ITKI has the following strategic goals:
- Identify, study and inventory traditional knowledge.
- Assure the preservation of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage as living heritage.
- Encourage and advance the spread of traditional knowledge from the local level to the international level.
- Promote integration between traditional knowledge and the scientific system and stimulate the innovative use of traditional knowledge.
- Protect the rights of local communities and native peoples who are the holders of traditional knowledge and indigenous science systems.
- Further the spread and innovative use of traditional knowledge for the management of cultural heritage and the protection of ecosystems.
- Promote the application of traditional knowledge to the restoration and sustainable redevelopment of cultural assets as living heritage through the implementation of pilot projects.
- Introduce the use of traditional practices for the carrying out of works of reclamation and restoration and stimulate a participatory approach to the choice of technological infrastructures.
- Promote codes of procedure that adopt traditional knowledge in the management of parks, protected areas and UNESCO sites.
- Contribute to the protection of local traditions and cultural differences.
To achieve its objectives ITKI shall:
- Manage international research centers and research networks concerning the protection and development of architecture, landscape and material and immaterial cultural heritage.
- Carry out NGO (Non Governmental Organization) activities, with a particular focus on cooperation and development, throughout the world.
- Build and participate in consortiums for the achievement of its strategic goals.
- Carry out coordinated, programmatic initiatives for the protection, conservation and development of cultural and environmental resources.
- Engage in the salvaging and ordinary and extraordinary maintenance of buildings, and in the restoration of the built and natural environment (landscape, agroystems and ecosystems).
- Design systems and methods for managing and developing cultural and environmental heritage.
- Identify and implement innovative programs for the sustainable protection of ecosystems, the preservation of landscapes and the mitigation of the effects of environmental crises (i.e., climate change, desertification, drought).
- Create and manage data banks and data transmission centers.
- Monitor and verify the design, execution and performance of architectural and environmental constructions.