The South Eastern Europe (SEE) and the South Mediterranean countries, such as Slovenia and Egypt, are particularly rich in cultural heritage (CH), creative talent and enormous tourism potential. Both countries reaffirm their commitment to deepening their cultural, political, economic, and social relations on the basis of their close cooperation and strategic partnership with priorities on sustainability and green and digital transitions. A Slovenian-Egyptian counterpart on Heritage Science (HS) could become a benchmark for UL participation in GUILD network through HS research, training, education and exchange of advanced interdisciplinary best practises, with Egypt as a strategic partner from the Arab/African region. In 2023, a colloquium on HS cooperation between Egypt and Slovenia was organised at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum (SEM), under the auspices of the University of Ljubljana (UL) and the Egyptian Embassy in Slovenia, with the participation of the SloveNile research group members (RGM) and experts from several academic and professional cultural heritage institutions. The aim of the meeting was to bring together experts and professionals from different backgrounds to share knowledge and experiences on Slovenian-Egyptian cooperation in the field of HS and to address key research challenges and discuss the scientific and research content of the preparatory and research project. The challenges, that were identified as urgent needs at the Slovenian-Egyptian colloquium, and that this RGM will be address through SloveNile are:
to enable the development of sustainability analysis tools based on life cycle-based methods and the nine principles of green heritage science;
to enable the development of new scientific tools and methods for the study of ancient Egyptian and Islamic heritage in Slovenia and Egypt;
to build expertise and academic strengths within UL for the development of new heritage science master programs with interdisciplinary teaching methods;
to develop the role of integrated research infrastructures, such as the Slovenian node of the European Research Infrastructures for Heritage Science (E-RIHS Si) and Egyptian counterparts, in the EU funded projects and new master programs.
Objectives:
The purposes of the project are to:
- enable the formulation of interdisciplinary scientific research contents in the field of HS, within the UL framework of sustainability and internationalisation in order to obtain EU funding for at least two research projects;
- form project groups and research proposals by organising internal and external creative workshops and meetings, as well as conducting literature reviews and fundamental research involving young researchers;
- create the necessary basis for joint master programmes of heritage science by organising meetings on hotspot topics such as (i) heritage sustainability, (ii) management of research infrastructure, or (iii) the role of heritage science in achieving the SDGs.;
- develop a permanent platform of joint Slovenian-Egyptian actions in heritage science at the UL connecting the RGM with national and international stakeholders from Slovenia and Egypt as well as globally.
Partnership:
SloveNile is funded by: RSUL for preparatory research projects aimed at establishing interdisciplinary research groups.
The team consists of academics with a broad range of expertise as required by the research group’s remit. The team members have a background in the humanities and social sciences as well as in the natural and engineering sciences. Such a diversity of collaborative research group will greatly benefit the project and ensure that the proposed activities are relevant and responsive to the global challenges that this project aims to make its mark on. The group is led by the Heritage Science Lab at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology (FKKT) and consists of 17 participating researchers from 6 faculties of UL including: Faculty of Arts (FF), Biotechnical Faculty (BF), Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering (NTF), School of Economics and Business (EF), Academy of Fine Arts and Design (ALOU), Faculty of Electrotechnical (FE).
Contact:
For more information, please follow the project activities on: https://www.e-rihs.si/slovenile/