Integrating Platforms for the European Research Infrastructure ON Heritage Science

Project Information

IPERION HS

Grant agreement ID: 871034

DOI

10.3030/871034

Project closed

EC signature date 17 January 2020

Start date 1 April 2020

End date 31 March 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 6 516 247,93

EU contribution

€ 6 162 711,12

Coordinated by

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - IPERION HS (Integrating Platforms for the European Research Infrastructure ON Heritage Science)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

IPERION HS was an Integrating Activity (IA) project finalized to further integrate key national facilities in view of the establishment of the European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science, E-RIHS. The project attempted to widen the participation to E-RIHS by including additional partners from countries not yet engaged in the consortium. IPERION HS has been the last IA of 4 projects spanning more than 20 years, supported by the EC to integrate the community of heritage science. The project marked 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, built heritage and palaeontology.
IPERION HS core activity has been the provision of Trans-National Access (TNA) to a wide range of high-level scientific instruments, methodologies, data, and tools for advancing knowledge and innovation in the domain. This TNA provision allowed to sustain and to enlarge the user groups of E-RIHS, in view of its establishment in the legal form of ERIC, expected by the end of this year. More than 50 access providers composed a catalogue of more than 150 services which were offered to heritage science users in the last 4 years. IPERION HS partnership counted 67 partner institutions from 23 Countries clustered around their national nodes.

IPERION HS made world-class scientific tools and knowledge available to heritage scientists by issuing 7 calls for access during the project lifetime, approximately one each 6 months. The calls offered TNA to three integrated platforms: ARCHLAB, FIXLAB and MOLAB.

In addition to TNA services, IPERION HS contributed joint innovative research focused on advancing diagnostics and improving interoperability of sample materials, methods, instruments and data. Research themes included an extensive study about how to exploit the capacities of the RI to allow for better preventive conservation, how to avoid the potential undesired effects of measurements on heritage objects, how to better analyse and describe paleontological and paleoanthropological specimens, how to advance the use of digital data in archaeology and how to structure heritage science data for their use in the European Open Science Cloud.

IPERION HS Networking Activities represented a coordinated approach to solve key issues for the integration of national nodes and facilities into a fully operational pan-European RI. Networking also aimed at reinforcing the binding in the group and at creating a sense of belonging for heritage science researchers who exploit the RI services. Targeted actions were developed to support interoperability, sustainability, exploitation and innovation, user engagement and training and engagement of scholars in new user communities.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The activities of IPERION HS were coordinated by 8 Work Packages (WP):
WP1. This once plain activity became an exercise of creativity in COVID times. The management had to find solutions to face unexpected situations with no precedents in history. WP1 also established and to put into action a quality and evaluation system based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which assessed the project services and outputs.
WP2, WP3 and WP4. TNA. An average yearly number of 639 users requested access to IPERION HS TNA services. Access to archives in ARCHLAB provided 163 access days out of the planned 341 (48%). The shortage of users was the effect of the pandemic.
Access to mobile laboratories in MOLAB provided 426 days of access out of the 335 planned (127%).
Access to large and medium-size facilities in FIXLAB served 1553 days of access out of the planned 920 (169%).
The five joint research activities (JRAs) of WP5 produced very good results, recovering the forced pandemic stop.
WP6. Innovation and exploitation. WP6 achieved the planned results, including the launch and operation of the Regional Development Advisory Board (RDSAB). Key strategy documents for E-RIHS ERIC were prepared by this WP, including the Agenda for Smart Future Innovation.
WP7. While outreach activities for the engagement of new communities suffered the prolonged stop of in-presence events, the training provided by WP7, properly remodulated in virtual and hybrid formats, produced huge successes. We scored record numbers of attendance to Summer Schools and to the webinars organised under the #HSAcademy brand, followed by specialists of more than 40 countries across the 5 continents, thus making the #HSAcademy brand recognizable at the global level.
WP8. Central Support Activities – Designed to operate like the central hub of a RI, WP8 shared with WP1 the burden of finding new ways to run the activities during the stop. WP8 carried out an intense work to achieve procedural consistency across the three TNA platforms and the Training activities to guarantee efficient and integrated access to all the services of IPERION HS. The single-entry contact point to the IPERION HS catalogue of services – operated through a dedicated userhelpdesk – supported users and potential users in all the phases of access. The WP also developed coordination know-how, efficient communication strategies, and toolkits which are precious legacies for E-RIHS.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

IPERION HS developed precious legacies for success of E-RIHS. The ERIC is expected to integrate all the scientific domains concerning the study of heritage, facilitating a holistic research approach to heritage study and preservation, and providing a permanent defragmentation of this fundamental part of the European Research Area.
Most of the IPERION HS results either will feed into E-RIHS ERIC or were useful to sustain its transition to a stable EU body along these last four years.
TNA provided by IPERION HS, through its catalogue of world-class facilities, helped closing the temporal gap towards the ERIC implementation, thus enabling the user groups of E-RIHS to access advanced scientific tools and unique expertise during its implementation.
The research jointly developed in IPERION HS produced immediately reusable tools and methodologies to be adopted and exploited by E-RIHS.
IPERION HS activities provided impacts benefitting the scientific community and the RI users. Among these, strategic documents on the impact and exploitation of heritage research, repositories for publishing heritage science papers, and a good social media visibility.
The success of the “Emerging Professional” #HSAcademy webinar series is proof of the interest of the next generation of heritage scientists towards E-RIHS.
The IPERION HS management activities gathered extensive experience about setting up and handling a large, distributed infrastructure in the heritage domain, serving hundreds of multidisciplinary users with hundreds of different services.
IPERION HS finally fulfilled its declared missions: the project served a wide research community of users, while at the same time pushed the state-of-the-art of its tools and services and advanced the level of integration among its partner institutions beyond the status of an integrating activity project, towards the way of operation of an established EU RI.
the state-of-the-art of its tools and services and advanced the level of integration among its partner institutions beyond the status of an integrating activity project, towards the way of operation of an established EU RI.

IPERION HS OpenAIRE Monitor gateway

IPERION HS Training Camp in Burgos, Spain