More than 200,000 forgotten historic buildings in Scotland are at risk of disappearing from the landscape forever.

With Scottish Government-backed research revealing that the majority of Scotland's traditional pre-1919 buildings are in need of urgent repair, Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop is to launch an initiative to save the nation's crumbling architectural heritage at a ministerial summit in Stirling tomorrow.

Hyslop said: "Scotland's built heritage is central to our understanding of who we are and where we come from - and is a hallmark of our creativity, ingenuity and practical prowess, yet few people realise that much of this irreplaceable resource is in serious decline.

"Historic Scotland is to look at the development of a traditional building health check scheme, which will be designed to help owners identify disrepair problems, suggest what needs to be done to tackle them, and how they should go about it."

Hyslop will unveil the Government's plans for the £150,000 pilot – scheduled to begin in 2013 – in a keynote address to an audience of leading architects, surveyors and construction experts at the summit. The scheme will be jointly funded by Historic Scotland and ConstructionSkills Scotland and will focus on so-called "vernacular architecture", targeting farmhouses, cottages, terraced properties, railway stations and tenements built before the first world war.

Frequently unnoticed, the majority of these structures are still lived and worked in, yet research shows that 75% of the country's 450,000 such buildings suffer from disrepair to critical elements, with more than half being in need of urgent repair.

Hyslop will note that the vast majority of the £2 billion invested by Scottish homeowners in their properties each year is largely spent on internal improvements and furnishings rather than repairs to the buildings' fabric, and pinpoint the scarcity of necessary traditional construction skills as a major contributory factor to the decline.

Addressing this issue, the Government believes that the planned National Conservation Centre in Stirling – due to open in 2015 – will help deliver training opportunities and apprenticeships designed to safeguard and expand the reserve of traditional skills required.

Hyslop added: "We simply cannot allow the downward spiral to continue. The strategic steps being taken by Historic Scotland and its partners to tackle this problem through research and co-operation are robust and surefooted responses."

However, critics of the policy have suggested that with planned Historic Scotland funding cuts next year set to see the organisation's spending power reduced by 33% since 2010, the initiative is unlikely to have a significant impact.

One sceptical heritage sector expert said: "Given that a fifth of Scotland's entire housing stock is classified as historic, £150,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to what is required to make a major difference and halt the cycle of decline slowly destroying our architectural heritage. It is difficult to see how such a minor investment could produce any real results."

But Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS), broadly welcomed the move. He said: "Anything that encourages private and public property owners to invest more in preserving these buildings can only be a positive thing.

"We would advocate conducting a detailed survey of the precise condition of these historic properties. Only then, once the scale of problem has been quantified, can we take practical, positive steps towards instituting a programme of repairs, renovations and upgrades."