Friday, October 16, 2026
European Conservation-Restoration Week, promoted since 2018 by E.C.C.O. (European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers’ Organizations), aims to raise awareness of the work of conservation and conservation-restoration professionals and to highlight to the public their contribution to the protection, understanding, and transmission of cultural heritage. To commemorate this week, we are offering a program that highlights the interdisciplinary nature of conservation and restoration—a field where art, science, technology, and the humanities converge, and where collaboration among professionals is essential to preserving cultural heritage for present and future generations.
On October 16, 2026, we will also showcase this collaboration through this event, co-organized by the various UPV institutions involved in teaching, research, and conservation and restoration of cultural heritage: the School of Fine Arts, the Art and Heritage Collection Division, the Department of Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, and the University Institute for Heritage Restoration (IRP) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. We are offering a program of activities in which our students will be able to tour the IRP facilities and then participate in a discussion with professionals from diverse fields to reflect on how technology, science, and traditional knowledge complement one another in understanding, preserving, and passing on our heritage.
We will discuss the importance of traditional crafts and techniques related to disciplines such as ceramics, the decorative arts, painting, sculpture, art history, and architecture, but also the new challenges we face today related to sustainability and new technologies, as well as the conservation of technological and digital objects, which require incorporating knowledge from computer science, electronics, engineering, and other specialized fields. A journey through different materials, techniques, and methods that highlights the need to approach heritage conservation from a necessarily interdisciplinary perspective.
Ph.D. in Heritage Science and Restoration (UPV), Master’s degree in CTBC (UPV), and Bachelor’s degree in Art History (UV). Curator at the “González Martí” National Museum of Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts in Valencia.
Ph.D. in Computer Science and professor at the UPV. Researcher at the Valencian University Institute for Research in Artificial Intelligence (VRAIN), specializing in AI and multi-agent systems. Director of the UPV Computer Science Museum.
Vice President of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos, professor emerita at the UPV, and researcher at the IRP. A driving force behind the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs in this discipline at the UPV and director of landmark restoration projects such as the Church of Saints John and Nicholas in Valencia.
He holds a Ph.D. in Conservation and Restoration (UPV) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (UPV), specializes in gilding and polychromy, and has more than three decades of experience in the study and conservation of traditional decorative techniques.
Ph.D. from the UPV; professor and researcher specializing in architectural heritage conservation. Deputy Director of the IRP and Director of the Master’s Program in Architectural Heritage Conservation. Expert in the use of thermography to diagnose pathologies in cultural heritage.
PROGRAM
10:30–11:30 | IRP (Polytechnic City of Innovation)
• Guided tour of the IRP workshops (for first-year students at CRBBCC)
From 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. | Student Union—Ximo Mora Room (open to the public)
• Opening Ceremony
Participants: representatives of the organizing institutions
• Lecture: “Who Preserves Our Heritage? Professions, Knowledge, and Trades for Preserving Our Cultural Assets”
Participants:
– Isabel Buleo, curator of the “González Martí” National Museum of Ceramics and Sumptuary Arts
– Javier Palanca, director of the Computer Science Museum at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV)
– Xavi Ferragut, conservator-restorer at the company Art i Restauració
– Santi Tormo, director of the Master’s Degree Program in Architectural Heritage Conservation at the UPV
Moderator:
– Pilar Roig Picazo, vice president of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos
– Presentation of the promotional video for the Bachelor’s Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts