EURAC

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder (after Alzheimer's) associated with oxidative stress and aging, and affects an estimated 1% of people worldwide over 60 years of age. The pathogenetic triggers of neurodegenerations are largely unknown. Current therapeutic interventions only partially alleviate symptoms and do not restore normal neuronal function or prevent progressive neurodegenerations. Identifying novel molecular targets and searching for therapeutic agents that block neurodegeneration and promote neuronal restoration is a key challenge in the field. I and the Host have together identified 51 candidate genetic loci associated with age-related neurodegenerations in PD model and PD patients, respectively. These candidate genes are evolutionarily conserved in both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. I hypothesize that some of these genes, via an evolutionarily conserved signal transduction pathway, alleviate the oxidative stress in the dopaminergic neurons and protect them against degeneration. This project combines my (C. elegans genetics) and Host (cell-based PD models) expertise to identify new genetic pathways that mediate protection against neurodegenerations during oxidative stress and aging. I expect that achieved goals of the proposal will be important discovery that should lead to novel therapeutic targeting for Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative proteinopathies. My long-term goal is to become an independent scientist and establish lab to find novel therapeutic targets and strategies for the diseases associated with oxidative stress, including PD. Gained research experience together with improving my teaching, mentoring and management skills during this fellowship will help me to achieve my goals and transition myself into independence.

Many divided societies in Europe and beyond are grappling with identity-based political tensions and conflicts. Most recent examples are the post-election violence in Kenya, the ethnic unrest in Ethiopia, and, in Europe, the continuing uncertainties about the territorial integrity of countries like Spain, the United Kingdom and Belgium in the face of secessionist claims. These and many other countries use territorial autonomies, within a federal or decentralised framework, to manage their divided societies. A lot of research has been conducted about the relevance of territorial autonomies for divided societies in general. What needs attention, however, and has been neglected by studies so far, is the integration of autonomous territories into the legal and political framework of the state, in particular, through their relations with the national government. Integrative intergovernmental institutions and processes are equally important because they serve as a vehicle for promoting a cohesive society and reconciling the tension between unity and diversity. The IGR-IDS project focuses on investigating the relevance and effectiveness of intergovernmental institutions and processes in the management of divided societies where territorial autonomies are used to deal with communal tensions. Using a comparative research method, it will identify and develop innovative integrative institutions and processes of intergovernmental relations. The successful completion of the project will advance my career by allowing me to explore new areas of study in the management of divided society and facilitate my recognition as a highly rated researcher. I will emerge as an established expert on intergovernmental relations in divided societies. That will put me in a position to progress on the academic ladder by placing a successful application for promotion to professorship.

Stances Toward Education in Multilingual Contexts (STEMCo) transforms findings from ethnographic engagement with multilingual school communities into research-driven and policy-informed teacher-education materials. Ten months of ethnographic and participatory action research in middle schools—one in Bolzano, a historically multilingual context, and the other in Verona, a newly multilingual context—will support data-driven teacher reflection on classroom practices (WP1). These data are then analyzed in light of communicative repertoires, multilingualism, pedagogy, and language ideologies and findings are disseminated to academic stakeholders (WP2). These findings are then exploited for the professional development of teachers throughout Europe via a sustainable, Open Access online course (WP3). The overall aim of STEMCo is to develop data-driven and research-based approaches, and associated training materials, for accommodating community multilingualism and individual plurilingualism in school communities throughout Europe. The objectives of WP3 will be bolstered by a secondment at the Italian National Institute for Documentation, Innovation, and Educational Research (INDIRE), a short visit to the New York Initiative for Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY-NYSIEB), and another to the European Centre for Modern Languages. My collaboration with Eurac’s Institute of Applied Linguistics, and my supervisors Lorenzo Zanasi and Andrea Abel, will augment my interdisciplinary training with methods and theories in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language pedagogy, and Italian education policies, as well as professional skills related to project management, data management and analysis, and community engagement. This project will help me reach professional maturity by growing my interdisciplinary experience, international networks, and intersectoral collaborations in order to gain a tenure-track position oriented to teacher-education and community multilingualism.

Forests are key components of modern landscapes, providing essential ecosystem services to humans and sustaining biodiversity. As they mitigate global warming, forest ecosystems are essential elements for meeting the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement and an increase of their future resilience through sustainable management practices is one of the main priorities of the EU policy. Forests are projected to undergo dramatic compositional and structural shifts prompted by global changes, such as intensifying natural disturbance regimes, land use and climate change. This uncertainty makes planning for forest management exceptionally difficult. To date, studies have mainly focused on adapting forest management to climate warming but new interdisciplinary approaches for understanding and implementing tailored adaptation actions are needed to increase forest resilience to a large set of uncertainties. The overall aim of REINFORCE is to develop multi-scale and integrated forest management strategies to enhance resilience to global changes in European mountain forest landscapes. The project will consist in assessing future forest landscape dynamics in multiple case study regions in the Alps using advanced simulation modelling tools, followed by developing resilience-based forest management plans. This will be accomplished with a novel and innovative approach combining dynamic landscape modelling, functional diversity and network analysis. This approach allows to determine where to intervene more efficiently in stands within the landscape to maximize the resilience of the forests to sudden disturbances and climate change. Mixing multiple expertise and methods, REINFORCE will ultimately contribute in filling the gap between science and local decision-makers by incorporating stakeholder community in building effective and integrated forested landscape management to cope with climate and global changes.

The smart city concept has received increased attention from researchers and decision-makers across the EU. However, there is a gap between smart city research & practice, and environmental sustainability: to date, smart city projects have not adequately assessed the environmental impacts of their strategies, which remain largely unknown. Research is needed to provide empirical evidence, advanced tools and metrics that can support the design, implementation and evaluation of smart city strategies to improve urban environmental sustainability. RESEARCH GOALS ARTEMIS will investigate whether and how the smart city can improve the environmental performance of urban systems. The research aims to provide insight on key aspects in smart city strategies that can effectively reduce environmental impacts; a novel environmental impact assessment framework to support decision-making in smart city projects; and improved key performance indicators (KPIs) on environmental sustainability and circularity for smart cities. ACHIEVING THE GOALS ARTEMIS will develop an integrated framework coupling urban metabolism and life-cycle assessment, to estimate how strategies implemented in two EU-funded smart city projects (in Lisbon, Portugal, and Trento, Italy) have affected a wide set of environmental impacts, associated with urban systems. Drawing on the framework and results, KPIs will be provided to evaluate environmental sustainability in smart cities. The framework, recommendations and KPIs will be replicable across EU cities. RELEVANCE TO THE WORK PROGRAMME ARTEMIS will support the EU’s vision for smart cities and its aim of becoming a role model in sustainable development. My expertise in environmental impact assessment and the supervisor’s in smart cities bond effectively to pursue the research plan. The fellowship is a unique opportunity for me to obtain enhanced knowledge and skills on the development of environmental assessment tools and metrics for smart cities.