The Cultural Heritage Agency of The Netherlands (RCE) conducts research and advises owners and managers of moveable and immoveable cultural heritage on their conservation and preservation. One of its main programs is “Sustainable Cultural Heritage”. The objective of this program is to help local and provincial authorities, and owners and managers of historic buildings find a balance between technical solutions for the efficient use of energy or for reducing energy usage on the one hand, and maintaining the cultural value of the structure on the other hand. This includes both protected and unprotected buildings and monuments, as well as museums.

The RCE is investigating technical solutions and the definition of cultural value related to the following issues:
1. The renovation of historic buildings and monuments involving the application of technical solutions for energy savings and efficiency.
2. The application of alternative energy sources to historic buildings and monuments, including, solar, wind and bio-energy, heat pumps, and other practical solutions. This includes
– design of solar cells/panels which look like historic roofing tiles (e.g. black or red clay)
– insulation materials
– small wind turbines
3. The incorporation of historic buildings and monuments in neighbourhood/district energy solutions, such as collective solar energy production, shared underground heat storage or heat pump systems. This includes both technical and policy solutions.
4. Development of public policy for the energy efficiency of historic buildings and monuments.
5. Reducing the energy costs for museums, storage depots, and other institutes with collections of moveable cultural heritage (objects).

RCE is open to all forms of cooperation. Given her position as an applied research institute and her advisory role, RCE can, in particular, contribute through case studies (demonstrations). Research oriented tasks are also possible, especially considering the assessment of cultural value. RCE can thus consider participating in some way in one or more of the following (tentative – situation in January 2014) Horizon 2020 areas (a * indicates better relevance to RCE goals based on the Horizon 2020 texts):
H2020-EE-2015-2-RIА, topic: EE-06-2015 (opene to 4.06.2015);
H2020-EE-2015-2-RIА, topic: EE-13-2015 (to 4.06.2015 );
H2020-LCE-2015-2, topic: LCE-03-2015 (to 5.05.2015);
H2020-LCE-2015-2, topic: LCE-12-2015 (to 5.05.2015);
H2020-LCE-2015-3, topic: LCE-09-2015 (tо 5.05.2015);
H2020-LCE-2015-3, topic: LCE-14-2015 (tо 5.05.2015)