Since 2012, the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany, and Helwan University, Egypt, are cooperating in the implementation of the Joint Master in Heritage Conservation and Site Management (HCSM). Through this master programme, both universities endeavour to contribute to the protection of heritage by endowing graduates with the multidisciplinary skills required for the assessment of significance as well as the management and conservation of cultural heritage sites. A second component of this German-Egyptian cooperation initiative is the organisation of an annual conference which is dedicated to a different heritage-related topic each year. The fourth HCSM Conference will be held in Berlin and Cottbus, Germany, on 5-7 December 2016 and entitled "Catastrophe and Challenge: Cultural Heritage in Post-Conflict Recovery". The Conference attempts to take a first step towards sketching the scope and the depth of the problems of heritage in war as well as providing insights into approaches to cope with these problems. The destructive effects of war, and particularly the deliberate targeting of cultural sites, constitute an exceptional challenge for heritage conservation. The general principles of retaining cultural significance by continuous care and by minimal intervention may seem of little use when one is faced with catastrophic and wide-spread damage to culturally-significant places – be they individual monuments, urban structures or archaeological sites. Post-conflict recovery encompasses a wide range of topics, many of which have not yet been studied in depth. The organisers therefore invite contributions addressing very diverse topics in the wide field of "Cultural Heritage in Post-Conflict Recovery", particularly relating to urban environments. These topics include:

• Principles, Ideals, Ethics of Post-Conflict Recovery and Urban Reconstruction
• Issues of Cultural Significance and Authenticity in War-Damaged Urban Structures
• World Heritage Sites and War – Criteria for Recovery
• Deliberate Targeting of Cultural Assets/Historic Towns – How to React?
• Experiences: Cases of Post-Conflict Recovery of the Past 100 Years
• Methods, Tools: Documentation, Visualisation, 3D–Modelling
• Training and Capacity Building in Techniques for Post-Conflict Reconstruction
• Participation, Stakeholders, Processes in Post-Conflict Recovery
• Prevention and Disaster Preparedness
• First Aid for Ruins, Structural Safeguarding War-Damaged Structures
• Reconstruction and the Role of New Design in the Recovery of War-Damaged Historic Urban Landscapes
• Conflict Archaeology: Understanding the Catastrophic Event
• Conflict as Heritage: Memorialisation, Interpretation, Communication
• Cultural Differences in Approach and Attitude to Post-Conflict Recovery and Urban Reconstruction: Comparative Studies

Interested candidates should send abstracts of 500 words proposing 15-minute talks on any of the aforementioned issues. The deadline for submitting proposals is 31 July 2016. For additional information, please visit http://heritage-post-conflict.com/call-for-papers/