Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Assets
The Conference of Deans of the Spanish Fine Arts Faculties, in meetings held in 2003, agreed to propose, in addition to the degree in Fine Arts, two new degrees in Design and in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Assets. The proposal to create a degree in Conservation-Restoration is based on the decision of the universities that prepared the white papers on fine arts, design and conservation-restoration (presented and accepted in the second call of ANECA, delivered on June 15, 2004). Six years later, Royal Decree 1393 of October 29, which establishes the organization of official university education, has allowed degrees in design and conservation and restoration to become a reality within the Spanish State.
This proposal was made in the spirit and with the intention of responding to the action planned in the framework document “The integration of the Spanish university system in the European Higher Education Area” in the section that reads:
“To adopt a comprehensible and comparable qualification system to promote job opportunities and the international competitiveness of European higher education systems through, among other mechanisms, the European Diploma Supplement.” This is a fundamental idea of the process that is now coming to an end.
Conservation-restoration has a well-defined academic and professional profile in the European higher education system, as it is in the rest of the world. Its recognition in Spanish universities allows for a qualification equivalent to and comparable with those already existing. This recognition was absolutely necessary and urgent considering the possibilities of future mobility. If it were not so, it could have resulted in a loss of competitiveness in the Spanish university and educational system. Furthermore, postgraduate studies could only be of in-depth and knowledge development if they were based on prior training through which a profession is mastered at a sufficient level to be able to practice it. In this sense, the need for a degree in conservation-restoration was justified, first, by the continuity of training within the same professional profile, but also by the existence of a perfectly defined professional reality in the labour market and in the productive sector.
At present, there is a group of professors at the University of La Laguna who have been teaching conservation-restoration and related teaching subjects. A common methodological tradition, which includes artistic training (although separate from the processes of plastic creation), scientific training (in the fields of physics, chemistry or biology, among others) and historical artistic or archaeological studies, which grant conservation-restoration a rank of scientific, technical and academic autonomy.
This has made it possible to consolidate multidisciplinary research groups that develop specific lines of research, endorsed in Research Projects, Specific Agreements, etc., giving rise to doctoral theses and publications.
Furthermore, the activity of researchers specialising in the field of Conservation-restoration is extraordinarily numerous and productive, if one looks at the number and quality of congresses, professional meetings (ICOM Committee for Conservation; IIC International Institute for Conservation; Spanish Group of the IIC; ECCO European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers Organisations) or ENCORE European Network for Conservation and Restoration Education), numerous research works collected by the Art and Humanities Citation Index, the Science Citation Index and the Current Contents; specific databases Art and Archaeological Technical Abstracts AATA published by the Getty Conservation Institute and the International Institute for Conservation and the Canadian CHIN, all this bibliographic documentation includes some 2,500 annual summaries of works relating to the conservation-restoration of cultural property and also many other publications (monographic or periodical).
Higher education in conservation and restoration within the scope of university training integrates existing teaching resources, as well as research support services, so that the objectives of the degree and postgraduate studies can be coordinated, in accordance with the needs and skills that arise from professional practice.
The university degree will facilitate collaboration with other related university disciplines due to their close relationship with cultural heritage and with which experiences in training, research and professional practice are shared: architects, art historians, archaeologists, archivists and librarians, physical chemists, biologists, geologists, etc. This will promote multidisciplinary work and will have an impact on greater professional recognition.
The specific training of professionals within the ULL will resolve the objectives of specific competences in the protection of Historical Heritage, and we cannot forget that it is the only centre on the islands with real possibilities of offering these studies, which must be valued taking into account the importance of the Canary Islands, from the cultural and heritage point of view, as a European reference of the Atlantic within the tricontinental and Macaronesian space.