Thursday’s programme shifted toward cross-border cultural heritage landscapes and the role of advocacy in shaping European border region agendas. The morning began with “Cross border cultural heritage landscapes” by Caitriona Mullan (AEBR), who underlined that genuinely inclusive planning must also consider the “missing minorities”—groups that are absent from formal processes, under-represented in data, or overlooked in dominant narratives. This was followed by “Advocacy for European Border Regions in the Area of Culture” by Martin Guillermo Ramirez (AEBR). Together, the sessions offered a practical European-level perspective on how border regions articulate shared priorities and mobilise networks to influence policy discussions, including those related to cultural cooperation.

As on the first day, a coffee break was paired with a poster session, reinforcing the Winter School’s emphasis on participant contribution and iterative discussion. The late morning session — “Minorities and marginalized groups in borderland governance” by Martin Klatt (South Denmark University) —then placed minority issues at the centre of policy analysis. Discussions highlighted how minority and marginalised communities experience border regimes, public administration, and cultural narratives differently, and why inclusive governance requires both targeted mechanisms and sustained institutional attention.

In the afternoon, “Narratives and policy” by Elzbieta Opilowska (Wroclaw University) provided a valuable bridge between governance structures and meaning-making: how policy narratives are formed, who gets to shape them, and what happens when competing interpretations of heritage and place meet institutional decision-making. The final session of the day “Story Maps: A Tool for Policy?” by Fredriika Jakola (University of Oulu) introduced story mapping as a policy-relevant method, demonstrating how spatialised narratives can support engagement, stakeholder communication, and evidence-building for inclusive cultural heritage planning.