing their confidence in preparing them for the labour market.

Keywords:

Problem-solving, Cultural management, higher education.