TEHIC-Handbook_of_best_practices

5. Heritage interpretation and university education TEHIC Towards a European Heritage Interpretation Curriculum 72 Heritage interpretation and university education By Darko Babić Introduction T here are quite a lot of workers around us (the author being one of them) with whom we are interacting day-to-day and who are doing their jobs and tasks professionally. It might be an accountant or a pilot, or scholars, university-based scientific researchers or curators of a national museum or any other type of museum, and anything in be - tween. This list could go on endlessly. Our prime interest here is not in numbering or naming workers, or professions, as they both are endless, but in discussing why and how some professions achieve a desirable status, which allows them to gain international or, at least, national recognition, while others are less successful, with a special focus on heritage interpreters. The field of study O ver the last decades we have been exposed to the need of a more interdiscipli- nary scientific work, and/or multidisciplinary approaches which might offer better solutions compared to those already in place or provided just within a single field of study. If we look at the case of heritage interpretation, we might easily conclude that it stands on a crossroads. On the one hand heritage interpretation encompasses many scientific disciplines, so it perfectly fits 21 st Century ‘science meets practice’, and inter/ multi-disciplinarily demands, but on the other hand it is not a recognised scientific dis - cipline according to formal regulations, such as laws, by-laws, etc. Putting aside people involved in and close to heritage interpretation (from academic workers all the way to tourist, museum, or park guides) many people have acknowledged its importance, but sometimes this is just not enough. If we look at how some, or the vast majority of formal higher education programmes operate, regardless of their level (bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral), we will easily conclude that all or some of them still have an ‘anchor’ in one of the already recognised scientific disciplines. Even when different bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral programmes are branded as inter/multi-disciplinary, they have its starting point within a specific scientific field, sometimes not necessarily a single one but within two or three of them. In the case of heritage interpretation, it might come from different fields of humanities