Documentation and conservation of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) is crucial to preserve humankind’s history and traditions, safeguarding tangible testimonies of past human life while ensuring its accessibility to present and future generations. TECTONIC project will promote an intersectoral collaboration between academic and non-academic professionals (such as technical experts, archaeologists, conservator, geologists, engineers, computer scientists) working in different topics related to the UCHs to respond and find solutions to the complex issues still existing in the field of UCH. The overall aim is the exchange of skills and expertise, the training activities for the implementation, improvement and assessment of innovative materials, techniques, tools and methodologies to develop solutions and marketable products for the conservation, restoration and management of the UCH (objects, artefacts, structures, remains etc.). To achieve its overall aim, TECTONIC project will undertake innovation and development activities driven by the following objectives: Study, documentation and 3D reconstruction of the selected pilot sites; Decision support tool for UCH risk assessment in a changing environment; Conservation studies, protocols and suitable procedures for preservation/conservation activities; Development of open and low-cost robotic solutions for the inspection, documentation and monitoring of UCH; Raising the public awareness and knowledge about the importance to preserve the underwater historical and archaeological heritage. All the objectives will be devoted to stimulate new ideas that would bring to the development of new marketable products by capitalizing on the research results that will be achieved in the project, creating a link between business, research and higher education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational systems worldwide, leading to the near-total closures of all formal learning settings. This is a good time to expand opportunities in non-formal and informal settings. xFORMAL project aims at creating a framework in which science and technology meet citizens of all ages in an informal intergenerational educational setting, based on a platform and a game devoted to the common European cultural heritage. The key ingredients of the project are: the history of ancient Europe (partly taught in formal education), the landscape (typically, a non-formal learning base), the heutagogic approach, the virtual/augmented reality (generally recognised as an informal-learning tool), and the sharing of knowledge and experiences between SSH and ICT researchers in an intersectoral setting. The proposed actions target the creation of new partnerships in local communities to foster improved education for all citizens following the heutagogy approach. This project aims at supporting a range of research, dissemination and exploitation activities based on collaboration between educational providers, associations, enterprises, and civil society in order to become an agent of community well-being; encourage families to become real partners in educational life and activities; actively involve professionals from enterprises and civil and wider society in bringing real-life projects to the civil society; and encourage policymakers to the mainstream of good practices and insights into policies, and hence sustainability and impact beyond the lifetime of funding. It is expected that in the short term the development of xFORMAL partnerships between academic and non-academic institutions will contribute to a more scientifically interested and literate society and citizens of all ages with a better awareness of and interest in a cultural common heritage. In the long-term, it will contribute towards ERA objectives of increasing the number of scientists.

iMARECULTURE is focusing in raising European identity awareness using maritime and underwater cultural interaction and exchange in Mediterranean sea. Commercial ship routes joining Europe with other cultures are vivid examples of cultural interaction, while shipwrecks and submerged sites, unreachable to wide public are excellent samples that can benefit from immersive technologies, augmented and virtual reality. iMARECULTURE will bring inherently unreachable underwater cultural heritage within digital reach of the wide public using virtual visits and immersive technologies. Apart from reusing existing 3D data of underwater shipwrecks and sites, with respect to ethics, rights and licensing, to provide a personalized dry visit to a museum visitor or augmented reality to the diver, it also emphasizes on developing pre- and after- encounter of the digital visitor. The former one is implemented exploiting geospatial enabled technologies for developing a serious game of sailing over ancient Mediterranean and the latter for an underwater shipwreck excavation game. Both games are realized thought social media, in order to facilitate information exchange among users. iMARECULTURE supports dry visits by providing immersive experience through VR Cave and 3D info kiosks on museums or through the web. Additionally aims to significantly enhance the experience of the diver, visitor or scholar, using underwater augmented reality in a tablet and an underwater housing. iMARECULTURE is composed by universities and SMEs with experience in diverse underwater projects, existing digital libraries, and people many of which are divers themselves.