Venice International University is part of ISIS@MACH ITALIA (IM@IT), the hybrid Italian multidisciplinary Research Infrastructure (RI) for Complex Materials and Interfaces, hub of the world's leading research centre ISIS neutron and muon source (UK).
This RI encompasses a suite of distributed laboratories, and small and medium facilities with instrumentation for research in nanoscience, located at Research Centers and Universities distributed throughout the Italian territory. Venice International University, and among its members CNR, University of Tor Vergata and University Milano Bicocca are part of IM@IT.

Sustainable MAnagement of Cultural Heritage in the Balkans in Response to Climate Change. Best Practices for Adaptation and Intercultural Cooperation - is a 1-year Central European Initiative (CEI) Know-how Exchange Program. It supports the exchange of knowledge and best practices between the EU and the Balkan region, to promote the sustainable management of cultural heritage in response to climate change. It will thus contribute to encourage climate change adaptation and, broadly, sustainable development in the area, engaging the regional decision makers and key stakeholders in a dialogue to compare current approaches and develop common best practices in this concern. 

The SMACH Forum is a follow up of the SMACH project, Sustainable MAnagement of Cultural Heritage in the Balkans in Response to Climate Change.

SMACH Forum further supports know-how exchange on sustainable management of cultural heritage, through the creation of a Europe-South Eastern European (EU-SEE) platform for institutions, researchers and decision makers working on this topic.

SMACH Forum video presentation

Starting from the stakeholders’ needs identified in SMACH project, the SMACH Forum is mapping the existing initiatives in South Eastern European that meet those needs in terms of research, good practices and policy. A series of activities is guiding this process, along with a survey available here.

The International Workshop on Cultural Heritage Policy and Management in South Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean is the first of thi event (University of Ljubljana, June 3-4, 2025) in collaboration with ARCHE, Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe. Establishing relations with existing networks on sustainable cultural heritage is a key step in the Forum building process. Final goal is the promotion of a collaborative EU-SEE strategy, by uniting experts and leveraging existing EU research and policy platforms, in order to support sustainable cultural heritage management throughout the region.

The project is co-funded by the Central European Initiative (CEI) Know-how Exchange Program supported by the CEI Fund at the EBRD.
The 2-year project started on April 2024.

Partners: 

Know how providers
- VIU with
University of Ljubljana
University of Rome Tor Vergata
CNR
- City of Venice

Beneficiary partners
- Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje
- University of Belgrade
- Sarajevo School of Science and Technology
- University of Montenegro

For further information please contact Alessandra Fornetti, Executive Director of the TEN Program on Sustainability at alessandra.fornetti@univiu.org

MUHAI - Meaning and Understanding in Human-centric AI is a 4-year Horizon 2020 project (2020-2024) funded by the EU FET 'Boosting emerging technologies' (FETPROACT-EIC-05-2019). VIU is partner with Professor Luc Steels as MUHAI Scientific Coordinator and as leader of the Communication, Dissemination and Ethics WP. 

MUHAI works on developing Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a pivotal moment of AI tools diffusion. Its findings open doors regarding the meaning we human assign to reality and how to pass it to machines, to better our lives.