We represent the interests of conservation and conservators on the issues that affect our cultural heritage most.
We use our expertise to realise Icon's vision for cultural heritage to be valued and accessible and for its future to be enhanced and safeguarded by excellence in conservation.
The overall purpose of Icon’s advocacy and policy is to support Icon’s vision “for cultural heritage to be valued and accessible and for its future to be enhanced and safeguarded by excellence in conservation.”
What we do
From research to lobbying, our advocacy work takes many forms:
- We research the cultural heritage conservation sector and wider political landscape to identify opportunities and challenges and to deliver insight to stakeholders. We do this by monitoring policy developments, analysing the ever-evolving stakeholder landscape and building the evidence base of our sector.
- We engage widely with the cultural heritage sector to pool resources for maximum benefit and to ensure conservation is included within wider discussions. We do this by drawing on the expertise of our members, collaborating with partners on shared initiatives and developing and managing partnerships.
- We influence decision makers, opinion formers and the public to ensure cultural heritage conservation is widely valued, understood and supported. We do this by responding to parliamentary business, sharing high quality briefings and promoting positive messages on a content-rich website.
Why we do it
As we define advocacy as a planned process of influencing through communications, our activities aim for target audiences to understand, be convinced by and take ownership of our vision.
Icon’s Advocacy Framework helps us to work towards this ambitious aim. The Framework supports Icon in the quality provision of advocacy activities for the cultural heritage conservation sector by providing strategic direction, clarifying and streamlining processes and guiding the evaluation and communication of our impacts.
The Framework is based on a Theory of Change for advocacy, which outlines the need we are trying to address (vision), the changes we want to make (outcomes), what we plan to do (activities) and the resources we will invest (inputs).
