Schwetzingen has officially been on the so called Tentativ List since 1998. In this list, discharged of the German conference of Ministers for Arts and Culture, those monuments are specified, for which application for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List are to be placed in the next years.
The state of Baden-Wuerttemberg with representatives of the State Office of Monument Preservation and the State Office of Property and Construction and the town of Schwetzingen have joint forces for a common project, in order to carry the complex and extensive work for the Schwetzinger UNESCO application. This because for the submitting of the application an extensive documentation had to be compiled after defaults of the UNESCO. On one side the evidence of the extraordinary universal value of the ensemble had to be provided. On the other side a founded and convincing description of the ensemble had to be submitted. Furthermore a so called management plan was necessary, which guarantees the future preservation of palace and palace gardens. It gives detailed information of the locally acting institutions and groups and guarantees preservation, care and determination of the ensemble suggested for inclusion. A package of projects and measures should afford a lasting development for the area suggested for nominating.
At the end of January 2007 several files with a comprehensive documentation were officially submitted to the UNESCO in Paris.
Because of an unfavourable votum of ICOMOS the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and the town of Schwetzingen decided to withdraw the nomination in June 2009.
Since then the files have been revised and the new nomination was officially submitted to the World Heritage Centre of UNESCO in January 2010.
The decision as to whether Schwetzingen will be added to the World Heritage List will no sooner be made than at the meeting of the World Heritage Committee in 2012. In Schwetzingen the work continues up to then and beyond. Part of the conditions of inclusion is the guarantee of concrete measures around preservation and care, which is taken very seriously by the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.