The Flemish Heritage Institute (VIOE) is a scientific institution of the Flemish community (Belgium) that undertakes research into heritage, including monuments, buildings and archaeological sites as well as landscapes. The VIOE was established in 2004 and currently employs 160 people, ranging from excavation workers to researchers.

The VIOE has three core tasks: carrying out research, undertaking heritage outreach and providing policy support.

Research
The VIOE has the task of carrying out research on archaeological, architectural, landscape, maritime and sailing heritage. The research outcomes serve as the basis for well-founded policy advice. Its primary research activities are registration and fieldwork. Conservation and restoration, ranging from archaeological finds over murals to buildings, also occupy a central position in VIOE's work. In general the aim is to achieve a comprehensive scientific study of immoveable heritage. Its own research is complemented, if necessary, by external research into specific or strategic research topics.

Outreach
Research that is not made accessible remains dead letter. That is why the research outcomes are disseminated within the field of study and translated for the public at large through scientific publications, among other things. In addition, the VIOE performs activities and provides information for the public at large. Within the framework of heritage education are also studied how dealings with heritage can be integrated into the educational learning package.The VIOE has an elaborate and topical research library which is freely accessible to the public. Also, it manages several archives, such as the archive of the Royal Commission for Monuments and Landscapes and the archive of architect Renaat Braem.

Policy support
The most important policy instruments provided by the VIOE are the heritage inventories. They make it possible to identify knowledge gaps and topical points of special interest. Inventories are designed to provide an overview of all known data on valuable heritage elements. As such they can be used as the scientific basis for protections.
The different inventories (www.vioe.be/inventarisatie) include the inventory of all known archaeological sites in Flanders: the Central Archaeological Inventory (CAI), as well as inventories of architectural, sailing, landscape, gardens and parks, organ instruments, etc.
The VIOE has a steering role in the drafting of standards and guidelines, so-called Best Practices, for the research areas within the general immoveable heritage sector. At international level the VIOE helps design European standards for the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage (www.cen.eu - cen/TC346 conservation of cultural property).

In the framework of the ACE project, VIOE will more particularly :
-participate at the Science Festival at the European City of Science (Paris) on the 14th to 16th of november 2008 (theme IV)
-organise a workshop in 2009 on data management inviting the ADS-partner from York to present some of their activities and products for interested institutes
- publication of a picture-book for children (5-8 years) on archaeology, which would be translated in all the languages of the partners.
- 2011: the organisation of the international colloquium that we would like to link with the Sachsensymposium 2011) with the theme 'Cultural and social dimensions of the early-medieval migration and colonisation (5th-8th century): the very beginning of contemporary Europe' . This organisation includes the publication of the Proceedings as a VIOE-ACE monograph.
-Furthermore VIOE will give an input at themes IIIA and IIIB

The VIOE will organise and host an ACE meeting in may 2011.