Lilian Grootswagers

Lilian Grootswagers-Theuns is the owner of Erfgoed.nu, she advises governmental institutions, cooperations and private owners in heritage related issues. Specialty: monument legislation, grants, research, religious heritage issues, conversion, spatial planning and re-use and redesign of heritage. Erfgoed.nu goal is to give heritage buildings a purpose in nowadays society. Therefore an integrated approach is a necessity. She is a council member (honorary secretary) of FRH Future for Religious Heritage, a non-faith European-wide organisation on places of worship based in Brussels. She was the representative of FRH in the structured dialogue between the European Commission and the cultural sector during the EYCH 2018. She represents FRH in the European Commission Cultural Heritage Group as of 2019.. She is a member of the European Heritage Alliance since its foundation in 2011. She is Vice-Chair of task force Toekomst Kerkgebouwen, a national and independent citizen’s movement in the Netherlands aiming to re-establish religious buildings as living elements of the urban and rural landscape and communities.

She is the author and publisher of several guidelines and handbooks on re-use of listed buildings, as well as a guest lecturer of HAN University of Applied Sciences: Repurpose and Monuments Module Cooperation (2011). She is the author of guidelines for religious heritage Gelderland (2009) “Oren van Steen” (2011) and “Future of our built history, guidelines for re-use” (2014). She is board member of Erfgoedlab, a not-for-profit organisation, a “delivery room” for new ideas, and initiatives in the field of heritage which have a national impact. The laboratory drives innovative projects in the heritage sector and ensures these projects are embedded in the sector and are able to run independently after the pilot phase. Some examples are the Dutch “Erfgoedstem”- The National Monumentencongres and the Monumentenmonitor. Actual project is the pilot of the European Heritage Tribune, which is also supported by Europa Nostra. She was one of the initiators of the first Open Churches Days in Noord Brabant in 2017, which resulted in a new foundation Openkerkendag and expands its activities this year to Noord Brabant and Zeeland. Furthermore she has been granted the Brabant Bokaal by the Prince Bernhard Foundation in 2014, for her voluntary and innovative work in the field of religious heritage. As of 2014 she is one of the 21 Brabantse Hoeders, special protectors of the cultural heritage in the province.