06.02.2017 - Culture Sector

©Unesco

In cooperation with UNESCO, the University of Aix-Marseille (Marseille, France) has decided to create a UNESCO Chair in Maritime and Coastal Archeology. The aim of the Chair is to promote cooperation between high-level researchers, internationally renowned professors and higher education institutions throughout the world in the fields of archeology and underwater cultural heritage.

Professor Jean-Christophe Sourisseau will be the first Chair holder of the new UNESCO Chair, guiding the team of so renowned researchers as Kalliopi Baika and Souen Fontaine and cooperating closely with the DRASSM, France’s Underwater Archaeology Departement under the lead of Michel L’Hour.

The Chair will also work to promote the ratification and implementation of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

Launched in 1992, the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme promotes international inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities through knowledge sharing and collaborative work. Today, the Programme involves over 700 institutions in 115 countries. It also features a UNESCO UNITWIN Network for Underwater Archeology.