ICOMOS MEMBERS
NEW Kings Birthday Honours
Congratulations to Peter Romey OAM who has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to conservation and the environment.
Peter, who is based in NSW, has been an Australia ICOMOS member since 2001. He is an experienced heritage practitioner with more than three decades of work across consultancy, government, and site management in Australia and internationally. Trained as an architect, he has held senior roles in both the public and private sectors, including as Director of Conservation and Infrastructure at the Port Arthur Historic Site and in heritage leadership positions with the City of Sydney and at Godden Mackay Logan and Romey Knaggs Heritage.
Peter has also contributed extensively to professional and policy development in the sector, through roles with Australia ICOMOS (including Vice President and Convenor of the World Heritage reference Group), AusHeritage, and state heritage advisory bodies, alongside international capacity-building work in the Asia–Pacific region. His career reflects a sustained commitment to high-quality heritage practice, collaboration, and the advancement of conservation standards.
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NEW World Heritage Reference Group new co convenors
The Australia ICOMOS World Heritage Reference Group (WHRG) has just changed its convenors. Peter Romey has stepped down after a considerable time in the position and Dr Sarah Titchen from Canberra and Helen Lardner from Melbourne have been confirmed by Executive Committee as the new co-convenors.
Sarah and Helen are both highly experienced heritage professionals with a deep understanding of the World Heritage system and the organisations involved, especially DCCEEW, the ICOMOS head office in Paris and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
We would like to sincerely thank Peter for all of his hard work over many years in the WHRG convenor role. This a busy group that is core to the work of Australia ICOMOS and Peter has dedicated significant amounts of time and expertise to its work.
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NEW Vale Australia ICOMOS Member
Dr Laila Haglund was a previous member of Australia ICOMOS and an archaeologist who played a key role in establishing consulting archaeology in Australia, and in drafting Queensland’s first legislation to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage.
A memorial for Laila will be held in late August or early Sept this year at Chau Chuk Museum, Sydney University. Please contact Jen van Proctor for further information jennyvanp54@gmail.com
Australia ICOMOS sends deepest condolences to family, friends and colleagues at this difficult time.
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Member Spotlight
NEW AICOMOS Associate Member Simon Kieser in Q&A with ICOMOS Aotearoa New Zealand
Associate member Simon Kieser is a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge and an Associate of the Sydney Indigenous Research Hub at the University of Sydney.
As a Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, his research focuses on Indigenous justice, heritage governance, and international environmental law. Last year Simon authored a paper in the Australian Journal of Human Rights titled “The Yarra River Protection
Act: a step towards implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?”
The Q&A can be accessed here.
Critical Reflections on the Development of the Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems: Challenges, Contradictions, and Opportunities for Indigenous Peoples
International Journal of Cultural Property (Cambridge University Press, Open Access)
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0940739126100332
The commentary provides a first-hand case study of the development of the 2025 ICOMOS Gunma Declaration on Heritage Ecosystems, a framework that seeks to bridge the longstanding divide between nature and culture within international heritage governance.
Our members work in many and varied facets of cultural heritage and as your membership organisation we would like to showcase some of your expertise and initiatives. If you would like to be included in an edition of our e news, please send a paragraph or two and a photo to our secretariat: austicomos@deakin.edu.au
Please note we cannot advertise individual businesses, this is purely to highlight our wonderful members.
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AICOMOS SUBMISSIONS
Australia ICOMOS recently made three submissions. Please click the links below to read the documents.
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS / GRANTS / NOMINATIONS / EOI
NEW EOI – Judges for the Sydney Inner West Built Environment Awards – Medal for Conservation
Inner West Council Sydney is seeking nominations from heritage specialists / architects with appropriate expertise to be part of a jury for the 2026 Inner West Built Environment Awards (Medal for Conservation).
The Medal for Conservation has been awarded annually since 1995 and was one of the first awards of its kind to be established in NSW. It celebrates built conservation works that contribute to the understanding and preservation of the Inner West’s rich cultural and architectural heritage.
The award is aligned with the state-wide National Trust Heritage Festival held in April–May every year. It is open to all building works, completed in the past three years with positive conservation outcomes, including preservation, restoration, reconstruction, adaptation and interpretation. Works can be large or small, private or public. The judges will be looking for thoughtful and innovative outcomes. A link to Council’s website with winners from previous years is below:
Built Environment Awards – Inner West Council
The judging panel’s role will include a review of applications, a site visit to short-listed applications (one full-day weekend required in September 2026), meeting/s with the judging panel to discuss, evaluate and select the winner, and assist with the writing of jury comments. Attendance at the awards ceremony on Saturday 17 October 2026 to assist in the presentation of the awards is also required. This is a great opportunity to work with Inner West Council in promoting and recognising good outcomes in heritage conservation.
Anyone interested in nominating for this role should provide an email with a brief CV outlining their relevant expertise to Built Environment Awards builtenvironmentawards@innerwest.nsw.gov.au by Friday 26 June 2026.
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2026 National Trust | ACT Region Heritage Symposium – Call for Abstracts
Everyday Heritage: Conviviality, Creativity, Care
15 August 2026
National Film & Sound Archive
This symposium celebrates how heritage is lived, loved and created through everyday life in the ACT region by exploring the themes of conviviality, creativity and care.
Conviviality: how do food and drink and community feasts and celebrations connect people, transmit culture and shape everyday heritage?
Creativity: from design to craft traditions, to contemporary art interventions that reimagine heritage for new audiences, what place does creativity play in shaping our experience of everyday heritage?
Care: how do caring relationships shape everyday heritage? This theme includes family and community histories, visitor interpretation, intergenerational knowledge, and the work of caring, for places, objects, and traditions.
We welcome submissions for 10 or 20 minute papers that relate to these themes. Submissions might address intangible and tangible cultural heritage, food heritage, contested heritage, and creative approaches to interpretation and conservation. Submissions might explore local, national, or international contexts, but should reflect on how they relate to everyday heritage in the ACT region. Please include:
Name and affiliation (as you would like it to appear on the program)
Title
Abstract – max 250 words (The abstract should make clear the connection of your presentation to the themes of the event)
Choose: Student / nonstudent
Email abstracts to: info@nationaltrustact.org.au by no later than 30 June 2026
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Engineering Heritage Awards and Conference 2026
Applications are now open for both the John Monash Medal and the Colin Crisp Award.
The John Monash Medal recognises outstanding contributions by individuals, groups or organisations to the conservation, interpretation, promotion and understanding of Australia’s engineering heritage. It is particularly relevant to those who have made a significant contribution to heritage advocacy, conservation practice, public education, research, or the recognition of engineering heritage places and achievements.
The Colin Crisp Award recognises excellence in the documentation and conservation of engineering heritage. It is commonly associated with high-quality reports, studies, publications, conservation management work, research, interpretation material, or project documentation that contributes to the long-term understanding and preservation of engineering heritage.
These awards may be of particular interest to Australia ICOMOS members involved in heritage conservation, conservation management planning, adaptive reuse, industrial heritage, infrastructure heritage, interpretation, research, documentation and interdisciplinary project work involving architects, engineers, historians, archaeologists, planners and heritage consultants.
In addition, members are invited to consider submitting an abstract for the Heritage Engineering Conference. Contributions from ICOMOS members and allied heritage professionals would be warmly welcomed, particularly where projects involve conservation practice, heritage values assessment, adaptive reuse, investigation, documentation, interpretation, materials conservation, structural conservation, or collaboration between heritage consultants, architects, engineers and asset owners.
Further information is available at the links below:
Engineering Heritage Awards: https://heritage.engineersaustralia.org.au/wiki/Awards
Heritage Engineering Conference: Australasian Engineering Heritage Conference 2026 | Engineers Australia
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Inner West Built Environment Awards | Submissions due 12 July 2026
The annual Built Environment Awards is this year inspired by the 2026 Australia Heritage Festival theme, ‘Change’.
For the last 31 years the medal for conservation has been awarded to successful examples of positive heritage outcomes within the Inner West Local Government Area.
Projects completed in the past three years located in the Inner West are eligible and can be residential, commercial or public spaces. The awards provide an opportunity to celebrate the amalgamation of contemporary design and the rich heritage of the Inner West.
Entries open Sunday 19th April 2026 – 12th July 2026.
For further information and to submit your 2026 entry, please go to https://www.innerwest.nsw.gov.au/annual-events/built-environment-awards
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WORKSHOPS / COURSES / EVENTS / EXHIBITIONS
NEW Talking Intangibles presented by AICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage 15 June 2026
Australia ICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage will host a webinar with Salomón Bazbaz Lapidus, who will share his experience on working to register and preserve intangible culture in Mexico.
Mexican Salomón Bazbaz Lapidus has dedicated his career to the enrichment and dissemination of Mexican culture. Director of the Cumbre Tajín Festival, he is also the creator and founder of the Centre for Indigenous Arts,a formal public education institution for the intergenerational transmission of indigenous values through art and culture, using traditional methods from the culture itself. Salomon also coordinated the record for the inscription of the Ritual Ceremony of Voladores, which was named Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2009.
This is an incredible opportunity for all interested in recording intangible values and organising files to submit for international registration. Do not miss out!
To register please contact nsc.ich@gmail.com
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NEW Integrating Culture and Cultural Heritage into Sustainable Development” Regional webinar series by the SDGWG
As part of ICOMOS’s ongoing commitment to the #Culture2030Goal campaign, the Sustainable Development Goals Working Group (SDGWG) is pleased to announce a new series of regional webinars: “Integrating Culture and Cultural Heritage into Sustainable Development.”
As we approach the critical final years of the UN 2030 Agenda, it is essential that cultural heritage is recognized not just as a legacy of the past, but as a primary driver and enabler of a sustainable future. This series is designed specifically for ICOMOS National and Scientific Committees, as well as individual members, to provide the tools needed to advocate for culture in global and national policy.
For further information and to register, follow this link.
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Contexts for Heritage Engineering Course delivered by Engineering Heritage Australia and the University of Canberra | Newcastle 23-24 July 2026
The course consists of introductory online learning followed by an on-site workshop in Newcastle 23-24 July 2026. Completion of the two optional assignments will enable you to get feedback from professionals working in heritage engineering. The course includes teachers from backgrounds in structural, civil and mechanical engineering, and materials conservation, with a focus on local expertise. As well as engineers, course participants typically include a variety of heritage-related professionals. This enables you to develop professional and local networks to kick-start your career.
This course is taught by Experienced Heritage Engineers from Newcastle and New South Wales and Heritage conservation staff from the University of Canberra.
Further information can be found here.
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ICTC Webinar Series February – June 2026
From Principles to Practice:
Applying the ICOMOS International Charter for Cultural Heritage Tourism (2022)
The ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Committee (ICTC) launches a monthly webinar series on the ICOMOS International Charter on Cultural Heritage Tourism (2022). Presentations and discussions aims to empower ICOMOS members in implementation of the Charter.
The webinars will lead up to ICOMOS General Assembly 2026 in Kuching and inform the many events where tourism will be addressed.
WEBINAR PROGRAMME
24 June (13:00 CET)
Principles 6 & 7
Climate Action · Sustainability · Long-term Management
Registration is free to ICOMOS members: ICTC Webinar Series 2026 – Registration
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PUBLICATIONS / SURVEYS
NEW Victoria Local Heritage Guidelines
The new Victorian Local Heritage Guidelines are now live! This practical resource has been developed to assist heritage practitioners and planners navigate key processes for applying a Heritage Overlay.
Part A explains the heritage criteria and, the assessment and documentation process.
- Part Bexplains how to apply the Heritage Overlay.
The Guidelines replace and expand on the former Planning Practice Note 1 – Applying the Heritage Overlay.
See the Local heritage protection webpage at planning.vic.gov.au for more information.
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SITUATIONS VACANT
NEW Design 5 Architects | Graduate Architect | FT | Chippendale NSW | Applications assessed on submission
Design 5 – Architects, a leading practice in the field of adaptive re-use and heritage conservation, is seeking an architectural graduate to join its well-established studio in Chippendale on a full-time basis.
The role is suited to someone who:
• is highly motivated, with a can-do attitude
• has willingness to be involved across all phases of a project
• has strong written and verbal communication skills and
• the ability to work collaboratively as well as independently
• would like to to grow within our supportive team
The role will involve working closely with our Directors and senior staff across a broad range of interesting
and challenging projects, from:
• residential to commercial
• cultural institutions
• public spaces and
• historically significant buildings within Sydney and beyond
While experience is preferred we are open to meeting talented and enthusiastic candidates.
Skills we would value in job applicants include:
• Vectorworks / Rhino 3D
• strong attention to detail
• ability to liaise with clients, consultants and relevant stakeholders
Please email your CV, portfolio and a cover letter to design5@design5.com.au Only applicants selected for an interview will be contacted.
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BIOSIS | Senior Built Heritage Consultant | NSW | Applications assessed on submission
BIOSIS are seeking a Senior Built Heritage Consultant to join our NSW team, where you will apply your expertise to a diverse range of projects. In this role, you will report to the Manager – Heritage (NSW) and play an active part in project delivery through your involvement in project teams, project management, site investigation, and client liaison.
A key part of the position involves providing technical guidance to junior consultants, as well as leading and developing project teams. You will help new team members understand our work, support them in building capability, and contribute to identifying opportunities, developing new work, and winning projects.
You may be based in any of their NSW offices, and you will have the opportunity to lead and contribute to a wide variety of projects across the state.
Please apply for this position on the SWAG job board.
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BIOSIS | Senior Heritage Consultant | VIC | Applications assessed on submission
BIOSIS are seeking a Senior Heritage Consultant to join their Port Melbourne team, where you will apply your expertise to a diverse range of projects across both Aboriginal and historical archaeology. You will report to the Team Leader – Heritage (Vic) and will be a technical expert with demonstrated experience in delivering Cultural Heritage Management Plans (CHMPs) or historical heritage assessments. You will play an active role in project work through participation in project teams, project management, fieldwork, and client liaison. Independence is encouraged through actively seeking mentoring and advice. Administrative duties include those incorporated as part of project work as well as additional duties as required.
Please apply for this position via our SWAG job board.
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