The Centre for Heritage Management has been elected as the Secretariat for the Asia-Pacific Higher Education Network for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage (APHEN-ICH) for a two-year term starting December 2022. The APHEN-ICH network was launched in September 2018 with the support of ICHCAP, Korea's first UNESCO category 2 centre in the cultural field, and the UNESCO Bangkok Office to establish a collaboration and networking platform among institutions of higher education dealing with intangible cultural heritage in the Asia-Pacific region. Neel Kamal Chapagain, Director, Centre for Heritage Management, who has been serving as its bureau member since the establishment of the network, will now lead the secretariat, with cooperation from ICHCAP as well as the bureau members respectively from Nepal, the Philippines, and South Korea.

Professor Chapagain said, "The network is an important platform for universities dealing with cultural heritage to advance the teaching and learning as well as research in the field of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in the region. It is an honour as well as a big responsibility to lead this network as its secretariat. This year, we are aiming to facilitate collaboration among the member universities to review our teaching and learning practices related to intangible cultural heritage, and to design and offer new courses in the region. The field schools and seminars have been organised regularly since the last few years, and will continue this year as well. We are also looking forward to expanding the membership to other interested and relevant institutions in the region."

The secretariat can be contacted at [email protected], and invites relevant and interested institutions to apply to become a member.