Abu Dhabi Opens Applications for LanD 2027 Cultural Heritage Training Programme
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ABU DHABI, August 21, Saudi Arabia Breaking News — Abu Dhabi has opened applications for a new international training programme aimed at strengthening the skills of heritage professionals across the Middle East and North Africa in documenting and managing cultural landscapes.
The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi has launched applications for LanD 2027 Training on Cultural Landscapes Documentation, with 20 professionals from across the MENA region set to be selected for the programme.
The initiative will combine online study with intensive field training in Al Ain, focusing on how historic landscapes can be documented as living systems shaped by communities, nature, architecture and cultural traditions.
Selected participants will attend on-site training in Al Ain from April 26 to May 5, 2027, after completing introductory online courses scheduled between January and April.
The programme will use Hili Oasis as its principal hands-on case study, allowing participants to apply documentation techniques in a cultural landscape where natural features, traditional practices and built heritage intersect.
LanD 2027 will focus on integrated approaches that combine traditional knowledge with modern documentation technologies.
Organizers say the training will examine both tangible and intangible aspects of cultural landscapes, recognizing that heritage sites are shaped not only by buildings and archaeological remains but also by environmental systems, local communities, practices and knowledge passed through generations.
The programme is being organized by DCT Abu Dhabi and the CHEDAR project in collaboration with international heritage organizations and specialist committees, including bodies associated with ICOMOS and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Participants will be taught by international specialists in heritage documentation and related fields.
Applications are open to early and mid-career professionals working in areas including architecture, archaeology, landscape architecture, urban planning, conservation, geography, GIS, environmental sciences, anthropology, ethnography, social sciences and heritage management.
Candidates are expected to hold at least a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field and have between three and five years of professional experience in heritage-related work.
Experience with fieldwork or heritage documentation is considered an advantage, while applicants must also be able to work in multidisciplinary and international teams and have a working knowledge of English.
Applications will remain open until October 15.
The programme comes amid wider efforts in Abu Dhabi to document and preserve cultural landscapes while developing specialist expertise in heritage conservation.
Al Ain provides a particularly significant setting for the initiative. Its network of historic oases forms part of the Cultural Sites of Al Ain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and reflects generations of interaction between settlement, agriculture and traditional water-management systems.
Through LanD 2027, Abu Dhabi is seeking to develop a new generation of regional heritage specialists capable of combining community knowledge, environmental understanding and digital technologies in the long-term conservation of cultural landscapes.
