University of Pisa sign five year collaboration agreement with JRC

On 8 April the framework agreement was signed between the Joint Research Centre (European Commission's science and knowledge service), the Pisa Research Ecosystem, consisting of the University of Pisa, the Scuola Normale Superiore, the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, the National Research Council (Pisa), the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (Pisa), the European Gravitational Observatory and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Pisa).

The idea for the collaboration agreement promoted by Prof. Francesco Marcelloni (Vice Rector for international cooperation and relations of the University of Pisa) in collaboration with Prof. Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi (Vice Rector for European and international research) and Dr. Maria Betti, Director of EC, JRC ‐ Directorate G for Nuclear Safety and Security was conceived on 18 May 2018 when the University of Pisa organized and hosted a workshop to present the activities of the JRC and of the overall Pisa Research Ecosystem. Following on from the workshop, collaboration between the JRC, the University of Pisa and the other research bodies mentioned above continued, with the organization of theme-based meetings at the JRC laboratories in Ispra (VA) and was finally consolidated with this collaboration agreement.

The framework agreement will last for five years and may be renewed. The University of Pisa will be the contact point for the collaboration agreement with the role of facilitating communication between the JRC and all the other research bodies party to the agreement.

Thanks to this agreement, the institutions from Pisa taking part will be able to collaborate effectively and at length with the JRC, contributing to the understanding and solution of problems in the common research areas listed below.

Common research areas object of the collaboration agreement:

• Nutraceutical research and evaluation, food processing technologies and biotechnologies, Biomedical imaging and environmental medicine.
• Ionic liquids in biomass transformation or waste processing, raw materials for batteries and the use of raw materials for the optimisation of biomedical application.
• Wearables and Artificial Intelligence for emotion and stress related diseases, Deep and Machine Learning, Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining, Cybersecurity, Cloud and Big Data, Industry 4.0 applications.
• Land use and climate change, marine biodiversity and ecosystem services, invasive species, secure, clean and efficient energy, permafrost and climate in high mountain environment.
• Nuclear energy applications, with reference to Medical Applications of Nuclear Technology, Environmental Monitoring, Artificial intelligence and robotics applied to nuclear energy.
• Earth and atmosphere observation, Natural and man-made hazards, Disaster risk management, Carbon capture, utilization and storage.
• Gravitational Wave detector technology applications, low-noise optical sensors and electronics, adaptive optics, seismic and environmental monitoring.
• Circular economy: food waste accounting and valorisation.
• Climate, Air Pollution, Meteorology and Terrestrial Ecology.

This article was first published on 20 April by University of Pisa.