Project ‘SPHINX (Heritage Sciences: Heritage, Innovation, eXpertise)” (2025-2030)

Managed by the Observatoire des Patrimoines (OPUS) at Sorbonne Université, SPHINX aims to address heritage across the longue durée and at all scales by structuring a European center of expertise and strengthening the continuum among research, public decision-making, heritage professionals, and the wider public.

A scientific structure organised into 3 strands and 13 programmes

SPHINX is organised around three strands – Making Heritage, Constrained Heritage, Shared Heritage – developed across 13 programmes:

• Strand I – Making Heritage
   Identity, commons, memory
   Artistic canons: norms and developments
   The constitution and preservation of scholarly heritage
   The tourist making of heritage
   Matrimoines and marginalised heritages
   Regulated heritage
   Augmented heritage

• Strand II – Constrained Heritages
   Provenance, restitution, authentication
   Ethics and standards for sensitive heritages
   Threatened and invisibilised heritages

• Strand III – Shared Heritages
   Restoration, preservation expertise, making margins visible, revitalisation
   Digital heritage
   Shared heritages

A leading academic and heritage consortium

SPHINX brings together a consortium comprising major academic and research partners (including CNRS, Inria, and the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle), heritage and cultural institutions, and a wide network of partners in France and internationally. The project also includes actions to promote and disseminate results (seminars, conferences, white papers, position papers, exhibitions, podcasts, continuing professional development, etc.), with the aim of informing contemporary debates and equipping heritage protection policies.

Partnership with the château de Versailles and the CRCV

The château de Versailles is an institutional partner of the SPHINX project. In this capacity, the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles (CRCV) contributes to this collective dynamic by aligning SPHINX’s objectives with its own missions: interdisciplinary research, heritage enhancement, the circulation of knowledge, and the articulation among scholarly production, mediation, and audiences.

Technical information
Funding: ANR call for expressions of interest “Research Programmes in HSS” – France 2030
Duration: 5 years (budget: €9 million)
Official launch: 8 September 2025 (Réfectoire des Cordeliers, Paris)