The Conservation-restoration of Cultural heritage is an interdisciplinary discipline where several professionals with different educational backgrounds and professional experience must collaborate and have a reciprocal understanding for the better preservation of the cultural properties. Beside Conservator-Restorers, Archaeologists, Art historians and Architects for several years now we have witnessed a market increase in the number of natural scientists dedicated to heritage preservation as a consequence of the importance of diagnostic studies and researches on conservation therapies.

While there are many well recognised national and international institutions where conservator-restorers can be trained in order to achieve their specific professional competencies, there are no academic training opportunities either in Europe or elsewhere for a young scientist willing to become specialised in science for conservation. In fact the basic education of conservation scientist is generally in one of the natural, physical and/or applied sciences. This is normally followed by a gradual familiarisation with conservation-restoration problems in the field. That is to say that today’s conservation scientists received their training in chemistry, or another scientific discipline, and learned the profession on the job.

It is evident from the above considerations that well structured university curricula for conservation scientists are vital in order to promote the skills and specific interdisciplinary competencies of those young scientists wishing to become conservation scientists.

To this purpose, in 1999 the University of Bologna, in collaboration with ICCROM (International Centre for the study of the preservation and restoration of cultural property), an IGO created by UNESCO and based in Rome, organised an international congress (CURRIC – University post-graduate curricula for conservation scientists. Proceedings of the International Congress. Bologna, November 1999. ICCROM, 2000 ) aimed at defining what a “conservation scientist” is, his/her professional profile and ways of training. A document, named “Bologna document” was adopted and agreed internationally. The Bologna document stated that a university programme, with both education and training components, delivered at post-masters’ level should be the more appropriate educational level for young scientists (already graduated in one of the natural, physical and/or applied scientific discipline) wishing to become conservation scientist. This level can be considered as an advanced specialisation that scientists may follow if they wish to become conservation scientists, much like doctors do, when specialising in a specific field of medicine.

Following the above initiative a project, named CURRIC, was funded by the EU-Leonardo da Vinci programme. The project, coordinated by ICCROM, and implemented by a partnership composed by European Universities and research in Conservation Institutions designed the curriculum of a PhD in science for conservation which took into account the interdisciplinary character of the conservation discipline ( Rocco Mazzeo, "CURRIC: a European project for postgraduate conservation training" in ICCROM Newsletter 30, June 2004, p.11.

). The CURRIC project was evaluated by a group of independent evaluators representing academic and conservation institutions worldwide as well as those of the EU-Leonardo da Vinci Programme. The evaluation resulted in the project achieving “best practice” status and was invited to present the project results at two international events organized by the EU-Leonardo da Vinci programme (Quality in Training – Policy in Action. Experience and results from Leonardo da Vinci projects. 16-17 February 2004, Birmingham, UK. Leonardo UK National Agency.).

With the successful assessment of the need for training of conservation scientists in Europe and the development of a curriculum at PhD level to accomplish this academic training the moment is, therefore, right to implement it at a European level.