The SINCERE consortium consists of 18 partners: 7 universities, 2 research institutions, 2 SMEs, 3 industries, 2 governmental bodies and 2 non-profit organizations. Participating countries are 7 EU member states, 3 European as Associated Partners (CH and UK with separate funding) and 1 neighbouring country (IL).
NCSRD is the project coordinator and participates with researchers from three research groups: a) Archaeological and Building Materials (ABM), b) Materials for Nanolithography and Organic Electronics (MNOE) and c) Environmental Research Laboratory (EREL). NCSRD is involved in three main concepts: i) interaction of microclimate with materials degradation and buildings performance under different environmental conditions, along with implementation of AI/ML driven localized climate change scenarios based on CMIP6, for supporting simulation studies in H-BIM/H-DT tools (RIMOND, CERTH, up2metric), ii) development of low-carbon, repair mortars with encapsulated self-healing and corrosion inhibitor additives, using the green binders produced by TITAN, through theoretical (meso-scale modelling of self-healing and durability) and lab-scale studies of their performance and iii) co-development with LINKOPINGS of green, low-cost, transparent PVs, working on their optimization for integration on the architectural parts of historic buildings (glass windows, ceramic roof-tiles, renders). NCSRD has quality capacity for computer modelling, mechanical, physical, and chemical analyses of materials, including, SEM/TEM, MIP/BET, DTA/TG, XRD, XRF. NCSRD combines Archaeological and Conservation Sciences with the development of Advanced Materials and Computational Materials Science.
Up2metric is an SME that develops innovative B2B software based on key-enabling technologies such as 3D vision, machine learning and extended reality. One of the company's main goals is to transfer state-of-the-art knowledge from the academic fields of Computer Vision, Photogrammetry, and Remote Sensing to the market. Up2metric has developed solutions in commercial and research projects (EU and National) on tangible and intangible cultural heritage, infrastructure inspection, industrial automation, and precision agriculture. In SINCERE, up2metric undertakes the task of developing an AR application to facilitate the BCH renovation, management, and maintenance (WP3, ICT Tools) and, of course, contribute to piloting and dissemination activities.
ECOAMA is an SME that offers architectural design and consulting services to private and public clients with attention to the clients' needs and sustainable solutions in high quality services. In addition to architectural practice, ECOAMA brings the nearly two-decades experience of ECOWEEK (NGO 2006-2022) in sustainable design education programs, bringing together academic learning, and hands-on placemaking, interventions, and light-construction in public space and public institutions in 17 countries. In SINCERE, ECOAMA collaborates with University of Malta and NetHood on defining the architectural importance and conservation problems of built Cultural Heritage, determining the optimum conservation approach and repair planning of the demos, from the architectural concept to preliminary and final design, to detailed plans for targeted interventions.
RIMOND is an integrated design, construction, and consultancy company for the full life cycle of the built assets providing unique end-to-end solutions to their clients. Bringing together the best international and forward-thinking professional teams, RIMOND offers deep interdisciplinary expertise across a wide range of sectors, supporting a unified set of professional skills and competencies that is unmatched in the industry: Integrated Design, Digital Design Technology, Project & Construction Management, Construction, Real Estate Consultancy and Research. In SINCERE, RIMOND develops digitization tools and processes in construction.
Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) participates in SINCERE with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, supported by the Laboratory for testing Materials, Buildings and Structures, which provides state-of-the-art equipment necessary for the testing of structures and structural elements, chemical-physical, mechanical testing of building materials environmental engineering, non-destructive monitoring and large-scale computing. The lab is also equipped with durability testing, equipment available to test the materials’ performance under freeze and thaw cycles, thermal shock, salt spray tests, artificial rain on wall samples, salt crystallization and UV aging. POLIMI leads WP4, Materials, and is also responsible for the life-cycle analysis studies of materials and systems (WP3, ICT Tools), implementation of durability evaluation and self-healing and corrosion inhibitors efficiency. POLIMI has coordinated the H2020 project ReSHEALience (GA760824) and participates in MSC-ITN SMARTINCS (GA 860006).
Universidad de Navarra is an institution that has always been committed to research, both in scientific and humanistic areas. Its ongoing commitment to research and its eagerness to improve at all levels has recently led it to join the European initiatives known as the "European Charter for Researchers" and the "Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers". The participant group, Materials & Cultural Heritage (MATCH), is focused in research of Building materials, mortars and grouts, for the rehabilitation and restoration of Cultural Heritage, Modified stones and mortars with enhancement of the thermal properties, self-cleaning features as well as the investigation and environmental valorisation of the interactions of new components in binder matrices (lime, OPC and aluminate cement), photocatalytic degradation of nitrogen oxides, NOx, and CO2 uptake. In SINCERE, the UNAV group oversees the development of thermal renders and plasters (PCMs) and hybrid radiative cooling coatings.
Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH) is founded in 2000 and is the only research centre in Northern Greece and one of the largest in the country. The Information Technologies Institute (ITI) was founded in 1998 as a non-profit organization under the auspices of the General Secretariat of Research and Technology of Greece with its head office located in Thessaloniki, Greece. The participating team of CERTH-ITI in SINCERE consists of the Multimodal Data Fusion and Analytics Group (M4D) of the Multimedia Knowledge and the Social Media Analytics Lab (MKLab). The team has significant experience and scientific expertise, among others, on Image and Video Analysis, Multimedia Understanding, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence (including Machine Learning and Deep Learning), Semantic Technologies and Integration of heterogeneous resources. Through the years, the team has participated in 77 European and national projects. In SINCERE, CERTH develops the semantic integration and reasoning module and the digital twins of CH buildings (WP3, ICT tools).
TITAN has the know-how of materials science and is able to develop, characterize and industrialize the production of novel restoration materials. TITAN Cement Group is the largest cement and building materials producer in Greece and ranked among the top 20 producers globally (Global Cement 2017-2018). Among TITAN's main tasks are GHG emission reduction strategies, valorisation of alternative fuels and raw materials, and the development of alternative cementitious materials. The portfolio of TITAN covers the production of cement, concrete, aggregates, mortars and other building materials and the processing and industrial utilization of fly ash. TITAN develops and optimizes low-carbon binders and mortars for WP5 (Energy), Energy, along with NCSRD and POLIMI that will also be used in demonstration actions in the SINCERE pilots.
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) is one of Israel's largest research universities. The BGU PI has wide experience in advanced building materials including cement and concrete composite materials, and particularly textile reinforced concrete (TRC), as well as alternative building materials such as hempcrete. The team at BGU has established a record in mechanical properties measurements, cracks monitoring including invisible ones inside the concrete before and during loading using acoustic emission (AE) non-destructive methods as well as microstructural and chemical analysis. In SINCERE, BGU will focus on the development of textile reinforced mortars and Hempcrete and oversee the feasibility and compatibility studies of structural reinforcement methods for both masonry-based and historic concrete heritage structures of 19th and 20th century, based on i) textile reinforcement and ii) fibre-reinforced mortars including hempcrete. BGU is in charge for the demonstration of those technologies in Israel and Greece.
NUROGAMES is an independent game development and software engineering company founded in 2006 in Cologne/Germany. NUROGAMES develops gaming and serious games solutions for consumers and for the industry. NUROGAMES covers the entire value chain of game development - from the initial idea to the final product - for all major mobile, web, PC, console, VR, AR and XR platforms with a track record of more than 14 years. In the SINCERE project, NUROGAMES builds a VR application for the digital twin using its expertise and previous work with VR, BIM modelling and environment building.
ACCIONA Construction S.A. is the construction business of ACCIONA group, with more than 35.000 employees, 7 billion turnover and a consolidated presence in the 5 continents. ACCIONA has its own R&D Technological Centre in Madrid with a team of more than 80 highly qualified researchers from a wide range of disciplines. The concrete research group leads the materials research in concrete and cementitious materials in the company: it has a wide experience in research projects where different types of recycled or valorised materials are incorporated into the concrete mix for improved performance, more durability or increased sustainability. Besides, it leads the in-house know-how and provides our projects with technical expertise for the optimization of the use of concrete on site. In SINCERE, ACCIONA is evaluating the novel materials in the building demo park located in Madrid. ACCIONA also performs the evaluation of the materials in 3 demo cases (WP2, Pilots).
The Service of Modern Monuments and Technical Works of the Dodecanese (S.M.M.T.W.D) is a regional service of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (HMC), based in Rhodes. It is responsible for the protection, maintenance, restoration, enhancement and integration of the recent, later than 1830, movable and immovable monuments and historic sites, as well as the intangible heritage associated with them. S.M.M.T.W.D participates in SINCERE WP2, Pilots, as a policy maker, technical workshops organizer but also as a conservation specialist, evaluator and end-user for the technologies and materials to be developed within the project.
Linköpings Universitet (LU) is expert on inorganic- and organic-based transport layers for different optoelectronic devices, including perovskite solar cells and LEDs, detectors, as well as organic solar cells, as well as a hole transport recipe for perovskite PV cells yielding high PCE (> 25% certified). They have achieved devices with state-of-the-art stability by resolving the interaction with inorganic transport materials and perovskite layers. LU leads the WP5, Energy, and develops perovskite BIPVs at lab-scale and large-scale.
MUSEum+ is a state contributory organisation of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. Its main task is the preparation and implementation of the reconstruction of the former blast furnaces and casting hall of Vítkovice Ironworks in Ostrava, a national cultural monument, and a European site of industrial heritage (part of ERIH) and its transformation into a modern museum. In SINCERE, MUSEum+ has the role of an end-user/demo provider on whose venue material solutions, ICT and digital tools will be applied and explored. MUSEum+ is also active in dissemination by raising stakeholders' and citizens' awareness at both national and European level. Finally, MUSEum+ serves as a model example for authorities' engagement and mainstreaming the principles of environmentally conscious 20th century heritage renovations into other publicly owned buildings.
University of Malta participates with the Department of Construction and Property Management, Materials Engineering and Structural Vulnerability group, which is focused on the teaching and research on construction systems and civil engineering, materials engineering and life cycle engineering including life cycle costs. University of Malta’s key Infrastructures include fully equipped labs for Materials and Civil Engineering properties, Life Cycle Analysis software, Micro and Nano Electronics Laboratories. In SINCERE, University of Malta collaborates with architects for the renovation projects’ management, i.e. the interventions actions at the demos. University of Malta also develops the technical seminars for structural retrofitting in historic constructions, best practices, and past examples for the dissemination of field demonstrations.
University of Sheffield participates in SINCERE with the Civil and Structural Engineering Department, is a national and international research leader in science and engineering for sustainability and resource optimisation. The world-renowned Computational Mechanics and Design group, together with the specialist expertise in cementitious materials and concrete structures provided by the Cements and Concrete research groups respectively, represent the ideal setting to develop advanced numerical approaches to modelling multi-physics problems. In SINCERE, the University of Sheffield leads the development of numerical analysis and material design models (WP3, ICT Tools).
University College London (UCL) was founded in 1826 and was the first University in England to admit any student regardless of their religious beliefs or gender. It is consistently ranked in the top-10 Universities in the World and has 30Nobel prize winners in its ranks. The Department of Electronic Engineering, where the research in radiative cooling will take place, was established in 1885 by Professor Sir Ambrose Fleming, inventor of the thermionic valve and widely considered as the father of modern electronics and was the first Department of electrical technology in the country. UCL is fully equipped to carry out the radiative cooling tasks in SINCERE (WP4, Materials). UCL is subcontracting the upscaling and optimization of production process for radiative cooling coatings to a subcontractor, for facilitating demonstration requirements and exploiting commercialization potential.
NetHood is a non-profit organisation based in Zurich, founded in January 2015. The concrete outcome of NetHood’s action research is the design and implementation of convivial tools that empower people in localities to get in contact, to learn collectively, and to self-organise around common projects. NetHood has strong facilitation, communication and dissemination competences, manifesting through key roles in big EU-funded projects such as technical leader (EuComMeet), interdisciplinary framework leader (MAZI), and dissemination leader (netCommons); the organisation of interdisciplinary events with high impact; the active engagement in international networks like the Internet Society (ISOC), and key role in local civil society organisations like co-founder of the L200 collective space and board member of Neustart Schweiz. In SINCERE, NetHood leads the communication and dissemination activities, and co-creation activities and living labs of the project.
Group photo
