Heritage Hour: Mapping NGOs across the CEE region

Over the past couple of years, the research team at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków has been busy on creating a report on the non-governmental heritage sector in Central and Eastern Europe.“Mapping of the Central and Eastern European Non-Governmental Heritage Sector: Report” was published in June 2025 and penned by researchers at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków in collaboration with the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation in Warsaw.The report is the first of its kind, giving a comprehensive overview of the non-governmental heritage sector across ten countries in the region. The document – containing over 200 pages – highlights the situation of the sector as well as the challenges it faces.As many as 35,000 heritage NGOs are operational across the CEE region, the report finds, although working conditions leave a lot to be desired: the research reveals that problems regarding cashflow, operational stability and burnout are the three hardest challenges the sector faces.The report shows findings from ten countries: Belarus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.Three of the report’s authors: Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska (Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków), Dr Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga (Deputy Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków), and Maja Drabczyk (Chair of the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation in Warsaw), join podcast host John Beauchamp to discuss the report’s findings.You can download a copy of the report from the Kraków Heritage Hub’s website by going here. This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.