Cultural Heritage Management (CHM) is the main vehicle for helping museums and Cultural Heritage (CH) institutions to face challenges, be resilient to climate change, energy and cost of living crisis, natural hazards and pandemic risks and ultimately to secure sustainable competitiveness. It can support them to manage change wisely, redefining themselves in a constantly changing world. This article contributes to the understanding of how to establish a state-of-the-art management model for museums and CH institutions, which takes into account the latest developments in the field. It aims to (a) bring forward the main issues and principles that need to be taken into account during the drafting procedure of a CHM plan, (b) explore current state-of-affairs of professional practice in the CH sector across Europe, (c) offer clear and concise information on the CH sector needs, challenges and bottlenecks and (d) eventually, provide practical recommendations that need to be taken into account so as to support communication between CH professionals and their various audiences, with a special focus on young people and local communities. This study is part of the research project ‘Redefining the future of cultural heritage, through a disruptive model of sustainability’ (ReInHerit), which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program ( https://www.reinherit.eu/ ).