The Programme of Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe is rooted in the 1987 Santiago Declaration which recalled the importance of the ideals of freedom, justice and confidence in forging European cultural identities and overcome distances, frontiers and language barriers.

The cultural routes are recognised as playing an essential role in raising awareness of the shared European heritage as a cornerstone of European citizenship, a means of improving the quality of life and a source of social, economic and cultural development.
When creating the programme and the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes (EPA), the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe assigned it with the promotion of European identity and citizenship through knowledge and awareness of Europe’s common heritage, and the development of cultural links and dialogue within Europe as well as with other countries and regions. The EPA is expected to shape a shared cultural space through the development of cultural routes aiming to foster awareness-raising about heritage, education, networking, quality and
sustainable cross-border tourism and other related activities.
The Resolution CM/Res(2013)66 confirming the establishment of the Enlarged Partial Agreement recognises that in order to achieve maximum outreach and impact, the existing cultural routes, as well as the many others in the making, require increased professional assistance and support.
The European Institute of Cultural Routes has taken a leading role to, together with cultural routes, organising training seminars and academies to support the development of cooperation and networking among routes and identify areas of common interest for the capacity-building and development. Twelve editions of the Training Academy have thus been organised in a spirit of participation and empowerment that recognises the central role of the cultural routes in the Council of Europe programme.
Bringing together 43 member states and 49 routes, the programme has grown in scale and relevance. The role of the academy as a federating event is more important than ever; this annual event will, however, need to be complemented and supported by other activities and resources, including from the routes themselves. The 13th edition of the academy is organised within a spirit of consolidation and transition:
consolidation the experiences of cooperation and participation that have presided the role of the routes in the past academies and reflecting about additional and complementary means to support capacity-building, mutual learning and greater collective confidence in the programme. This confidence is an important condition for the programme to support the implementation of the Faro Convention that puts people and human values at the centre of an enlarged and cross-disciplinary
concept of cultural heritage and emphasises the value and potential of cultural heritage wisely used as a resource for sustainable development and quality of life in a constantly evolving society.
At a time when the values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law are under attack, the right of every person to engage with the cultural heritage of their choice as an aspect of the right freely to participate in cultural life has a particularly important role in the promotion of a culture of democracy and human rights.
The 13th edition of the Training Academy will contribute to this process and should play a pivotal role strengthening the relations and cooperation among the routes themselves and with the other stakeholders of the programme.

A transfrontier academy

The 13th academy is jointly prepared and organised by the European Institute of Cultural Routes and the Roman Emperors and Danube Wine Route, in close cooperation with Zsolnay Heritage Management Nonprofit Ltd. in Hungary and the Tourism Board of Osijek-Baranja County in Croatia.
The Informal Contact Group of cultural routes provides guidance and support in the programme development by representing the concerns of cultural routes, including the experiences of the former Task Force of cultural routes.
The Academy is hosted by the Roman Emperors and Danube Wine Route, a Council of Europe route since 2015. The Roman Emperors and Danube Wine Route, with its Danube and Adriatic Trails, extends through ten European countries – Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina – connecting 23 archaeological sites and 12 wine regions. It is a network of sub-destinations, created around individual archaeological sites, locations, places and buildings, which are monuments to the leadership of the Roman emperors in Late Antiquity. Those are not necessarily the most important
monuments according to the criteria of archaeology in a given region, but they have archaeological content to provide an understanding of the Roman context to the average visitors about how the users of these facilities lived, worked and entertained.
The wine regions integrated with the route sites “replicate” the vineyards introduced by the Roman army into the regions. For the indigenous peoples, who lived and worked alongside of Roman soldiers, one can infer that a way “to act Roman” and in a certain sense “to be Roman” was to acquire a taste for this new beverage from the Mediterranean world. The Vinalia wine festival (of the wine harvest, wine vintage and gardens) promotes and represents wine and Roman cultural heritage along the route. From the beginning, the route is established as a transnational partnership between members from the academic, public and private sectors towards peer exchange, cooperative product development and collaborative marketing and promotion in the field of sustainable cultural tourism, creating impulse for designing/delivering high-quality tourism products and services along the Route.
During the Academy, participants will be able to explore the cross-border cultural tourism destination Pécs-Osijek and enjoy cultural diversity and warm hospitality from the hosting partners, Zsolnay Heritage Management Nonprofit Ltd and Tourism Board of Osijek-Baranja County. By utilising the cultural route as a resource for cross-border cooperation, networking, innovation, creativity, and cultural tourism development, the route seeks to drive tourism growth along transnational itineraries, protection of cultural and environmental resources, and the economic regeneration of marginalised areas and emerging destinations.
The Zsolnay Heritage Management Nonprofit Ltd. is a public local authority and has been managing partly the significant cultural institutional structure with the Kodály Centre, Zsolnay Quarter, the World Heritage Sites of Pécs and the Visual Art Centre. The aim of the operation and management of the institution is to turn these sites into a leading artistic, cultural and tourist venue and an independent brand of the city of Pécs.
The Tourism Board of Osijek-Baranja County is a regional destination management organisation responsible for promoting Osijek-Baranja County as a tourism destination on all levels through promotion and advertising, management of public tourism infrastructure, participation in regional and national tourism development strategy and policy planning, offering expert advice and support, initiating and creating new tourism products, improving and maintaining existing tourism products and joining the efforts of tourism development of communities, municipalities and cities.

Aims and objectives

The 2026 Training Academy aims to further cooperation among cultural routes and strengthen their capacity to contribute to the implementation of the Programme of Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe. The programme pursues the following objectives:
– to update participants and associate them to recent developments and perspectives in the programme;
– to exchange practices and experiences in the management of the routes, with a specific bemphasis on principles and practices of sustainable tourism;
– to discuss and possibly identify standards for the development of the routes and ways of supporting their role in the programme.
The 3-day programme is organised according to these objectives and with the concern to enhance a participant-centred experienced that enables dialogical learning and participation. The formal programme is thus centred on the input, contributions and exchanges with and from the routes as central players in the programme of the Council of Europe. The programme relies on a close elationship between formal elements of exchange and dialogue and the experience of discovering the diverse cultural heritage represented in the Roman Emperors and Danube Wine Route.