In this edition of Holistic Heritage, we speak to three heritage practitioners in Poland’s southern city of Kraków and what makes this city so special in terms of creating and running cultural heritage projects.

Join hosts John Beauchamp and Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska, Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków, as they speak to Katarzyna Sosenko, an art historian and Chair of the Sosenko Family Collection Foundation, Artur Wabik, mural artist, curator and Chair of the Comic Museum Foundation in Kraków, and Krzysztof Żwirski, a long-term collaborator with the Kraków Municipality and mastermind behind numerous projects promoting cultural heritage in the city and beyond.

What makes Kraków such a special city to create and undertake cultural heritage projects? How does the city compare in terms of grass-roots movements and bottom-up initiatives? How does Kraków fare in comparison to other urban centres in the region?

Find out more in the podcast – and also remember to download our latest report on the heritage-based third sector in the CEE region!

Over the past couple of years, the research team at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków has been busy on creating a report on the non-governmental heritage sector in Central and Eastern Europe.

“Mapping of the Central and Eastern European Non-Governmental Heritage Sector: Report” was published in June 2025 and penned by researchers at the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków in collaboration with the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation in Warsaw.

The report is the first of its kind, giving a comprehensive overview of the non-governmental heritage sector across ten countries in the region. The document – containing over 200 pages – highlights the situation of the sector as well as the challenges it faces.

As many as 35,000 heritage NGOs are operational across the CEE region, the report finds, although working conditions leave a lot to be desired: the research reveals that problems regarding cashflow, operational stability and burnout are the three hardest challenges the sector faces.

The report shows findings from ten countries: Belarus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

Three of the report’s authors: Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska (Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków), Dr Joanna Sanetra-Szeliga (Deputy Head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków), and Maja Drabczyk (Chair of the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation in Warsaw), join podcast host John Beauchamp to discuss the report’s findings.

You can download a copy of the report from the Kraków Heritage Hub’s website by going here.

This podcast was produced in the frame of and as an outcome of the European Heritage Hub pilot project co-funded by the European Union.

In this edition of Holistic Heritage, we are both in Kraków and further afield for the Małopolska Culture Heritage Days 2025, run by the Małopolska Cultural Institute, which this year won a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Awardin the Citizens Engagement and Awareness-raising category.

In the episode, join John Beauchamp and head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub, Dr Katarzyna Jagodzińska as they explore three places on the 2025 Heritage Days trail in Małopolska.

This year’s theme is “light”: we visit the cozy village of Zakrzów, some 30km from Kraków near Niepołomice. It is there we go to the Zagroda Apolonia, where a determined Elżbieta Graboś is rebuilding a traditional hut after a fire destroyed the roof in 2023.

At the zagroda (homestead) we also meet veterinarian and fantasy writer Radek Rak who authored a book commissioned by MIK for this 27th edition of the event.

In Kraków, right off the Main Market Square on we visit the Sperling tenement house on Sławkowska Street. There, we meet Christian and Véronique Leprette, the grandchildren of the former owners of the building, and Katarzyna Łomnicka, an art historian and curator of an exhibition on show at the house with paintings by Maria Sperling and Józef Jarema.

We also spend time at the Jerzmanowski Palace in Kraków’s Prokocim district.

Throughout the episode, we meet some of the Culture Heritage Days team from MIK, including: Joanna Nowostawska-Gyalókay, Małgorzata Hordyniec and Dominika Mietelska-Jarecka.