Scope of the programme

• Countries impacted: All 27 EU Member States
• Thematic axis:
  - Preservation of cultural heritage
  - Sustainable tourism development
  - Use of hiking trails as a tool to connect tourism and heritage protection
• Funding programme lineage (EU, national, regional): national.

Description of the project

• Project objective(s): To preserve cultural heritage and use cultural heritage as a sustainable tourism asset, specifically through the development of hiking-based cultural routes and training of hiking guides.
• Duration: 36 months
• Main activities:
  - Development of heritage-based hiking concepts
  - Training and pilot testing with hiking guides
  - Cross-border exchange of practices between mountain regions
  - Collaboration with local tourism boards, municipalities, and hiking associations
• Outputs:
  - Training activities for hiking and heritage professionals
  - Pilot actions in four countries
  - Strengthened cooperation between cultural heritage and tourism stakeholders
  - Basis for follow-up projects and scaling to additional countries

Type of application

• Single applicant: No
• Consortium members:
  - Museumsverein Klostertal (Austria) – project partner representing a regional museum & cultural heritage institution.
  - Urban Development Center (UDC) (Serbia) – lead/major partner with expertise in cultural heritage, innovation, and EU projects.
  - Gornjesavski muzej Jesenice (Slovenia) – museum partner involved in heritage protection and trail development.
  - Arouca Geopark (Portugal) – partner contributing mountain and geopark heritage expertise.
• Subcontractor: No

Success Factors

• Previous experience with funding: Museumsverein has experience across EU programmes (LEADER rural areas, Interreg, Erasmus+ including accreditation, etc.), giving the organisation credibility in delivery and compliance.
• Effective Partnership Building: The consortium spans four countries and different mountain contexts, which the interview frames as a reason the consortium was viewed positively by the European Commission. The four-country partnership (Serbia, Slovenia, Austria, Portugal) and positions it as a collaborative European network combining heritage + outdoor tourism expertise. The consortium composition was also “narratively strong”: Alps + Serbia’s mountains + Arouca Geopark context are explicitly referenced as a positive factor.
• Use of support ecosystem: A critical success factor was combining European networking with local stakeholder engagement—tourism boards, municipalities, alpine/hiking associations—described as a “fundamental base” for the project. This is the kind of credibility point evaluators look for: implementation is not isolated within the consortium; it is embedded in the local tourism/heritage ecosystem

Barriers & Challenges

• Complexity of the Call: A specific friction point is that they are used to Erasmus+ style processes, while “projects going directly to the European Commission” have different procedural characteristics, so switching programme logic increases cognitive and administrative load.
• Administrative burden: The formal aspects and navigating “all the documents” without overlooking anything were “still challenging,” even with simplification efforts.
• Time & resource constraints: Museumsverein operates with three part-time staff, which naturally amplifies the burden of compliance and documentation management. Even when implementation is strong, limited internal bandwidth makes it harder to manage reporting, contracting, evidence collection, and multi-country coordination demands.

Lessons learned

• Choose experienced partners you can trust: This is the clearest lesson learned stated: identify experienced and valuable partners and, crucially, partners you can trust. In practice, INHERIT shows the value of letting a capable lead partner handle proposal mechanics while others contribute domain substance
• Define common goals early, then design around real capacity: The company stress the need for common goals and good preparation, including an honest assessment of what you can and cannot deliver with your internal capacity. This is particularly relevant for micro entities: scope ambition must be matched to available staff time and operational reality.
• Build a two-level network: EU/international + local implementers: The project design uses training and “ambassador” diffusion plus ongoing dissemination via social networks and public events (which is a strong sustainability mechanism after funding).

This best practice is easily transferable to other small tourism and heritage-based SMEs, as it shows that EU funding success depends less on size and more on clear alignment with programme priorities, strong partnerships, and practical project design. By joining consortia with experienced partners and anchoring projects in local tourism ecosystems, SMEs with limited resources can remain competitive and access EU funding effectively.