Room for Heritage is a capacity-building and networking programme for local cultural actors working with cultural and natural heritage in Ukraine's regions most affected by Russian aggression.

The programme helps communities rediscover and activate local heritage resources — museum collections, local histories, intangible traditions, and tourism potential — transforming them into living cultural products, educational initiatives, and heritage interpretation projects that speak to the realities of wartime.

Participants receive:

• training in heritage interpretation methods (online and in-person in Kyiv, June–September 2026);
• individual mentorship from leading Ukrainian cultural institutions;
• the opportunity to receive grant funding for their own projects — up to UAH 500,000 (micro-grant) or up to UAH 1,500,000.

Who can apply?

• Organisations from Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts, including organisations displaced from these regions regardless of their current location in Ukraine.
• Institutions working with cultural and/or natural heritage and local history (libraries, museums, historic estates, national parks, nature reserves, botanical gardens, etc.).
• Civil society organisations with demonstrated experience of implementing projects in the field of cultural and/or natural heritage.

Priority will be given to institutions applying in partnership with civil society organisations, provided the teams have a confirmed history of collaboration.

The programme is implemented by a consortium of mentor organisations: Mystetskyi Arsenal, IZOLYATSIA Foundation, Kharkiv Literary Museum, Odesa National Art Museum, and the Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture.

The capacity-building and networking programme for local cultural actors "Room for Heritage" is supported by the Partnership for a Resilient Ukraine programme, funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden.

Mystetskyi Arsenal is Ukraine's leading cultural institution, integrating diverse art forms and cultural practices — from contemporary art to literature and museum affairs. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Mystetskyi Arsenal has focused its activities on several core directions: protecting, preserving and communicating Ukrainian cultural heritage; amplifying the Ukrainian voice internationally; encouraging reflection on the human and societal situation in wartime; and providing a space for experiencing and processing the shared wartime experience in Ukraine.

Literary Museum of Kharkiv is a space for social interaction and dialogue on current topics, and a place where diverse local communities form. The museum brings together proactive cultural actors, creating a creative environment. Founded in 1988, its collection is centred on objects from the periods of the Executed Renaissance of the 1920s–1930s, the Sixtiers and the Ukrainian resistance movement of the 1960s–1980s, the early 1990s, and contemporary Ukrainian literature.

Odesa National Fine Arts Museum is a state art museum opened in 1899. It holds an extensive collection of artworks and is located in the city centre in the historic Naryshkin Palace. The museum continues to promote and preserve its collection, carrying on its exhibition, research and educational activities during the full-scale war, and running educational programmes for cultural professionals.

IZOLYATSIA. Platform for Cultural Initiatives is a non-profit, non-governmental platform for cultural initiatives founded in 2010 in Donetsk on the territory of a former insulation materials factory. IZOLYATSIA's mission is to stimulate systemic change in Ukrainian society through cultural projects. IZOLYATSIA serves as a platform for researching, discussing and presenting pressing socio-political issues at various local and global levels. It implements projects at the intersection of contemporary art and civil society, working across such areas as research, projects and exhibitions, support for cultural decentralisation, capacity building in the cultural sector, and residencies.

Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture (DCCC) is a Ukrainian cultural institution that since 2019 has been creating projects in the fields of contemporary art, media, urbanism and non-formal education. It is a platform for international collaboration, research and engagement with urban communities. Through art and culture, DCCC addresses ideas and issues that concern society, seeking to make sense of shared historical heritage and to amplify Ukrainian voices in the global context.