MEDINS is a transnational cooperation project the aims to catalogue, promote, valorise and to lay a network of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Southern Europe at an international level, in order to safeguard them from the risk of extinction, while, at the same time, using it as a resource for the development of local maintainability (based on the valorisation of identities, knowledge and traditions of the territories taking part in the MEDINS project). Under such perspectives, this project complements the European Union politics for local development. In terms of uniformity of language and common methodology, it is necessary to specify that during this project, reference is made to the Intangible Cultural Heritage definition, specified a the Convention the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage approved by UNESCO on the 17^th October 2003. During the above mentioned convention UNESCO defined Intangible Cultural Heritage as “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and know-how’s like for example instruments, objects and other artefacts recognized as their Cultural Heritage”. In particular, the heritage manifests mostly in the “traditions and expressions, language, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning both the nature and the universe together with tradition artisan’s know-how”. 

This project represents the interpretation and the implementation of existing international trends in the cultural policies field, starting from the UNESCO Convention, mentioned above, for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage and which MEDINS represents the first example in the Euro Mediterranean Area. This is an integrated project, as it plans the following factors for all the associated regions and territories. These are: