Smart textiles that provide a seamless command-oriented user interface and have capable of wireless communication, have become active research field in recent decades with interest of wearable and attractive platforms. Well-known mechanical requirements such as light weight, compactness, and flexibility, that smart components should be invisibly and unobtrusively integrated into a garment to ensure the wearer’s comfort. GFSMART aims to develop graphene fibre based antennas for smart textiles that pushes the state-of-the-art in wireless body-centric systems, by utilizing traditional textile manufacturing techniques. Wearable antenna will be developed based on the merits of graphene as a flexible, conductive fibres. GFSMART project does not only involve implementation of novel materials and wearable electronics but also embraces design strategies of smart adaptive garments for people affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The proposal hosting by Royal College of Art (RCA), will involve collaboration with other EU universities, which will increase the impact of the developed results on the textile industry and enable my career restart in European research zone. GFSMART will lead to first implementation of graphene fibres in wearable antenna design and later in designing smart garments for people affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. I have extensive experience on carbon nanomaterials and novel materials for textile applications and published more than 30 critically acclaimed journal and conference papers, patents in this subject. Through this innovative multidisciplinary research and with the help of experimental infrastructure provided by the RCA, as a newly appointed senior tutor in smart textiles at RCA, I am expected to gain maturity in managing research projects and advance my career toward being an esteemed professor in the field of smart textiles in Europe.

Spatial Practices in Art and ArChitecture for Empathetic EXchange (SPACEX) is a transdisciplinary research action that utilises secondments between academic institutions and third sector organisations in order to scope and map European spatial practices. It provides a body of findings that can be easily accessed by commissioning agencies, policy makers and publics through its open source web-site (spacex-rise.eu). SPACEX aims to test, map, analyse, communicate and maximise the ways in which spatial practices in art, architecture and design instigate public exchange and promote empathetic ways of living together in urban space. It responds to the troubling rise of populist nationalism and conflict in European societies by engaging new publics and forging a culture that embraces diversity, difference, and discursive exchange within cities, towns and urban sites. The lack of interdisciplinary knowledge by those working in the cultural sector has significantly affected the way in which the social benefit of cultural activities is understood, articulated and applied. SPACEX proposes that inventing new and inclusive ways of living together, requires the implementation of new transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral practices and methods, that connect spatial practice with cultural sociology, cultural policy, critical pedagogies and behavioural economics. The comprehensive transdisciplinary composition of the SPACEX consortium- 27 partners in 9 EU countries and 1 TC, Palestine – will enable its ERs and ESRs to undertake secondments in a range of world-renowned academic institutions, research institutes, arts organisations, biennials, urban agencies, a film festival and a creative media agency.