Past projects 
\ Research for Global Challenges

MEMEX: MEMories and EXperiences for inclusive digital storytelling

MEMEX promotes social cohesion through collaborative, heritage-related storytelling tools that provide access to tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage (CH) for communities at risk of exclusion. The project implements new actions for social science to: understand the needs of such communities and co-design interfaces to suit their needs; develop the audience through participation strategies; while increasing the inclusion of communities. The fruition of this will be achieved through ground breaking ICT tools that provide a new paradigm for interaction with CH for all end user. MEMEX will create new assisted Augmented Reality (AR) experiences in the form of stories that intertwine the memories (expressed as videos, images or text) of the participating communities with the physical places / objects that surround them. MEMEX will be deployed and demonstrated on three pilots with unique communities: Barcelona’s Migrant Women, which raises the gender question around their inclusion in CH, giving them a voice to valorise their memories; Paris’s XIX district, one of the largest immigrant settlements of Paris, to digital heritage repositories of over 1 million items to develop co-authored new history and memories connected to the artistic history of the district; and first, second and third generation Portuguese migrants living in Lisbon will provide insights on how technology tools can enrich the lives of the participants.

Project website / EU Cordis database
Researcher: Marcello Pelillo
Duration: 01/12/2019 - 30/11/2022
Funding: Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Cohesion in further developing and innovating SHARE across all 28 member countries

The population ageing issue represents a key challenge in the EU since it affects ageing-related policies such as those for pensions, healthcare and long-term health reforms. The EU-funded SHARE-COHESION project is a research infrastructure that aims to better understand the challenges of the ageing process in the EU Member States. The main purpose of the project is to collect excellent data combining transdisciplinary, longitudinally and strict cross-national comparability that can be used for research. The results will allow a cross-national comparison of the social, health and economic status of EU citizens over 50 years of age and permit a comparative estimation of ageing-related policies that will support development and innovation programmes.

Website
Researcher: Agar Brugiavini
Duration: 01/10/2019 - 30/09/2023

RECEIPT - REmote Climate Effects and their Impact on European sustainability, Policy and Trade

As the world warms and extreme weather becomes unpredictable, a globalised Europe may be exposed to highly unexpected impacts from climate extremes anywhere on the planet. And the economic impact will be devastating. Europe could pay a heavy price for its globalised climate exposure. The EU-funded RECEIPT project will map connections between European socio-economic activities and remote climatic hazards. The aim is to provide quantitative information on the European risks from remote climatic events. The project’s key deliverables include a map of global hotspots of remote areas with climatic features relevant for Europe, and scientific narratives describing the impact on Europe’s food security, financial sector, international development and coastal infrastructure. It will deliver a Europe-wide socio-economic risk assessment showing the differences between high-end and moderate climate change conditions.

Project website / EU Cordis database
Researcher: Antonio Marcomini
Duration: 01/09/2019 - 31/08/2023
Funding: Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Building resilience of society to natural disasters

There has been an explosion of resilience-based methods and tools in the literature and practice to address community resilience, but the development of comprehensive taxonomy and quantification tools to value chains is still lacking. Moreover, understanding the barriers to the adoption of resilience thinking through project life cycle is of crucial importance. Thsi is the aim of teh project "Building resilience of society to natural disasters: improved methodologies and solutions for Italy and USA". The ultimate result is a resilience based approach that quickly and efficiently improves cognitive decision making and trust with institutional players who must address a wide scope of adverse events. Both PIs are part of significant national and international projects, including chairing the 2019 Fifth World Congress on Risk, in Cape Town, and will be able to use their projects to build significant new collaboration of the two countries.

Researcher: Andrea Critto
Duration: 18/04/2019 - 31/12/2022

Cross-sectoral cooperation in culture and creative industry

The Culture and Creative Industry (CCI) sector lacks a transnational and cross-sectoral shared vision on what could be its contribution to economic and social growth in central Europe, along with a cooperation system to foster innovation processes. COCO4CCI project (Culture and Creative Industries Cooperation Collider) will build capacities for cross-sectoral cooperation in advanced manufacturing (AVM), by mapping CCI potentials aimed to create a transnational CCI collider network. A training programme will accompany facilitators in technology development, future trends setting and a mind-set definition in advanced manufacturing.

Website
Researcher: Giovanni Vaia
Duration: 01/04/2019 - 31/03/2022

Time Machine: Big data of the past for the future of Europe

The project Time Machine will give Europe the technology to strengthen its identity against globalisation, populism and increased social exclusion, by turning its history and cultural heritage into a living resource for co-creating its future. The FET Flagship will develop a large-scale digitisation and computing infrastructure mapping millennia of European historical and geographical evolution, transforming kilometres of archives, large collections from museums and libraries, and geo-historical datasets into a distributed digital information system. To succeed, a series of fundamental breakthroughs are targeted in Artificial Intelligence and ICT, making Europe the leader in the extraction and analysis of Big Data of the Past.
Time Machine will bring a new era of open access to sources, where past and on-going research are open science. A dissemination programme aims to further strengthen the rapidly growing ecosystem, currently counting 95 research institutions, most prestigious European cultural heritage associations, large enterprises and innovative SMEs, influential business and civil society associations, and international and national institutional bodies.

Project website / EU Cordis database
Researcher: Dorit Raines
Duration: 01/03/2019 - 29/02/2020
Funding: Horizon 2020 Excellent Science: Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)

Nano-region: innovation through nanotechnologies

Nano-Region ("Una rete aperta per l'innovazione attraverso le nanotecnologie") aims at developing a network of research centres and parks with a nano-technological vocation focused on promoting technology transfer. The network, aimed at businesses, will offer access to enabling technologies and contribute to creating a new culture of innovation, through a programme of targeted open events, a consultancy service, and feasibility studies, responding to the needs expressed by individual businesses and stimulating the creation of new products, markets and businesses.

Website
Researcher: Alvise Benedetti
Duration: 01/02/2019 - 31/03/2022

MEDREGION - Marine strategy framework

MEDREGION - Support Mediterranean member states towards implementation of the marine strategy framework directive new GES decision and programmes of measures and contribute to regional/subregional cooperation

The project aims to provide the necessary support to the CIS for the coordinated implementation of the New GES Decision and to provide a useful platform for the necessary Regional and Sub-regional cooperation, in order to support the further development of the Programmes of Measures. It is precisely under this strategic perspective that the involvement of the UNEP/MAP system (UNEP/MAP member of the Advisory Board, INFO/RAC, RAC/SPA, PLAN BLUE partners) plays an essential role, taking into account the regional and cross-border aspects that involve both the EU context and the third Countries.

Website
Researcher: Antonio Marcomini
Duration: 01/02/2019 - 31/01/2021

NETCHER: Stopping illicit trade and protection of endangered cultural heritage

The last decades have witnessed a variety of initiatives promoted by a diverse set of actors engaged in the protection of endangered cultural heritage and in stopping illicit trade, initiatives that have tried to bring solutions, remediation, methods and approaches to tackle looting and trafficking. NETCHER (NETwork and digital platform for Cultural Heritage Enhancing and Rebuilding) seeks to address the complex challenge of harmonising and bringing together these worthy, but often disconnected initiatives by using a participative approach that will result in the establishment of a structured network (defined as a Social Platform) drawing together a broad range of players such as international bodies, umbrella organizations, national governments, researchers, public policy makers, NGOs, as well as public and private foundations. The Platform will take charge of the systematizing and framing of all the emerging best practices in order to enhance and capitalize on the experiences of the partnership members at an international level for building a joint action plan with shared toolkits and a research and innovation roadmap.

Project website / EU Cordis database
Researchers: Cristina Tonghini, Arianna Traviglia
Duration: 01/01/2019 - 31/12/2020
Fundinig: Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges: Europe In A Changing World