Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

The Roots of Education for the Future (REduF) project is an interdisciplinary research and cultural intervention project that focuses on the educational cultural heritage of an inland region.
REduF has four main objectives: to research, safeguard and reuse the built, movable and intangible educational heritage as an endogenous resource for the region; to train human capital to preserve and exploit the Regional Cultural Heritage; to create an Interdisciplinary, Cross-Border and Inter-Regional Center for the Memory of Education (CITRIME); and to promote innovative ways of disseminating cultural assets. The implementation of CITRIME responds to the need to go beyond simple cultural protection and interpretation, projecting the symbolic capital embodied in artifacts as an element of economic valorization and social cohesion of the regions, linked to cultural and cross-border tourism. It uses action-research methodology, crossing different approaches but focusing on the collection of regional educational and school traditions, oral history, ethnography and material culture studies.