Projets

REFUGE – Religious Enclosures in Fortified Urban and Rural Geographies of the Eastern Mediterranean aims to provide a new interpretation of Late Antique fortified churches. The project will explore whether these structures can be seen as safe spaces and gathering loci for communities, as well as centres for a culture under threat. With the support of the Host Institution, the University of Cyprus, and the Secondment Institution, the CNRS – UMR 8167 “Orient et Méditerranée”, alongside a long-standing partnership with the École française d’Athènes, the Principal Investigator will assess and define the roles of fortified churches in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the 7th to 9th centuries. A key case study for REFUGE is the Amathus Acropolis Basilica (AAB). The project will reassess and analyse the results of its unpublished excavations, examining the surrounding agricultural and rural landscape through new Historical Landscape Characterization (HLC) analyses and archaeological surveys in an adjacent unurbanised area. This will help collect data to map the site’s social history. REFUGE is one of the first projects to apply HLC in Cyprus. By reconstructing the social history of the AAB community, the project aims to trace its economic networks and understand its role within broader regional dynamics across the Mediterranean and the Levant. It will also investigate interactions and mutual contributions among various cultures and groups, including the analysis of specific samples of amphorae and tableware from the site, materials that remain largely unexplored. REFUGE employs an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach, combining archival research, architectural analysis, excavation data, material culture studies, and topographical reconstruction. The findings from this project will contribute to scholarly publications and be made accessible to the public through free multimedia resources, featuring multilingual voice narration to ensure broad accessibility.

ASTERES aims to understand how astronomical knowledge developed in Alexandria from the works of Claudius Ptolemy has been transmitted during the 6th and 7th centuries in Europe and the Mediterranean World. Through an investigation of documents that had never been edited, the project considers the role of Greek as well as Syriac and Latin-speaking scholars in the circulation and reception of Greek scientific knowledge before the flourishing of sciences in Baghdad and the so-called Carolingian Renaissance. The traditional narrative considers Arab-speaking scholars, after the foundation of the Abbasid califate, to be the first heirs to the Alexandrian scholarship, coming up with Greek science only thanks to the mediation of Syriac translations. It is also widely believed that Latin-speaking intellectual circles in Western Europe would not have been familiar with Greek science before the Latin translations of Arabic texts produced from the 11th century onwards. The 6th and 7th centuries in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, have thus been traditionally described as “Dark Ages”. The aim of ASTERES is to write a new history of the forms and paths of transmission and study of the Alexandrian sciences, specifically astronomy, in the Early Middle Ages. It will investigate three sets of documents, including numerical tables, produced during this period. Two astronomical and chronological letters with tables of the Syriac scholar Severus Sebokht will be edited for the first time. Their study will help to understand to which extent Syriac scholars received Greek knowledge to create an original scientific production. The edition of the Latin tables of the Preceptum canonis Ptolomei aims at understanding how astronomical tables were transmitted and received in Western Europe before the 11th century. The study of the astronomical tables produced by the Byzantine scholar Stephanos will show how astronomers in Constantinople cultivated their Alexandrian scientific heritage.

The overarching goal of the project ASHIPUM is to understand how ancient Mesopotamian healers acted within their spatial, geographical and social contexts. To do this, I will conduct a practice-oriented study - still lacking in Assyriological scholarship - of the archives of the exorcists-healers from Late-Babylonian Uruk (end 5th century-beginning 2nd century BCE), integrating textual and archaeological data. This case study has not been comprehensively analysed from a medico-historical viewpoint. By focusing on its promising features, I will be able to overcome three problems related to the study of Mesopotamian medicine. ASHIPUM’s objectives are: 1) to determine what the exorcists-healers of Late-Babylonian Uruk knew, on the basis of their archives; 2) to integrate textual information with archaeological and material data relevant for a medico-historical study; 3) to reconstruct the daily practices and the know-how implied by healing-related activities in Uruk. As designed, the project will be best implemented at Paris 1 University Panthéon-Sorbonne under the supervision of Philippe Clancier in the light of his expertise in the archives of the exorcists-healers and their historical, material contextualisation. I will benefit from my integration into his team ArScAn-HAROC, specialized in material culture, and the trainings offered by my host institution in archaeology, anthropology, French language, digital skills, project management and career development. In turn, I will share my experience on Mesopotamian medicine and give impulse to this subject at ArScAn by networking with specialists across the region of Paris and beyond. The action includes dissemination activities through presentations, journal articles, a conference (with related proceedings) and online content for ArScAn’s projects. Communication will be ensured by online presence, participation at outreach events in the Parisian region, a citizen science program and a poster exhibition.

During Antiquity, Sicily was a part of Magna Graecia and was still a hub of Greek civilisation under the Byzantine Empire. After being taken over by the Arabs (9th c.) and then by the Normans (11th c.), Greek culture continued to thrive. However, by 1200, Sicily had undergone a near-complete Latinisation. What caused this cultural shift to occur? Despite the significant impact of the Norman Conquest and immigration from the Continent, the waning of Greek society was primarily caused by the establishment of the Latin Church. While most narrative sources overlook this major transition, the best evidence can be found in documentary sources. Although Latin charters, which primarily focus on the royal government, have been studied, it is important to also explore Greek charters, the richest source of the day-to-day processes that transformed Sicilian society. The diocesan archive of Patti (prov. of Messina) provides valuable insights into this historical transformation. In the late 11th and 12th centuries, Patti lay on the cultural frontier between the predominantly Greek northeast of Sicily and the heavily Arabised west and centre. Despite Islamic rule, a few Greek monasteries managed to survive. When the Normans took over, the Greek Church experienced a resurgence and Greek was the mostly used administrative language. However, when Sicily passed to Henry VI in 1194 and Latin became the sole language of administration, Greek culture was already in decline. WaninGreek studies the Latin Church’s role in the transition of Greek communities. I plan to produce a reference edition of the Greek charters of Patti and to use the Latin archives to produce a historical monograph. My goal is to make these sources accessible to future scholars and to provide an enlarged and detailed account of the process. Starting from a local level, I will demonstrate how cultural changes occurred during the Middle Ages and how this approach can enrich the history of the entire Mediterranean area.

Grinding technology (i.e. querns and handstones) is an integral part of the material culture of prehistoric societies, involved in numerous human productive activities, incorporating socioeconomic and cultural significance. For decades the study of grinding systems in the context of Greek prehistory remained limited with only a few exceptions. The GrindTrace project aspires to change the research landscape and enhance our knowledge regarding this understudied field, at the same time shedding light on the yet-little-known transitional period from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. What first appeared to be a gap of about 500-700 years in the evolution of prehistoric societies in Greece, from the end of the 5th to the late 4th millennium BC, is now seen as the result of a combination of low visibility and insufficient research. The assemblage to be analyzed includes over 500 specimens originating from six sites in northern and central Greece. The following lines of investigation will be pursued: a) technological and functional study of the selected artifacts; b) experimental investigation of parameters influencing the grinding systems; c) petrographic characterization of the tools' raw materials; and d) combined analysis of contextual, spatial and temporal information. The proposed multidisciplinary approach integrates elements of archaeology, geology, GIS and tribology, and aspires to use the micro-scale to talk about the macro-scale (human behavior patterns, settlement organization, temporality of habitation). In this framework, I will have the chance to explore various analytical techniques, some of which are particularly underdeveloped. This will help me establish a novel methodological approach, which, besides boosting my potential to lead cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in the future, will contribute to the internationally growing functional studies, enhancing at the same time similar research prospects in the field of Greek prehistory.

NanosamplinK is an innovative research project that aims at developing a minimally-invasive sampling protocol for historical manuscripts and documentary materials. It involve the use of several formulations of hydrogels and organogels which will serve as a conduit for solubilizing and absorbing the superficial layers of colored applications, preserving the integrity of the materials being analyzed. The gels will be tested on modern ink and paint reproductions, as well as on real case studies. The project focuses on striking a balance between minimizing invasive color changes on the artworks, selecting the best-performing gels for extracting specific compounds (water-soluble and non-water-soluble), and surpassing the detection limit of the intended high resolution molecular techniques. Rooted in conservation-restoration, material science, and art history, NanosamplinK benefits from expertise in heritage science, mentorship from leading experts in conservation, molecular analysis, chemistry, and nanotechnology. It is a highly interdisciplinary and international project, with a Green character, and significant implications in terms of broadening the commercial viability of these gels.

This SE aims at addressing a number of challenging mathematical problems related to stochastic interacting systems, with particular emphasis on the regularity properties of the solutions, their limiting behaviour and numerical computation. The equations we analyse arise from the modelisation of real-world phenomena in several fields of application, including spiking neural systems, hydrodynamics and financial/energy markets, and share nonlinearity as a common underlying trait. Critically, nonlinearity intertwines with other relevant features that include: low regularity of the coefficients, noise degeneracy, jump-diffusion dynamics, and high-dimensionality. The study of stochastic interacting systems is highly multidisciplinary from a two-fold perspective. On one hand, they have become a widespread modelling tool in a variety of applications. For example, they are used to model human neuron interfaces, particle systems, but also interacting agents in economics and finance, in relation to managing risk and decentralised production of renewable energy. On the other hand, the set of mathematical and computational tools needed to reach a holistic understanding of stochastic systems is very vast: ranging from stochastic (partial) differential equations, random measures, rough paths, gradient flows in metric measure spaces, numerical probability and computer simulation. We provide a team of experts that analyse stochastic systems integrating several approaches and techniques. The complementary expertise across the network, together with the consolidated experience and excellence of the key participants in their research areas, places our network in the privileged position to make relevant contributions across interconnected research fields, and to contribute to the training of the early career researchers involved in the project in an exciting field of pure and applied mathematics, with the possibility of boosting their careers in both academic and non-academic sectors.

Examining the hundreds of cities which formed the basis of the Roman Empire (70 BC-AD 284), PECUNIA interrogates the material and pecuniary interests made available to local elites by their political activity. It investigates how positions in local institutions were structurally associated with private opportunities and how this phenomenon was conceived and regulated at both levels of the imperial system, i.e. the Roman centre and the cities. In the civic milieu, the flow of gifts and mandatory contributions of the well-off to their communities has been extensively explored by scholarship, while the fields of re-sources made available to them by the government of the cities have remained unaddressed. This mainly results from the focus on contributions of members of the political elites which is found in the inscriptions, engraved under the direction of the governing bodies of the cities, in praise of their actions. Based on the observation that sources also account for legal and illegal gains, PECUNIA instead aims at producing a comprehensive analysis of private interest in public affairs, by (1) using an empire-wide inquiry, whereas in institutional and social studies the civic world has so far only been approached regionally, (2) harnessing heterogeneous data from classical sources and also from less sought corpora, (3) using investigative concepts and data modelling stemming from political science and sociological studies of the elites, to elaborate new interpretative paths about the production of stability in local governance in the Roman Empire. By gaining substantial and systematic evidence and devising new questions capable of navigating it, PECUNIA thus illuminates the expectations regarding participation in public life by the various sub-groups in the elites and it frames a new paradigm of local power, considering all stakeholders and their attitudes to the realities of private interests in local functions, from the local people to the Roman administration.

This research project will study the career prospects (geographical and institutional mobility, communication networks, length of tenures) of state functionaries in Byzantium between the 7th and the 9th c., and their social and cultural identity through their self-representation, their professional choices, piety, and ethnic origin. Next to the admittedly limited narrative and archival sources, this project will rely as its main source on Byzantine lead seals, a source material that only few scholars in the field of Byzantine Studies have the ability to analyse. One of the primary objectives of the project is to move beyond traditional approaches in the study of Byzantine lead seals. This will be accomplished, first, by demonstrating the potential of this material for the study of a past medieval society and particularly for the fields of social and cultural history. Second, by the introduction of tools from the Digital Humanities, such as SigiDoc that has been developed through another past MCSA project by a scholar of my host institution. There will be a thorough research for relevant material which will be recorded in a standard database that will serve as basis for the further process of the material in order to answer our research questions and to complete all the products of the project. The main products of this study will consist of: 1) an online database on the career of officials; 2) an article on the career and communication networks of officials; 3) online publication of a corpus of unpublished lead seals; 4) a list of decorative and iconographic motifs on lead seals; 5) a monograph with the final overall research results. Several targeted training and research activities (the application of digital tools in Byzantine sigillography, research in Bulgarian archaeological archives, seminars, and courses) have been already planned, aiming at the successful completion of the project and the enhancement of the prospects of my future career.

ChrIs-cross will produce the first comprehensive study of Christianities in Jerusalem and the Middle East from the 12th to the 16th c., in the face of shifting rulership structures, first Frankish, then Islamic, and religious affiliations. It will envisage them from a bottom-up, practice oriented and connected perspective, on the assumption that inter-Christian and Christian-Muslim relations were more conductive to fluidity than to boundary-setting. A multidisciplinary and multilingual team will study a forgotten and so far, inaccessible archive—the archives of the Christian Patriarchates in Jerusalem—and develop an overarching database including interactive maps and editing texts. Open-access metadata will be in English and Arabic. In so doing, it will resituate the history of Christianities within the Islamicate world by reassessing the concept of “minority”, historicise communities’ construction by comparing conquest-induced reconfigurations, with and without a change in religious dominance, and spatialise these processes by examining their interplay, with Jerusalem as a specific urban space in tension with the wider regional area. The project has three main objectives: it aims to address the currently compartmentalised academic study of the diverse Frankish- and Islamic-ruled societies, by shifting the focus of inquiry from the internal history of separate groups to their areas of contact; to empower local Christian communities by documenting their deep-rootedness in these complex societies, and to contribute new knowledge of the diversity of the Islamic-ruled world as a historical reality by expanding digital inclusiveness. By achieving its various objectives, ChrIs-cross will realize what arguably is an unprecedented exploration. It will thus have a major scholarly and social impact, both for the many Christian communities now facing extinction, and for people in the so-called West, which faces an inflation in essentialist discourses on religion.

The “SIGN-IT – Signacula in Roman and Post-Roman Italy: marking religious and cultural identity (2nd-11th c. CE)” project aims at studying the cultural history of the Italian peninsula from the Roman Imperial period to the central Middle Ages, by means of the objects known as signacula, i.e. matrices bearing text, signs, and/or iconographic motives, designed to stamp various materials. Linguistic choice is one of the main markers of identity : thus, the project focuses on materials found or originally coming from a sample of Italian regions featuring both Latin and Greek speaking communities: Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Campania, Apulia, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia. The historical value of this body of evidence has been hitherto largely neglected due to its difficult dating. To overcome this issue, I will study for the first time the corpus as a whole, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The project’s objectives are three-fold: firstly, to establish a clear dating protocol for the signacula to unlock their full potential as historical sources; secondly, building on the newly-dated material, to study the evolving linguistic patterns, and their contribution to the making of specific local identities, between Antiquity and the Middle Ages; thirdly, to track over the “longue durée” changes in marking practices and to analyse them as proxies for cultural transformations. To achieve these goals, I will build up an open-access database gathering published and unpublished signacula pertaining to the chronological and geographical framework under scrutiny. The database’s structure will allow both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the material, and will facilitate comparisons with other types of stamped writing and of inscribed objects (e.g., seals), by adopting and building upon the technical features and norms of the Text Encoding Initiative standard (TEI, https://tei-c.org/), developed for the digital edition of ancient inscriptions (EpiDoc) and seals (SigiDoc).

The project challenges the notion of a dramatic break in institutional practice following the Greek conquest of the eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period (332–30 BCE) by reconstructing the genealogy of the Ptolemaic fiscal system in Egypt, the best documented Hellenistic state. Building on my previous research on Ptolemaic taxation, I will establish the extent to which these kings developed earlier fiscal practices, especially those in evidence under the Achaemenid rulers preceding them, both inherited and new. The main objective encompasses 3 work packages: the documentation produced by the respective regimes, the rationale of their fiscal systems, and the collectors and beneficiaries of the taxes. To this end, I will combine for the first time documentation written in Greek, Demotic, and Aramaic, and approaches divided over ancient history, Egyptology, and Semitic studies, resulting in the long-lasting collaborations required for exploring interconnections across the Mediterranean. A major aspect of the project is the creation of a pioneering database of Persian Egyptian fiscal texts. Training will focus on acquiring a working knowledge of Aramaic and the open science skills required for the highly collaborative research. The project will be hosted at the CNRS joint research unit ArScAn in Nanterre and supervised by Dr. Agut-Labordère, specialist of Achaemenid Egypt and director of Achemenet, the major platform for dissemination in Achaemenid studies. The Achaemenid expertise centered in Paris is the perfect complement to my background in Greek and Demotic papyrology. Learning Aramaic will moreover provide me with a uniquely broad perspective on later Egyptian history, leading to more groundbreaking research in the future. Communication measures will focus on the long history of fiscal systems and their impact on society, inviting greater reflection on our own democratic societies, a key EU priority, and will include stakeholders in contemporary Egypt.

MUCH delves into the crucial and still vastly understudied interplay between mathematics and philosophy in the 14th c., shedding light on pre-modern questions that resonate with ongoing concerns on mathematical knowledge, abstraction, and reality. What is the link between calculation and the conception of a quantified item? How do we think of a quantifiable unknown in equations? The case of 14th-c. Italy is key to grasp the emergence of such problems, their development and cascade-effect on European mathematics of the following centuries. MUCH unravels the feedback loop between philosophical notions and processes involved in mathematical practices, prominently algebra: quantum, inquantum, and variable in equations. Rooted in pre-modern notions of extension, quantum represents an existing quantified substance, while the variable (i.e., unknown value) stands as a neither continuous nor discrete thing that can be quantified. Inquantum is the specific epistemic process connecting quantum and the variable: a layered abstraction that allows mathematical properties to be distilled from non-mathematical ones. For the first time, MUCH implements a careful study, connecting pre-modern texts and actors from different institutional and professional settings (universities, religious and merchant schools). By intertwining historical contexts, MUCH disentangles how quantum’s and inquantum’s philosophical underpinnings paved the way for Ch’s mathematical application, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the pre-modern scientific thought. MUCH’s leading-edge hypothesis has the broader academic goal of bridging the research fields of history of mathematics and philosophy, deepening our comprehension of historical mathematical development but also emphasizing the inseparable relationship between philosophical inquiry and scientific progress.

SOILSCAPE harnesses the power of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs), artists, and civil society organisations (CSOs) to promote soil preservation across Europe and beyond. Working with experts from the worlds of soil sciences, arts, decision-making, and humanities, this project coordinated by AFES seeks to cultivate soil literacy and celebrate soils through creative approaches, engaging citizens & professionals on this journey. SOILSCAPE's objectives include understanding human-soil relations, building a network of more than 120 relevant actors in 8 countries, onboarding at least 320 individuals from the society, providing 1,850,000 € as financial and technical support to CSOs, CCIs, schools, artists, and institutions, distributing 375,000 € as awards and 80 soil literacy certifications to inspiring initiatives, and reaching international scales through UNESCO and Coalition of Action for 4 Soil Health. To achieve these objectives, SOILSCAPE uses a multilingual and multi-actor approach, focusing on cultivating artistic soil intelligence, promoting context-based soil literacy, enhancing awareness through innovative communication strategies and a soil literacy portal, organising 2 editions of national soil festivals across Europe, and extending its actions to 30 regions by 2028. The project unfolds through 4 key stages: (1) Contemplation: Consulting stakeholders to understand individual perception on soils, arts, and links with societal values; Investigating soil narratives and the potential of arts and arts-based methodologies to engage in soils; (2) Preparation: Developing people-centric transformative strategies, including an artistic and creative international soil network; (3) Action: Conducting and monitoring the SOILSCAPE creative activities, including the support to 28 arts-soils initiatives led by third parties; (4) Sustainability: Validating and replicating the SOILSCAPE initiatives at large scale.

CONVIVIUM is an interdisciplinary and intersectorial coalition of public and private European partners working together to bring a cultural dimension to the European Green Deal through the leveraging of the material, semiotic, and symbolic power of food. The consortium sees food cultures as a “living heritage” that reflects changes in society and contributes to local well-being with wide-reaching impacts. CONVIVIUM mobilizes numerous creative and transformative forces in the fields that inform the New European Bauhaus to ensure sustainability and positive societal transformation through the medium of food heritage. It offers attractive and sustainable cultural-based solutions which will bring about a range of cultural and economic applications available to different target groups. They include architecture-and-design-based prototypes that will support farmers and agricultural cooperatives to work in symbiosis with the environment, with tradition, and with state-of-the art advances; cultural events and interventions that bring food, the arts, and the humanities together to positively change the mindsets of food producers and consumers; new organizational models that champions inter-cultural, generational, and intersectional visions through the medium of food across local populations; and digital tools to reinforce the presence of food heritage in institutions such as museums and historical sites. CONVIVIUM will achieve this commitment supported by solid managerial, scientific, collaborative, and technical structures, which are in constant dialogue to ensure that the unlocking of food heritage translates into solutions grounded in the needs and opportunities of local communities, in state-of-the-art social science and humanities approaches and methods, and in synergies between traditional crafts and cutting-edge technological developments.

WomAtWork represents the first comparative investigation into the history of female urban popular professions in three African countries – Ghana/Gold Coast, Sudan, and Tanganyika/Tanzania – over the course of fifty years (1919-1970). Not only is this topic under-studied in African history, but these professions (i.e. midwives, beauticians, wedding singers, market vendors, craftswomen) are also characterised by fascinating and unsettling aspects. For example, notions such as a set price for a service and fixed working times or workplace did not apply to many of them. WomAtWork aims first to discover the peculiarities of these labour patterns and see their historical transformations as a result of political changes and the introduction of new technologies and commodities. Secondly, it examines professional subjectivities, the work ethos, norms and values of women at work. Finally, it questions the relationship between these professionals and their communities – including in the light of the social stigma sometimes attached to them – as well as the nexus between these labourers and protest, charting when and why they laid down their tools. Based on an innovative methodology, this project seeks to overcome the invisibility of women in official archives by weaving together different threads of sources. It begins inside those photographic archives connected with institutions that had conscious agendas of representation and routines of intense textual production (for example, missionary stations). In some cases, these visual and textual sources lead to networks or families of women professionals, whose oral history will be solicited. Third, the project aims to analyse the vernacular press combined with oral accounts. Through these objectives and methodologies, WomAtWork will be a participant in the mission of writing a more democratic, more inclusive history, one that firmly establish the centrality of women’s labour in African his

Tracks4Crafts examines and transforms the transmission of traditional crafts knowledge (TCK) to enhance the societal and economic valuation of crafts and align them with a future-oriented heritage approach in Europe. As intangible cultural heritage (ICH), crafts and TCK can be seen as resources for competitiveness, innovation, and sustainable development and quality of life, contributing to SDG 4, 8 and 11. Yet the tools, formats and instruments needed to foster the transmission and employment of TCK are lagging behind, which hampers the full development of its potential. Our objectives are to enhance and transform the transmission of TCK for a more effective economic as well as societal valuation of crafts. This is achieved in 4 Tracks, in which we (1) transform learning processes in physical spaces in which crafts people collaborate (in hi-tech environments, including fablabs and maker spaces etc.), (2) develop new digital technologies that enhance and transform transmission of TCK, (3) produce tools and instruments which enable capturing and optimising the value of the produced TCK (business modelling, certification and property protection), and (4) create networks to foster and disseminate the societal and economic value of TCK (e.g. through the CHARTER-alliance). The output is based on experiments in 8 craft ecosystems in which we develop and test formats for learning and tools for certification and validation in which (1) the economic and cultural barriers related to traditional TCK-transmission are addressed (i.a. the lengthy nature of learning, the fear of the craft getting lost…) and (2) the full potential of technology is tapped (i.a. for turning embodied TCK in open-source knowledge). To ensure that the solutions bridge the heritage perspective and the economic and societal needs and that our solutions are shared and transferable, our approach is deeply interdisciplinary and based on processes of multi-stakeholder co-creation (including action research).

SculpSi aims at reconstructing the lives and the works of Greek and Roman sculptors between the Hellenistic period and the reign of Hadrian (323 BCE-138 CE) in the areas corresponding to Roman Italy and the provinces of Achaia and Asia. SculpSi focusses on sculptors’ signatures, taking them as a source of information and a starting point for reconstructing their professional careers: signatures open up many research paths that have yet remained unexploited: their wording, their position on statues or bases, palaeographic dating, language and dialect, etc. They can also help us to reconstruct the work of individual sculptors, attribute them specific artworks and track their mobilities in the Mediterranean. SculpSi will be the first systematic study on sculptors’ signatures between 323 CE and 138 CE: the analysis will be carried out on a corpus of ca. 550 signatures, and will be based on bibliographic data and, whenever relevant, autoptic study; such data will be used to feed Polycles, a prosopographic database already created by the LIMC team at my host institution, but still awaiting launching. The project breaks down disciplinary barriers by combining art history, epigraphy, archaeology, and digital humanities and posing theoretical questions (e.g. role of the artist within society, the idea of authorship) which go well beyond Classical studies. The database -only one of the research products of Sculpsi- will constitute a perennial gate for scholars and students of several disciplines, giving access to data scattered in different parts of Europe and beyond and to the first English and French translations of many inscriptions. Besides being trained in digital humanities, the researcher will develop a unique expertise in Epigraphy and ancient Art History, filling a gap between disciplines which rarely communicate. Collaborations with international museums and academic institutions will open up several opportunities for the researcher, both in France and abroad.

This project combines approaches from anthropology and film studies to investigate how the systematic use of audiovisual equipment and techniques has contributed to the creation and consolidation of the position of ‘the filmmaker’ in Brazilian indigenous communities. Designed in collaboration with indigenous filmmakers, it will study three communities from different parts of Brazil, each with different histories and traditions of filmmaking - the Kuikuro, the Maxakali, and the Guajajara. In undertaking these studies, BFIC proposes an expanded and comparative analysis of the filmmaker's consolidation as a new social-political position that holds great prestige alongside traditional roles like the community leader, the health agent, the shaman, and the teacher. Around 90% of Brazilian indigenous communities now have their own filmmaker. They are responsible for transmitting technical audiovisual knowledge to younger generations; for cultural registration; and for disseminating information to mainstream media. However, it is also undeniable that indigenous production has gone beyond the limits of ‘ethnographic film’ and occupies a place in wider cinematographic culture. The filmmaker is therefore central to the exchange of symbolic production, and their work contributes to subverting and decolonising commonly held visual notions of what it is to be indigenous. The open access journal articles and collaborative short film produced by this project will explore the consolidation of the position of ‘filmmaker’ in detail for the first time. Alongside a range of dissemination activities targeted at academics and an interested general public, it will also hold audiovisual workshops in indigenous villages to directly strengthen ties between the Kuikuro, Maxakali and Guajajara communities. In doing so, BFIC will help to reinforce the struggle of indigenous peoples for the right to land, life and the preservation of the environment.

Genealogies of Human Capital (GenHumCap) explores the rise of human capital theories between the collapse of the labor theory of value and the World Bank’s recent Human Capital Plan. Specifically, it charts how human life, although formally absent from market exchange, was rendered tractable to neoclassical practices of valuation and calculated investment; then how diverse experts used these methods to reconfigure healthcare, development aid, and population control programs in the name of maximized future wellbeing. Using methods from sociology, the history of science, and the digital humanities, the project will gather new data from archives, expert interviews, and new text-mining techniques, analyzing the results in light of contemporary French sociological studies of the social sciences. It will do so in close dialogue with leading sociologists at the CESSP in Paris, under the supervision of Professor Gisèle Sapiro. To disseminate its findings, the project will result in a conference, two academic articles, and a book manuscript; and in public-facing summaries in newspapers and EU-sponsored dissemination projects. Through innovative, interdisciplinary methods, GenHuC will provide the first substantial investigation into human capital, advancing multiple fields by reframing a series of sociological debates on 'neoliberalism,' 'biopolitics,' and 'biocapital,' and creating new connections between the history of science, sociology, and economics. In the process it will cement the base for a competitive research career in European academia.

The dual climate change and biodiversity crises put an urgency for implementing inclusive, just, and effective policies, while their inextricable nature calls for integrated assessment approaches that capture synergies and trade-offs. Mainstream economic methods currently used in the appraisal of environmental policies fail to capture the complexity of the climate-biodiversity-economy nexus. Even though uncertainty, disruption, and irreversibility are inherent to environmental challenges, these are overlooked when designing and evaluating the performance of policies. Policy effectiveness and resilience against other impact areas, such as quality of life, financial stability, political feasibility, innovation is not included in policy appraisal. Rather, policy evaluation is informed by a narrow set of metrics, falling short of encompassing broader considerations of sustainability and wellbeing. DECIPHER employs a systems and multi-disciplinary approach using a diverse set of models, methods, and processes to significantly improve decision-making on climate change and biodiversity and enhance policy resilience and feasibility. Moving beyond state-of-the-art, we will establish a holistic and operational decision-making framework that integrates advanced economic and biophysical models, empirical methods and stakeholder participation tools. The novel framework incorporates environmental damages in the economic decisions of agents and introduces a risk-opportunity approach for decision making. To offer critical insights on system dynamics and risks, the models developed will be equipped with innovative features including improved representations of agent behavior, technology innovation, financial risk valuation and the capacity to assess extreme events and critical tipping points. The new decision-making framework will be the end-result of an iterative co-creation process with stakeholders and applied under real-world conditions in the assessment of flagship EU policies.

The Cultural Heritage (CH) Research and Innovation (R&I) landscape has changed significantly over the past few years. New political, technological and socio-economic parameters put emphasis on improving protection, conservation and restoration efficiency of European CH with green technologies, as well as developing and further exploiting high quality digitisation, open access and curation of digital assets. The need also exists to enhance the innovation potential and competitive edge of the Cultural and Creative Sector (CCS) to drive sustainable growth and job creation against global competition. Responding to these challenges, the project will develop a pan European framework for a holistic approach to CH R&I, by creating the Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe (ARCHE), a spearheading coordination network of researchers, innovators, heritage professionals, institutional bodies and citizens. The objective is to engage all CH actors in member States / Associated Countries in the co-design of R&I strategies and roadmaps that lead to R&I initiatives requiring multidisciplinary approaches and skills A detailed assessment of R&I gaps and needs for the next decade will be the basis for designing a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for joint programming aiming to increase awareness of heritage and European sense of belonging. A new purpose-built governance structure will be proposed that will effectively involve existing networks and new partners from relevant scientific disciplines and industries. It will also promote intensive and wide-ranging collaboration between cultural heritage, the arts, and the CCS. The SRIA and governance structure will be tested in a pilot operation in the third and final year. ARCHE will be a strong basis for a European Partnership in CH, by pooling, developing and upscaling transnational collaboration on CH R&I and by involving all stakeholders and funding mechanisms related to CH R&I policy and action.

Anti-gender politics pose a grave threat to modern democratic formations because they challenge people's everyday survival, bodily integrity, and self-determination. Anti-gender spans the political spectrum and manifests not only in illiberal and authoritarian regimes but also in democracies that are considered liberal and inclusive. Taking a transnational and intersectional approach, RESIST analyses anti-gender formations in their complexity and contradictions and explores the effects of anti-gender politics on the everyday lives of those vulnerable to it and on democracies on the whole. RESIST engages with heterogeneous manifestations of anti-gender across the EU, Europe, and beyond through eight national case studies (Belarus, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Switzerland) and a transnational case study of people living in exile as a result of anti-gender persecution. RESIST pursues a mixed methods approach to analyse the production and circulation of gender-equality repressive strategies and discourses and their effects on lived experiences and resistances. RESIST innovates methodologically to engender democracy by fostering collaboration between academia and civil society organisations (CSOs), especially amongst people who come to be targets of anti-gender, including women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI+) persons. If those social groups whose fundamental rights are most at risk of violation by anti-gender are empowered to resist, then entire democratic societies benefit. RESIST centres feminist agency and collaborative knowledge production in (a) the research contents and results, (b) the methodological design, and (c) the social impact by generating new responsive feminist theories and practical solutions. At a time of increasing political disillusionment, RESIST creates hopeful, imaginative futures, transformative theories, and more inclusive worlds.

Heritage conservation preserves the tangible remains of society, but relies on toxic, unsustainable materials and on energy-consuming air conditioning of collections. GoGreen promotes preventive and remedial conservation practices based on green principles to spearhead the green revolution within conservation. Specifically, GoGreen will: (1) develop new damage functions that allow more flexible environmental control in collections, thus improving energy efficiency; (2) generate innovative nature-inspired, bio-based and historical conservation treatment-inspired methods for remedial conservation, including new cleaning solutions for paintings and metals, all using green solvents, bio-inspired reagents, green delivery systems; and stabilization methods for metal and glass that employ innovative techniques like biopassivation to stabilize metal surfaces and nanomaterials that mimic the growth of silica to stabilize glass; (3) assess our new materials and methods using cutting-edge analytical techniques and benchmark methods in collaboration with expert practitioners and museums, to determine their efficacy in the cleaning of paintings and metals, or the stabilisation of glass and metal objects; (4) develop a digital web-app to aid conservators in the design of green preventive and remedial conservation treatments, and a decision model integrating green thinking in complex conservation decision making. Crucially, GoGreen encompasses all relevant and necessary academic and socio-economic actors spanning the full stakeholder value chain to ensure future impact. Our uniquely advantageous composition coupled with the embedding of bottom-up education of professionals through modules and courses for conservation training programmes, emerging conservators and mid-career professionals, guarantees the next generation of conservators are fully prepared to embrace the GreenDeal.

The project challenges prevalent models of cultural unity and canonization in the transmission of scholarly texts during the last phases of Mesopotamian cuneiform writing in the 1st millennium BCE by analyzing the transmission of the so-called lexical lists, one of the most characteristic genres of the Mesopotamian sciences and foundational to scribal education. Building on own prior research on literary standardization and geographies in 2nd–1st millennium Mesopotamia, the project has two concrete aims: 1) to establish the distribution of texts across archaeological contexts, scribal circles, and institutions in order to define specific repertoires within textual communities; and 2) to define the transmission within these communities in terms of dynamic scribal practices, based on close readings of the interplay of form, format, and content of a subset of ca. 147 cuneiform tablets. A major aspect of the project is the digitalization of the sources in collaboration with two databases: Achemenet (CNRS/Nanterre) and the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts (University of California at Berkeley). Training, including a 3-month secondment as visiting fellow in Berkeley, will focus on the development, design, and implementation of large-scale, open-access digitalized textual corpora and on data standards. The project will be hosted at the CNRS in Nanterre and supervised by Prof. Cécile Michel, an expert on Mesopotamian literacy and sciences and principle investigator of a major research cluster on manuscript cultures. Integration into the team of the ArScAn-HAROC will provide support for the project's development and an ideal interdisciplinary research environment for comparative analysis. Communication measures are designed not only for a scholarly audience, but to communicate the history of cuneiform writing and Mesopotamian education to a wider international audience, including measures addressed to stakeholders in the Near and Middle East.

The STUCCO project deals with the exceptional stucco decorations (lime and marble powder) from the Roman necropolises of Puteoli (1st-3rd century CE)- an important city of ancient Italy - which were removed in the 17th-18th century and bought by collectors: 70 stucco bas reliefs are nowadays preserved in the collections of the greatest European museums. STUCCO aims to 1) study the craftsmanship of the Pozzuoli (current name) workshops, 2) acquire data on the iconography in order to add a chapter of art history for the centuries following the destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE, a period for which the remains of decorative arts are scarce and rarely studied and 3) recontextualize the stuccoes by spotting the tombs still rising from which they were taken. For the first time since they were removed from their original contexts, the stuccoes will once again form a coherent ensemble, thus becoming one of the most important collections of Roman stuccoes in the world. The project will be monitored by interdisciplinary teams based at the Université Paris-Nanterre (host institution, France) and the University Libre of Bruxelles (secondment, Belgium), and by professional curators working in archaeological museum (secondment, Saint-Romain-en-Gal). These research collaborations with top-rank scholars and international museum institutions will further expand my skillset, build my professional network and refine my ability to transmit results to a broad audience. Digital humanities and open access will be a fundamental aspect in the implementation of this research and used to share information and enhance its outcomes. The limited number of stucco fragments guarantees the feasibility of the project. By enhancing and recontextualizing the overlooked archaeological heritage of Pozzuoli, STUCCO will have both a scientific and societal impact, and pave the way for a renewal of studies on ancient stuccoes, a field for which there is currently no expert holding an academic position.

GEM-DIAMOND's agenda speaks to a cross-section of the Commission's political priorities for 2019-2024, most notably its push for renewed European democratic practices. As part of a wider ongoing research programme on Globalisation, Europe & Multilateralism, the project will delve into the impact of EU instruments on Democratic Institutions, the rise of Alternative MOdels, and present-day mounting Dissensus driven by internal contestation and external competition. Scientifically, the project will result in research and training outputs that will be of direct benefit in terms of improved citizens’ knowledge and democratic practices. Expected innovations produced by the 15 early career Researchers are anchored in: (1) an original conceptual understanding of 'dissensus'; (2) a unique form of interdisciplinary and methodological coherence; and (3) new empirical findings assessing the shifting efficiency and legitimacy of EU instruments. Educationally, the project offers an integrated training curriculum that will foster excellent research, further structure Ph.D. training at the European level, and help set new global standards in the field. The proposed Consortium is uniquely positioned to provide high-quality accredited degrees given that its members have decades of experience in the field and together have awarded over 50 double doctoral degrees. Societally, its Dissemination, Exploitation & Communication efforts will have a sustainable impact on the European Research (ERA) and Higher Education (EHEA) Areas rooted in its innovative practices and original research. The project will boost the career prospects of 15 researchers, promote innovative research practices standards with Open Science, and encourage innovative democratic practices through citizen science platforms hosted across Europe with an eye on ensuring all findings are readily available and directly exploitable. This will strengthen the prospects of civic participation and liberal democracy in the EU.

ELectoral information and analYSis System for the enhancement of democrAcy. Building on the expertise in electoral analysis developed within the ERC TARICA (Political and Socio-institutional Change in North Africa), the ELYSSA project (ELectoral information and analYSis System for the enhancement of democracy) aims at facilitating access to electoral information by providing different categories of users (NGOs, media, political actors, cooperation institutions) with tools for the analysis of voting and political change in the post-2011 Maghreb. The project consists in the development of a tool for exploration, visualization and analysis of electoral data. The ELYSSA platform will allow for in-depth, multi-scalar analysis of electoral results, the establishment of electoral time series and dynamic electoral analyses, as well as correlation analyses between voting results and socio-economic data. The proposed analysis tools address a variety of needs, enabling users to manipulate election data autonomously to form independent opinions and make informed decisions.