Abstract:

International collaboration applied to research studies and cooperation projects, while fulfills expectations and demand for mobility and participation of university students do not always achieve a formative reach lasting in time due to various factors (linguistic shortcomings, temporal brevity, lack of synergy among participating entities, dispersion of results, etc.). The Havana Project, focused on synergy among Education and Heritage and with a 20 years length, has trained almost a hundred students from the Alicante University and several Cuban institutions through the dissemination and knowledge of the Old Havana Cultural Heritage. Through an international curriculum design, the project has tried to create a working model aimed to encourage the preservation of Cultural Heritage and the active participation of students, teachers and heritage professionals in different areas of preservation and socialization of these cultural properties.

This study highlights the gradual awareness of the importance of a proper management of cultural properties as witnesses of a national identity, and the open-mindedness of an international project. Nevertheless, it calls into question whether these agreements should not go beyond the merely institutionalized and lead to a greater degree of experimentation and interaction with the local community, outside the academic field.

Since the data obtained by means of inquiries, interviews and systematic observation, this paper aims to evaluate the significance of the Havana Project on the Architectural Heritage Management (the main goal), in order to propose new strategies to design an implementation of the international stays and improve the exploitation from the academic, professional and human relation point of view.

Keywords:

Heritage Education, International Programs, Havana, Evaluation Research.