TEHIC-Handbook_of_best_practices

6. Criteria for selecting best practices in heritage interpretation. TEHIC Towards a European Heritage Interpretation Curriculum 90 Criteria for selecting best practices in heritage interpretation By Maribel Rodríguez Achútegui T hroughout the various chapters of this handbook, we have seen that heritage inter- pretation is currently a widespread practice in Europe, particularly at professional level, although it is more widely recognised by the interpreters themselves than by society or the academy. Those who work with heritage interpretation see it as a profes - sion and have organised themselves into a hotchpotch of associations, which, among other goals, attempt to give their job greater social visibility 1 . In addition, we can spot the development of a theoretical corpus, which seems to be leading to the recognition of heritage interpretation as a discipline by the academy, despite the peculiarity of its evident cross-cutting nature, embracing many areas of knowledge related to heritage, both in its natural or cultural aspects. 2 We are therefore dealing with a subject that professionals have been applying for a long time in a wide range of fields, such as biology, history, archaeology, geology, muse - ology, tourism, etc. In other words, a wide range of experiences and projects can be traced that use interpretive tools to create places for cognitive and emotional relations between heritage and the public. But how could we define which of these experiences are best practices? What are the factors that allow us to differentiate outstanding practices among the large number of projects that apply heritage interpretation principles in an orderly manner? Answering this question is the first challenge that the team (made up of members from different countries such as Croatia, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden) of the project Erasmus + “TEHIC, Towards a European Heritage Interpretation Curriculum” has set itself, and in turn, from the different approaches that make up the practice of heritage work: university, administration, and professionals. The approach of this paper has been to establish common criteria to define what we consider "Best practices in Heritage Interpretation"; something that is absolutely necessary, since this is a field where practice is far ahead of theory. 1 These topics can be found in Chapter 3 (Miró) and Chapter 4 (González). 2 This subject is further developed in Chapter 5 (Babi ć)