Partners
Three main scientific and technological sectors of the involved participants
The consortium has a balanced and complementary set of roles and specific skills that will ensure success of the DISPLAYS project and its continuation into commercial success beyond the end of the project. The consortium partners come from three main sectors focused on both the ‘end user’ or ‘communities of practice’ perspective and the scientific and technological perspective—much gained through direct involvement in previous successful heritage research and commercial projects at a professional level:
- A Large Industrial Partner who will provide technology innovation in heritage systems, stationary and mobile, research and development, experience in multimedia content production; skills in administering knowledge management platforms, authoring tools, experience in dissemination activities, GRID systems, specifically:
- Intracom is the dominant player in the Greek Telecommunications market exporting telecommunication equipment and services in Balkan, Middle Eastern, and East European countries. It has strong presence in more than 40 countries in Europe and has invested heavily in forming the strongest industrial R&D centre in Greece. INTRACOM has participated in many successful projects relevant to DISPLAYS focused on delivery of virtual and augmented reality and multimedia for many applications for memory and educational institutions and industry, and will primarily focus on the GRID and P2P network in objectives 7 and 8.
- Three University Partners who will provide project management, user requirements, research and development, digital content creation, interpretation and use of cultural and scientific objects, expositions, visualisation and interaction focused on access and preservation. In particular the universities will be focused on the development of digital library tools and services in objectives 1 to 5 exploiting innovative new technologies that enhance content, knowledge and learning incorporating multimedia, 3D, virtual and augmented realities can facilitate wisdom and understanding to both individuals and groups in classroom or in mobile environments, specifically:
- University of Sussex (Project Coordinator) is ranked one of the leading institutions in the world for its teaching and research. Tables derived from the THES World University Ranking place Sussex 9th in the UK, 17th in Europe and 58th in the World. Its research centre associated with DISPLAYS is located in the internationally renowned Department of Informatics (formally cognitive and computing sciences) and is focused on virtual and augmented reality environments for heritage systems and applications. US will both project coordinate and lead the digital content creation services objectives bringing its skills in developing heritage systems for digital cultural and scientific objects and experiences to the project.
- Poznan University of Economics is considered to be one of the best universities of economics in Poland and its Department of Information Technology is at the forefront of research and technological development in the field of VR and multimedia particularly focused on modelling VR and multimedia data in databases, providing persistency to virtual worlds, data visualisation in VR and AR interfaces, high‑level VR languages, dynamic modelling techniques, and describing behaviour and interaction of VR and multimedia contents and its application to heritage systems making it the leader of choice fopr the exposition, virtual and interaction services of objectives 4 and 5.
- Technical University of Crete Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications (MUSIC) is part of the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering of the Technical University of Crete (TUC). TUC/MUSIC has extensive experience in Knowledge Bases, Data Bases, Multimedia, Web Services, and intelligent interactive distributed applications. It currently participates in the Network of Excellence Delos II on Digital Libraries, and its director, Prof. Stavros Christodoulakis, is in the Scientific Board of Delos and is a coordinator of the Multimedia Cluster of Delos. TUC/MUSIC also participates in the Integrated Project DBE where it conducts RTD on the Knowledge Management for the P2P Service Oriented Architecture of DBE. In the past, TUC/MUSIC has participated or co-ordinated in over 40 EU and national research and development projects in the above fields. TUC will apply its expertise primarily to leading the archival services objective 3, bringing its experience of DELOS to the project.
- IT Innovation is an applied research centre focused on enabling the innovative application of information technology by industry and commerce. IT Innovation build proofs-of-concept, demonstrators and novel operational systems. We work in a spirit of partnership, ensuring effective transfer of knowledge. IT Innovation solutions and services empower people to work more effectively by addressing their information and knowledge needs. IT Innovation R&D capabilities include the GRID, knowledge management, Cultural Heritage, P2P and collaborative working management. IT Innovation is part of the University of Southampton, which is well renowned for its work on GRID technologies, making them the leader of choice for the Knowledge GRID services objective 7.
- Cultural and Scientific Heritage Institutions who will provide a rich complement of raw digital content from the portable antiquities domain (for example test objects from the UKs Portable Antiquities Scheme) for transformation into the DISPLAYS data model fociused on data, information, knowledge, wisdom and understanding of cultural and scientific objects and resources, which is crucial for user requirements and evaluations at user trials (cultural institutions will drive the technological developments from their end-user perspective), These partners will lead the user requirements, business models and exploitation and the dissemination strategy with a particular focus on Portable Antiquities, specifically:
- Sussex Archaeological Society was founded in 1846 and is the largest county archaeological society in the United Kingdom. It exists to promote the study of history and archaeology in the counties of East and West Sussex. It is both a Small to Medium Enterprise and a registered charity, with over 2,300 members owning six museums in Sussex open to the public, including the famous Fishbourne Roman Palace. SP is engaged in educating the public through its collections across six regional museums in the south of England. SP will act as an end user providing pedagogic skills from a memory institution viewpoint.
- Muzeul National Brukenthal is a huge national complex with rich collections of artefacts. The first exhibition is dating 1790, and it is the first museum open to the public in Romania (1817). The collection holds important artefacts representative of European history and culture. Research, conservation, restoration, exhibitions and heritage publishing are the main staff duties. The ‘Director of Archaeology’ at the Brukenthal is also professor of Archaeology at the Lucian Blaga University Sibiu located in Sibiu, a historic city in the centre of Romania, “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu enjoys a growing reputation both in Romania and abroad in advanced interdisciplinary research and teaching. Its Department of Ancient and Medieval History is one of Romanias best educational and research centre for archaeologists, curators and conservators training.
- Muzeum Archeologiczne w Poznaniu is one of the major and oldest archaeological museums in Poland (established 1857). Its activities cover mainly the mid-western part of the country. Since 40 years it is also active in NE Africa (excavations of prehistoric sites in Egypt and Sudan). It holds rich archaeological collections from Poland and NE Africa (both prehistoric and early historic), together with adjacent archives. The Department of the Archaeological Heritage Service runs the archaeological Sites & Monuments Record database for the Mid-Western Polish area. Since 1986 the Museum plays a pioneering role in introducing Information Technology to Polish archaeology (i.e., establishing the database standard for Polish Sites & Monuments Record, a complex database on archaeological collections, a MapInfo-based GIS system for Sites & Monuments Record; it has also published several user guides to computer applications for archaeologists). The Museum participated in several European projects within the frames of INCO-COPERNICUS and CULTURE_2000 programmes.
All partners will participate to market penetration, dissemination and exploitation activities. We should not of course forget the European Union who will provide project guidance through review process, expertise through evaluation at project reviews, financial investment to the project and support through EU mechanisms such as CORDIS.
The University of Sussex
Research Degree
Centre for VLSI and Computer Graphics
United Kingdom
Centre for VLSI and Computer Graphics
United Kingdom
eMail: [email protected]
fax: +44 (0)1273 877873
fax: +44 (0)1273 877873
