UNITWIN/UNESCO Chair Programme, established in 1992, promotes international cooperation and networking between universities. It helps reinforce higher education institutions worldwide, bridge the knowledge gap, mobilize university expertise, and collaborate around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. (source https://en.unesco.org/themes/higher-education/unitwin).
In 2003, Ritsumeikan University established the Research Center for Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural Heritage aiming a base international hub for education and research in Disaster mitigation of cultural heritage. The recommendations of the thematic meeting on cultural heritage risk management was held in Kobe, Japan, in January 2005 as part of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR). Since then, as a follow-up of the recommendations, UNESCO Chair Programme on Cultural Heritage and Risk Management is begun from 2006.
The UNESCO Chair Program on Cultural Heritage and Risk Management aims to promote an intensive educational program, scientific networking, and research works on disaster risk management of cultural heritage. It aims to create sufficient measures for cultural heritage sites to reduce risks to both movable and immovable, as well as tangible and intangible cultural heritage. These disasters are not only caused by natural hazards such as earthquakes, the tsunami, floods, typhoons, landslides, forest fires; but also, human induced hazards like arson, vandalism, terrorism and conflicts including biological hazards.
