Human Pioneers
NEWS AGENCY

Under the dual waves of globalization and modernization, the living transmission of intangible cultural heritage faces worldwide challenges such as a generational gap in inheritors, distortion of skills, and the erosion of cultural diversity. Safeguarding the living memory of human civilization has become a shared mission of the international community. Against this backdrop, the International Standardization System for Human Skills, initiated and established by the Standards Committee of the World Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WICO), takes standardization as a key pathway to build a professional and systematic platform for the protection and transmission of various traditional skills-based intangible cultural heritage worldwide. By scientifically solidifying the core of skills and establishing an international collaboration framework, this system helps ensure the accurate preservation and intergenerational transmission of the cultural genes of each ethnic group, injecting new ideas and sustained vitality into global intangible cultural heritage protection.

As a significant practice of the WICO Standards Committee in the field of cultural heritage protection, Pang Pei, head of the Secretariat of the World Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WICO), stated: The International Standardization System for Human Skills is not intended to shape a single cultural template but is based on the essence of intangible cultural heritage—its "living nature" and "uniqueness"—to lay a scientific standardization "skeleton" for its protection. Its core goal is to solve common challenges in intangible cultural heritage transmission through standardization: On one hand, addressing issues such as skill loss due to oral instruction, inconsistent craft standards, and rampant counterfeits, the system formulates terminology standards, process parameters, and technical specifications to solidify the cultural core and key techniques of various skills, safeguarding the authenticity of intangible cultural heritage and creating a cultural gene map that can be preserved, verified, and passed down. On the other hand, to tackle the widespread regional barriers and knowledge silos in intangible cultural heritage transmission, the system establishes an internationally interoperable platform for protection and transmission, promoting cross-border sharing and collaborative protection of skill knowledge. This allows traditional skills scattered worldwide to unite under a standardized framework, preventing transmission gaps caused by regional, linguistic, and cultural differences.

From a practical logic perspective, the International Standardization System for Human Skills closely revolves around the two main themes of "protection" and "transmission," deeply integrating scientific standardization methods with the living characteristics of intangible cultural heritage to build an operational system that is both professional and inclusive. At the protection level, the system draws on mature experience in modern standardization governance to tailor standardization norms for different categories and regions of skills-based intangible cultural heritage. These include general technical standards for digital collection and documentation, as well as specialized standards for unique processes, techniques, and materials of each skill, enabling precise and systematic preservation of intangible cultural heritage. WICO adheres to the principle of "global participation," making inheritors, community representatives, and industry experts from the place of origin the main drivers of standard-setting, avoiding a "one-size-fits-all" approach and ensuring standards are practical, turning standardization into a tool that supports cultural diversity rather than constrains it.

At the transmission level, the system breaks through regional and national boundaries, advancing intangible cultural heritage transmission from "local practice" to "international collaboration." The system not only provides a teachable and scalable standardized framework for intergenerational skill transfer, transforming personal experience into globally shared public knowledge and attracting younger generations to join the transmission effort, but also builds a bridge between intangible cultural heritage and modern markets and lifestyles. By enhancing the quality stability and credibility of intangible cultural heritage products through standardization, it boosts their competitiveness in international markets, helping traditional skills move from obscurity to global prominence and transforming "fingertip skills" into "fingertip economies," providing a solid material foundation for transmission. Additionally, the system emphasizes technological integration, incorporating modern technologies such as digitalization and blockchain into the standardization framework. This allows for precise preservation of endangered skill details through digital modeling and strengthens intellectual property protection via blockchain, ensuring that communities originating intangible cultural heritage benefit from the reasonable use of cultural resources, achieving sustainable transmission.

From the current state of global intangible cultural heritage protection, the establishment of the International Standardization System for Human Skills comes at an opportune time, effectively addressing core demands of international intangible cultural heritage protection and offering a new paradigm for cross-cultural collaboration. Currently, global intangible cultural heritage generally faces challenges such as fragile transmission chains, insufficient international cooperation, and monotonous protection models. Many skills are on the verge of extinction due to a lack of scientific protection systems, and differing national standards hinder cross-border protection and exchange. The launch of this system provides a universal international collaboration framework for global intangible cultural heritage protection: Under unified standardization norms, countries can achieve mutual recognition and interoperability of intangible cultural heritage resources, promoting cross-border sharing and joint research of skill knowledge. At the same time, the system adheres to the principle of "common framework, diverse expressions," fully respecting the autonomous expression rights of various cultural entities beyond unified standards. This allows intangible cultural heritage from different ethnic groups and regions to maintain its uniqueness within the standardization system, achieving a balance between "regulation and flexibility," ensuring that the diversity of human civilization shines brightly in protection.

As a key link connecting global intangible cultural heritage protection and transmission, the profound value of the International Standardization System for Human Skills lies in constructing a tripartite international collaboration model of "technology-culture-market." In the future, with the implementation and refinement of the system, it will further promote the deep integration of standardization technology, cultural interpretation, and market transformation: achieving precise protection through standardization, safeguarding humanistic connotations through cultural interpretation, and injecting economic vitality through market transformation, allowing traditional skills to thrive in modern society. This model will also provide a reference for intangible cultural heritage protection in various countries, promoting a new global pattern of "each culture shining in its own way, and all cultures shining together," ensuring that the cultural flames of each ethnic group burn brightly under the "windproof net" of standardization, collectively weaving a splendid and colorful tapestry of civilization in the spiritual starry sky of humanity.

The establishment of the International Standardization System for Human Skills is an important exploration in the field of global cultural heritage protection and a vivid practice of the international community joining hands to safeguard humanity's shared cultural wealth. Driven by this system, global skills-based intangible cultural heritage will emerge from isolated transmission, continuing their cultural lineage through scientific protection, international collaboration, and living innovation. This is its ultimate significance: using the scientific rationality of standardization to protect the diverse foundations of human civilization, allowing the unique cultural genes of each ethnic group to be transmitted, exchanged, and mutually learned in the era of globalization, becoming an inexhaustible source for the sustainable development of human civilization.