University of Bucharest

This proposal aims to understand, through the conceptual lens of home, tenants’ and landlords’ practices in ‘hidden’ private rental sectors, where informal transactions increase risks and hide vulnerability away from state regulatory gaze - as the Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly exposed across much of the globe. Taking the post-communist context as an example of an emerging and hidden PRS and drawing on a specific view of home as assemblage of materials, money, relations and affects, this research project aims to: Understand a hidden social world, by asking why tenants and landlords engage in the sector, whether their practices permit making a private tenancy home, and how they construct ideas of power, risk and trust; Nuance existing concepts of space and propose new concepts of time as they unfold in a privately rented home; Inform the national and international debate on PRS regulation. To achieve its aims, the proposal takes a qualitative multi-disciplinary approach, creating synergies between methods developed from meta-ethnography (critical interpretative synthesis), sociology and visual studies (qualitative questionnaires and photo-elicitation interviews), and public policy (scenario building). Through its focus on rental housing, a mechanism that generates important inequalities of wealth, health and wellbeing, the project aligns with the European Union strategy of creating a more resilient and inclusive society, and its concern for addressing inequalities.

The project aims to provide a rational design for the synthesis of 4f homo- and 3d/4f heteronuclear systems and to prove their effectiveness in applications such as information storage, magnetic refrigeration, luminescent materials. The efforts will be focused on the following objectives: synthesis, spectroscopic and structural characterization of new molecular systems based on salicylaldehyde and its derivatives; evaluation of magnetic properties that allows the study of their behavior as nanomagnets (slow relaxation of the magnetization) and the magnetocaloric effect. The choice of the host organization - group from the Department of Inorganic Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Bucharest under guidance of Acad. Marius Andruh is dictated by its internationally recognition in design of original magnetic coordination compounds, expertise in molecular magnetism and use of crystal engineering strategies. The complementary applicant's (Dr. D. Dragancea) experience in synthetic coordination chemistry and characterization gained in the Laboratory of Coordination chemistry of the Institute of Chemistry in Chisinau, Moldova will assure the completion of project objectives. The fellowship provides the opportunity to use equipment and techniques that are not available at home institution, to gain a unique experience on the edge of several disciplines, establish scientific contacts. Altogether will positively impact her long-term career.

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions have seen a steady increase since the industrial revolution. Recent estimates show that 496 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide will be released in the atmosphere between 2010 and 2060. To address climate change, EU needs other technologies that can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions but also that can use the carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere to produce chemicals or fuels; looking at carbon dioxide as a carbon feedstock rather than an undesired waste. Small organic fuel molecules (e.g. formic acid, methanol) can be produced via photoelectrochemical carbon dioxide reduction. Materials that can harvest sunlight to electrochemically reduce carbon dioxide are the “Holy Grail” of energy sustainable societies; they have the potential to reproduce what nature learned in billions of years: photosynthesis. The action at hand aims at creating a carbon based arificial leaf that can convert carbon dioxide into solar fuels.