Today, Europe is becoming aware of the technical, cultural and social value of this heritage as a whole which conceals an important part of the collective memory and European identity, some of whose elements deserve to be protected as part of the heritage. Recording the industrial heritage' has highlighted the role of this heritage in post-industrial society and the need to implement protection and maintenance policies which take into account its specific nature. In adopting this approach towards a specific category of the historic heritage, the aim is not to consider only buildings, technical monuments, sites or objects, but also a physical environment, a corpus of knowledge, techniques and ways of life. For this purpose modern and high-performance methods and resources should be used, in accordance with common criteria defined at European level. The scale and extent of the technical, industrial and civil engineering heritage, as well as its very nature, make it necessary to adopt specific protection and conservation measures in the wider framework of heritage policies.
Selection is necessary more than in any other sector of the heritage.
Sometimes, the mere identification of the building, tool or object represents in itself a form of conservation. This selection will have to be made so as to ensure a balanced representation of the different branches of production. Measures to alert the public to the technical, industrial and civil engineering heritage Scientific knowledge and alerting the public to the industrial, technical and civil engineering heritage foster its protection and do much to encourage the implementation of projects designed to conserve, restore and enhance it. In a number of hypotheses, the work to be done presupposes wider support than that which could be given by the authorities or private circles at regional or even national level.