NET-HERITAGE is the first significant initiative ever attempting to coordinate national RTD programmes of European countries and support European RTD Programmes in the field of research applied to Protection for Tangible Cultural Heritage. It aims to exert a massive, positive impact through the following objectives: - provide an integrated picture of the state of the art of cultural heritage research in EUMember States and at the European level; -overcome the lack of a coordinated research structure in this specific and multidisciplinary sector, with programmes fostering integration between art-history-conservation-maintenance-restoration areas and architectural-chemical-physics-engineering areas; - limit fragmentation within and among national research programmes, identifying common strategic priorities for research and programmes; - create effective actions to stimulate the exploitation of research results, and underpin cooperation between researchers and cultural heritage institutions for the application of identified solutions; - face problems due to insufficient and dispersed funding, in terms of local level and size of funding, compared to other research sectors; - favour exchange between national and European work programmes, to avoid a single top-down approach. NET-HERITAGE intends to achieve the following main outcomes: - coordinating actions within the EU partnership; - favouring protection of moveable and immoveable tangible cultural heritage; - expanding the potential of the cultural heritage research sector; - enhancing dissemination of research results and news in the field of protection of tangible cultural heritage; - increasing the visibility of the socio-economic importance of this sector; - supporting educational and training programmes and activities in the sector; - developing a common framework of policies for improving cultural heritage protection; - favouring common actions to promote Cultural Heritage research outside EU