During the winter of 2025–2026, Strandagaldur – the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft organised a series of co-creation meetings as part of the development of training materials for the European NICHE 2 project.

NICHE 2 – Nurturing Intangible Cultural Heritage for Entrepreneurship – aims to develop practical training resources for people working with intangible cultural heritage. An important part of this process is ensuring that the training is informed not only by research, but also by the knowledge and experience of people working in relevant fields.

As part of the development of Module 1, Strandagaldur therefore invited participants with a wide range of professional backgrounds to review and discuss the material while it was still being developed. The meetings were held both in person and online and included people working in folkloristics, museums and cultural heritage, education, sustainability, regional development, cultural affairs, social entrepreneurship and business development.
During the meetings, participants were introduced to different parts of the module and invited to comment on the content, structure and practical exercises. Their feedback led to concrete improvements to the material. Participants helped refine reflection and self-evaluation questions, suggested changes to wording and content, and highlighted the importance of including more Icelandic examples, research and case studies.

The meetings also opened up new connections and resources for the project. Participants pointed towards relevant work in areas such as social entrepreneurship and intangible cultural heritage and suggested additional experts and projects that could contribute knowledge to the development process.

Feedback on the overall approach was positive, with participants particularly highlighting the clarity and balance of the material and the usefulness of the practical tools included in the module. At the same time, the co-creation process provided an opportunity to identify where the material could be strengthened before being finalised.

This process is an important part of the NICHE 2 approach: rather than developing training materials in isolation and presenting them only when they are finished, practitioners and specialists are invited into the development process. Their experience helps ensure that the final resources are relevant, practical and connected to the realities of working with cultural heritage.

The knowledge gathered through the co-creation meetings has contributed to the further development of Module 1 and to the wider NICHE 2 training programme, which will provide multilingual learning resources for professionals and practitioners working with intangible cultural heritage across Europe.