The IPERION HS proposal aims at establishing and operating an Integrating Activity for a distributed pan-European research infrastructure, opening key national research facilities of recognised excellence in heritage science. Heritage science is a young and cross-cutting scientific domain embracing a wide range of research disciplines enabling deeper understanding of the past and improved care for the future of heritage. Since 2016, heritage science is included in the ESFRI Roadmap as one of the strategic areas in the domain of Social Sciences and Humanities, where it is represented by the ESFRI Project E-RIHS (European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science). IPERION HS will provide to the advanced community of heritage science - built and reinforced with the support of four EU projects spanning across four Framework Programmes, approaching 20 years of constant service to the heritage domain - a further level of pan-European integration, in view of the establishment of E-RIHS. IPERION HS is a further step towards a unified scientific approach to the most advanced European instruments for the analysis, interpretation, preservation, documentation and management of heritage objects in the fields of art history, conservation, archaeology and palaeontology. IPERION HS core activity will be offering Trans-National Access to a wide range of high-level scientific instruments, methodologies, data and tools for advancing knowledge and innovation in the domain. In addition, IPERION HS will contribute joint innovative research for a better interoperability not limited to data, but including sample materials, methods and instruments. The networking activities in the project aim at reinforcing the binding in the group and at creating a sense of belonging for heritage science researchers which will exploit the RI services. IPERION HS consists of partners from 22 Countries clustered around their national nodes.

The dynamics of exotic systems such as high-temperature superconductors and heavy fermion materials is gaining ever increasing interest as it contains important clues to the mechanism driving the often unanticipated and technologically very relevant properties. Shot noise spectroscopy is a very powerful technique to study the dynamics of electronic correlations in such quantum electron systems, but to date has been limited to mesoscopic systems. We propose to set up, test and use an experimental probe that can perform shot noise measurements on the atomic scale, thereby gaining access to crucial information on the scale where all the action occurs: the atoms, the electrons, and – in combination with spin resolved tunneling spectroscopy – the spins. We will achieve this by developing a low temperature, high frequency compatible scanning tunneling microscope. This project will combine expertise on shot noise spectroscopy at CNRS in Paris and low temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy expertise of the experienced researcher, and will bring important new insights into the time domain properties of correlated electron systems.

The project “Interracial intimacy in Africa: Afro-European couples, cross cultural transactions and social changes in Islamic Zanzibar” (INTIMIZ), offers an innovative approach to the study of globalization. Built on a bibliography in anthropology, sociology and history, and a case-study in Zanzibar (Tanzania), the project examines the social and cultural dynamics that foster intimate relationships between European expatriates and Africans in contemporary Africa. The project will pursue three objectives: 1) To document European migration to Africa. 2) To analyze the experience of Afro-European intimacy in Zanzibar. At the micro level, I will focus on the dynamics of intimate transactions, whether economic, material or cultural. While the economic issue is currently at the heart of the anthropological understanding of interracial sexuality, little consideration is given neither to the role of love and desire in cross-cultural encounters, nor to the role of cultural transactions between partners. By paying particular attention to affects and symbolic transfers of knowledge, beliefs, values, skills, which characterize the course of intimate life, the project provides a unique view on socialization and on the role of intimacy in possibilities social ascent. 3) To investigate the changes in the local understanding of intimacy. At the macro level, the project will trace the global dynamics that transform conjugality, sexuality, love, and gender roles in the Muslim society of Zanzibar. The project will thus investigate the ways in which Islam informs sexual practices and ideologies of intimacy and gender, and how they are negotiated and transformed with the settlement of non-Muslim Europeans, and mixed marriages. At a societal level, by analysing how people of different racial and religious backgrounds do engage in relationships, INTIMIZ also constitutes an original and effective means to combat racist prejudice.

According to a report, titled “Violence against Women: an EU-wide survey” and published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in March 2014, « one in three women (33 %) has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since she was 15 years old, and, slightly more than half of all women in the EU (53 %) avoid certain situations or places, at least sometimes, for fear of being physically or sexually assaulted”. The report stresses that the “feeling of vulnerability” is prevalent among these women. Vulnerability is commonly defined as the “ability to be harmed”, and often associated with weakness or passivity. But the prevalence of the feeling of vulnerability among women in the European Union puts into question this framework and calls for a conceptual revaluation of this notion in order to address its ethical and social significance. This proposal aims to reconsider the moral and philosophical definition of vulnerability based on weakness and harm in order to elaborate a phenomenological ethics of vulnerability that goes beyond traditional accounts of empathy. To do so, the ontological framework of philosophical and psychological theories of empathy will be assessed. Political theories and development policies will be analyzed in order to offer solutions to prevent vulnerability from turning into violence and victimization. This proposal will rely on the phenomenological tradition to introduce the notion of “vulnerable bodily self” as a new paradigm to describe the individual. This research mixes theoretical analysis (phenomenology) and interdisciplinary empirical work (psychology, cognitive sciences, feminist theories). It bears significant consequences for contemporary philosophical discussions on the nature of the self. Its timeliness echoes a need for new theoretical paradigms to address political and social issues related to self-identity and people’s vulnerability in European societies.

Our understanding of cosmology and fundamental physics continues to be challenged by ever more precise experiments. The resulting “standard” model of cosmology describes the data well, but is unable to explain the origin of the main constituents of our Universe, namely dark matter and dark energy. More than an order of magnitude improvement in the quality and quantity of observational data is needed. This has motivated ESA to select Euclid as the second mission of its cosmic vision program, with a scheduled launch in 2020. It is designed to accurately measure the alignments of distant galaxies due to the differential deflection of light-rays by intervening structures, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Euclid will measure this signal by imaging 1.5 billion galaxies with a resolution similar to that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Although Euclid is designed to minimize observational systematics the observations are still compromised by two factors. Various instrumental effects need to be corrected for, and the tremendous improvement in precision has to be matched with comparable advances in the modelling of astrophysical effects that affect the signal. The objective of this proposal is to make significant progress on both fronts. To do so, we will (i) quantify the morphology of galaxies using archival HST observations; (ii) carry out a unique narrow-band photometric redshift survey to obtain state-of-the-art constraints on the intrinsic alignments of galaxies that arise due to tidal interactions, and would otherwise contaminate the cosmological signal; (iii) integrate these results into the end-to-end simulation pipeline; (iv) perform a spectroscopic redshift survey to calibrate the photometric redshift technique. The Euclid Consortium has identified these as critical issues, which need to be addressed before launch, in order to maximise the science return of this exciting mission, and enable the dark energy science objectives of Europe.