The World Heritage Leadership Programme (WHLP) is facilitating linkages between research and practice in order to support World Heritage site management and policy-making by applying a heritage place approach into a research-practice laboratory, the Heritage Place Lab. The intention of the Heritage Place Lab is to function as an incubator of practice-led research agendas for specific World Heritage properties, but also servicing a larger range of properties facing similar issues, by promoting research projects  whose findings can have positive benefits for site management and promote site management practices that can shape future research. The pilot phase of the Heritage Place Lab consisted of six online workshops held across a period of one year. During these workshops, site managers and researchers worked collaboratively to explore real World Heritage place issues and concerns that can be addressed through practice-driven  research.