NODEM 2014 Proceedings

The Rotterdam Heritage Coalition: Cooperation between Heritage Institutions
Internal cooperation
The first part of this paper presents the strategies the coalition used in order to enable and sustain internal
cooperation between its members. Beforehand, we will explicate the background and structure of the RHC, in
order to get a clear grasp of the internal relationships of the coalition´s members.
The RHC has eight members: Museum Rotterdam, The City Archive (Stadsarchief), The Foundation of Archeological
Research Rotterdam (BOOR), The War and Resistance Museum (Oorlogs en Verzetsmuseum, OVMR), The
Maritime Museum (Maritiem Museum), The Harbor Museum (Havenmuseum), The Photo Museum (Fotomuseum)
and Centre for Cultural Education Rotterdam (KCR). Together they have obtained a grant within the
´Cultural Education with Quality´ programme from the Fund of Cultural Participation and the city of Rotterdam
for a heritage project of four years (2013-2016). 1
The institutions cooperated on multiple joint projects throughout the city before the founding of the RHC.
Some institutions have ties that go back a long way and are even in the process of a merger as this paper is
written. 2 The one thing they all have in common is an expertise in the heritage of the city of Rotterdam, with
the exception of the Photo Museum, which focuses on national heritage.
The main target of the RHC, as stated in its mission statement called the ´Masterplan´, is to “[offer] a broad and
coherent heritage education curriculum, which stimulates the active participation of children within the ages
of 4 to 18 years old.” Furthermore the RHC intends to create this curriculum “together with schools” to “enrich
students and alleviate teachers” (Heritage Coalition, 2012:11-12). 3
In other words: the lessons have to be useful in the practical sense, in other words it has to be congruent with the
rest of the curriculum and pedagogical instruments and should not add to the workload of the teacher; therefore
they ought to be easy in the preparation. In other words: the more practical and ready made the lesson,
the better. Moreover, in the eyes of children the lessons should be intellectually inspiring and challenging.
All heritage institutions have an equal part to contribute to the project. This means that on a management level,
all directors have an equal say in the project and all decisions must be approved of by all the members. The
Centre for Cultural Education Rotterdam (KCR) also has a supportive and evaluative role, as requested by the
Fund. This is due to the fact that the KCR is not a heritage institution like the other members. The KCR supports
schools and art educators in formulating and implementing individual long term plans for cultural education.
KCR aims to give schools the opportunity to become leading in their contacts with cultural institutions and not
just consumers of readymade projects.
The organisational structure is more complicated than the structure on the executive level, however. Since
every institution has a different internal structure, their educational departments are different. For instance,
the Foundation of Archeological Research Rotterdam (BOOR) does not have a separate educational department.
The City Archive (Stadsarchief) has a one person educational department, as does the The War and Resistance
Museum (Oorlogs en Verzetsmuseum). The Centre for Cultural Education Rotterdam (KCR) does not
develop educational content, as explained above. The other institutions all have an educational department,
with several staff members. How then does the RHC enable internal collaboration between all these different
educational departments?
When we look at the execution of the project so far, three strategies can be distinguished. First of all, the
members formulated a Masterplan. In this mission statement, the members explicated their long and short
1
The so-called matching rule. The Fund and the city both contribute 50% of the grant.
2
Museum Rotterdam and The War and Resistance Museum are in the final stages of a merger and the Harbor Museum and the Maritime
Museum are in the first stages of a merger.
3
Translation by van Hasselt, G.
NODEM 2014 Conference & Expo
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