TEHIC-Handbook_of_best_practices

5. Heritage interpretation and university education TEHIC Towards a European Heritage Interpretation Curriculum 78 and importance for university-based education and for the development of the profes - sion, being all those elements necessary for that goal. Or more precisely, only in recent history (the last third of the 20 th century and its last decades) academic programmes in museology/museum studies were established, heading towards a situation where, espe - cially after the 1990s, accredited university-based museology/museum studies exist in all continents and in so many countries worldwide. What can we learn from that and how could that help us regarding heritage interpre- tation? At first, since we are discussing here about the academic sector and formal tertiary training in heritage interpretation in Europe, it is obvious that the university sec - tor does not change as quickly as we, sometimes, wish. Basically, it takes time, certainly less than in the 19 th or 20 th centuries, but still some patience is needed. As we said before, heritage interpretation, concerning its overall historical development, is not so different from museology. Both activities started a long time ago without a clear description of what those activities were, what the methodologies should be and lacking a body of knowledge as well as any accumulated experiences. Museology started to formulate those in the late 19 th century and as a result the first academic course and/or programme appeared in the early 20 th century (as mentioned before, at the Masaryk University of Brno, Czech Republic, in 1921 or at the École du Lou - vre, Paris, France in 1927). Over time, other courses began to appear, mainly in Europe , and elsewhere in the World. One of today’s still most influential museum studies/museology academic programme started in 1966 at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. This programme is impor - tant as it made a difference by not making an emphasis anymore on the objects on display in museum collections and their related scientific fields (such as archaeology, art history, ethnology, history, natural history, diverse technical sciences and so on) but rather by insisting on the theory and practice of museum work 6 as the core of the programmes related to museum studies. Over time more formal university programmes in museum studies/museology started, particularly in the last 30 (plus) years following the method - ology first introduced by the University of Leicester. The initial motivation for researchers to launch museum studies/museology programmes at their own universities are ex - tremely diverse, often connected to core scientific disciplines 7 , reflected in a museum context where researchers and lecturers were seeking innovative approaches, some- 6 See: Lewis, G. (1987) ‘Museum, profession and University: museum studies at Leicester’ Museum 1987 (156 / Vol XXXIX, n° 4), 255-258. & Nutting, R., and J. Morris (2016) ‘The origin of the School Of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester’ Museologica Brunensia 2016 (vol. 5, iss. 1) 62-67. 7 Core scientific disciplines are those which are directly connected with museums’ collections (archaeology, art history, ethnology, history, natural history, diverse technical sciences etc.)