FAIC Programs

Advancing the Field

FAIC plays a leading role in advancing the conservation profession around the world so that cultural heritage is better protected and appreciated by future generations. By strengthening the work of AIC members, FAIC fosters a shared responsibility to save precious cultural treasures from damage and deterioration.

Toward this goal, FAIC supports the following initiatives:

• A robust professional development program that includes intensive courses, workshops at the AIC annual meeting, and self-guided online study opportunities
• Sixteen different grants and scholarships for individuals and organizations that promote professional development, outreach to the public, publications, and conservation projects
• Conservation OnLine (or CoOL), a full text library of conservation information that serves as a growing resource for conservation professionals
• Research initiatives such as the Held in Trust, an examination of the needs and future of conservation and preservation in the US
• Sustainability tools like STiCH and Climate Resilience Resources for Cultural Institutions
• An oral history archive to document the history of the field through interviews with conservators, conservation scientists, and related professionals
• The Friends of Conservation program provides an opportunity to learn about different aspect of conservation and support the field.

Preserving Cultural Heritage

FAIC also delivers important programming and tools to allied professionals to aid in their work of protecting irreplaceable evidence of the human story and helping people maintain the longevity and value of their collections. We do this through:

• Collections care programming, such as the Connecting to Collections Care online community, the Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP) program, and Storage Techniques for Art, Science, and History Collections (STASH).
• Initiatives that support emergency preparedness and response, including National Heritage Responders, Alliance for Response, May Day, Risk Evaluation and Planning Program, and Getting Ready in Indian Country. 

Previous initiatives have produced the following additional resources:

• Charting the Digital Landscape of the Conservation Profession Project (2016), a project that investigated the digital landscape of the profession to better understand its breadth and complexity and to identify areas critical to the community both now and into the future
• The Hermitage Photo Conservation Initiative helped establish a department of photograph conservation at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
• FAIC has archived resource materials from Heritage Preservation's Save Outdoor Sculpture! and Rescue Public Murals programs.