La valorizzazione delle risorse culturali come occasione di sviluppo

Abstract Important research and cooperation experiences performed in the recent years in the area of South East Europe, in particular in the Balkan peninsula, have shown that the enhancement of the historical, architectural and landscape resources can actually become a real opportunity for economic, cultural and social development. The new challenge is to conserve and manage the cultural and archaeological heritage, not only as individual items, but also in its relations with the surrounding context, which is territorial, social and economic. In this perspective, accessibility, public enjoyment and tourism become the engine for the active promotion of the cultural heritage and its contexts. This is a particularly true for those countries that still pay little attention to the protection and safety of their resources. In this way, the responsibility and the contribution of Italian universities research is to share and disseminate knowledge, proposing different, new, and innovative models of management of the resources and the territory, in order to support local processes of economic and cultural development, without whom the research would lose part of its sense. The programme "REBED", eligible for funding under the call provided by the funds PT of the Marche Region (2010), moves in this direction and defines the terms of use of an important resource of cultural history, interpreted as opportunity for economic and social development. In particular, the project for the construction of the "Archaeological Park Hadrianopolis" was designed and structured in its relations with the provisions of the plan of the city of Gjirokaster, in order to promote the qualification of much broader and more structured processes. The project was jointly promoted and developed by the University of Macerata, in cooperation with the University of Camerino, the University of Gjirokaster, the Region of Marche (with the municipalities of Urbisaglia, Falerone, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno), the Region of Gjirokaster and the Cultural Heritage National Institute of Tirana.