Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Tibor Navracsics, will be at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on Monday to deliver the closing speech at the Platform on Cultural Heritage and Social Innovation. This is the first in a series of three global platforms announced in the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage, published by the Commission last December to ensure that the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage has a lasting impact. The event on Monday will involve 100 participants from national governments and their agencies, from key global institutions as well as young leaders. Commissioner Navracsics said: “The 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage was a great success. Now, we are building on the momentum it has generated to ensure that cultural heritage stays high on the political agenda. This series of platforms will help us explore how we can best promote and safeguard cultural heritage and harness its potential to help us tackle many of the challenges our societies are facing.” The meeting on Monday will focus on heritage as a powerful source of innovation in a variety of areas: revitalising rural communities; crowdsourcing of smart solutions for societal challenges and the promotion of peace around the world. The second platform is planned for Prague in October and the third for Lisbon in 2020. (For more information: Nathalie Vandystadt – Tel.: +32 229 67083; Joseph Waldstein – Tel.: +32 229 56184)