Description:

MATRES is an interdisciplinary research initiative exploring how societies adapt to environmental and social change through their interactions with the material world. The project focuses on resilience, defined as societies’ ability to withstand, adapt to, recover from, and even transform in response to external shocks, stresses, and challenges. We investigate landscapes, materials, bodies, and technologies to understand long-term resilience and to inform sustainable responses to today’s challenges.

The project connects researchers from various faculties of the University of Ljubljana (UL), Slovenian institutions, and international partners. It builds on long-standing collaborations in research projects, infrastructure development (including E-RIHS.si), and joint publications across heritage science, archaeology, environmental research, material analysis, and digital technologies.

MATRES’s key long-term goal is to formalize this collaboration through the establishment of the Slovenian Heritage Research Partnership, connecting UL faculties and extending to the wider research community. This long-term vision supports joint research, project applications, education, information sharing, and UL’s active role in international networks and initiatives.

Objectives:

MATRES approaches resilience through a broad and integrated perspective that goes beyond ecological or economic aspects to include landscapes, materials, human bodies, and digital technologies. These elements represent the tangible and intangible dimensions of human experience that have shaped societal responses to climate fluctuations, natural disasters, pandemics, economic downturns, political upheavals, and social unrest across history.

A central aim of MATRES is to enhance our understanding of resilience by linking environmental data with archaeological and historical evidence. This allows the project to reconstruct past environments and reveal how human societies have interacted with, adapted to, or transformed their surroundings on local, regional, and superregional scales. By treating landscapes as dynamic, interconnected human-environment systems, MATRES provides valuable insights into long-term social and environmental change.

Additionally, the project explores materials, ranging from natural resources to cultural artifacts, as carriers of social, cultural, and technological significance, tracing how they have been used, valued, and transformed across time. It also studies human bodies both as biological entities embedded in ecosystems and as cultural constructs that reflect resilience and adaptability.

Digital Twin Platform

One of the project’s key innovations is the development of a “multi-layered digital twin”, a dynamic virtual environment that integrates diverse datasets, computational models, simulations, interactive visualizations and tools for analysis, prediction and decision-making. This twin will function as an open and interoperable platform that unifies data, modelling tools, simulation engines, and services, visual interfaces, and opportunities for public participation.

Designed for long-term evolution, the digital twin/platform will continue to expand in scope and complexity even beyond the project’s duration, supporting advanced hypothesis testing, scenario planning, risk assessment and informed decision-making for sustainable cultural heritage management and spatial planning. It will offer participatory access for researchers, policymakers, and the wider public, ensuring that research results are not only scientifically robust but also practical and actionable.

MATRES digital twin will enable the development of sustainable and resilient responses to ongoing environmental and social challenges, providing a dynamic powerful tool to simulate system behaviour, assess future risks, and guide strategic decisions for experts and decision-makers.

Impact

Ultimately, MATRES seeks to position the University of Ljubljana as a global hub for interdisciplinary heritage research, foster collaboration across disciplines and promote sustainable heritage tourism and education as well as public engagement. By bridging science and society, past insights with future challenges, MATRES helps build resilient communities capable of facing the complex environmental and social challenges of today and the future.

By bridging past insights with future challenges, MATRES offers practical, data-driven solutions and fosters a deeper understanding of how societies can endure, adapt, and transform in times of change.

Partnership:

MATRES brings together:

University of Ljubljana faculties:

Slovenian partner institutions:

International collaborators:

Further information is available at:

MATRES – Materialna odpornost v času okoljskih in družbenih sprememb | Filozofska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani

 

Scientific achievements:

Papers

  • GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, PRIJATELJ, Agni, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, BURJA, Jaka, ŠETINA, Barbara, BRAJKOVIČ, Rok, TOŠKAN, Borut, TOLAR, Tjaša, GRČMAN, Helena and ČREŠNAR, Matija, 2024, Macro to micro stratigraphic and artefactual evidence from an Early Iron Age smithy at the Pungrt hillfort (Central Slovenia): the dataset.
    Zaključena znanstvena zbirka raziskovalnih podatkov, 2024:
    https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/IzpisGradiva.php?lang=slv&id=164943
  • GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, TOLAR, Tjaša, PRIJATELJ, Agni, ŠETINA, Barbara, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, GRČMAN, Helena and ČREŠNAR, Matija, 2024, Carbonised plant remains and geochemical signals from an Early Iron Age smithy from Pungrt Hillfort: dataset. Zaključena znanstvena zbirka raziskovalnih podatkov, 2024.
    https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/IzpisGradiva.php?lang=slv&id=167014
  • GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, PRIJATELJ, Agni, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, BURJA, Jaka, ŠETINA, Barbara, BRAJKOVIČ, Rok, TOŠKAN, Borut, TOLAR, Tjaša, GRČMAN, Helena, ČREŠNAR, Matija, et al. From macro to micro approaches in settlement archaeology: a case study of an Early Iron Age smithy at the Pungrt hillfort (Central Slovenia). Documenta Praehistorica, 2025, 52, str. 2-35, ilustr. ISSN 1854-2492.
    https://journals.uni-lj.si/DocumentaPraehistorica/article/view/20678/18094, Repozitorij Univerze v Ljubljani – RUL, dCOBISS, DOI: 10.4312/dp.52.5. [COBISS.SI-ID 229519363], [Odprti dostop, SNIP]
  • GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, PRIJATELJ, Agni, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, BURJA, Jaka, ŠETINA, Barbara, BRAJKOVIČ, Rok, TOŠKAN, Borut, TOLAR, Tjaša, GRČMAN, Helena, ČREŠNAR, Matija, et al. Macro to micro stratigraphic and artefactual evidence from an Early Iron Age smithy at the Pungrt hillfort (Central Slovenia). Journal of open archaeology data. 2025, vol. 13, str. 1-9, ilustr. ISSN 2049-1565.
    https://openarchaeologydata.metajnl.com/articles/145/files/67d2b9cd83e12.pdf, Repozitorij Univerze v Ljubljani – RUL, dCOBISS, DOI: 10.5334/joad.145. [COBISS.SI-ID 229597443], [Odprti dostop, SNIP, WoS].
  • GRUŠKOVNJAK, Luka, TOLAR, Tjaša, PRIJATELJ, Agni, ŠETINA BATIČ, Barbara, VOJAKOVIĆ, Petra, GRČMAN, Helena and ČREŠNAR, Matija, Tracing Invisible Hearths and Daily Routines Through Carbonized Plant Remains and Geochemical Signals in an Early Iron Age Smithy at Pungrt Hillfort, Slovenia.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5141009
  • ŠMIT, Žiga, and MILAVEC, Tina. 2025. “Analysis of Late Antique and Medieval Glass from Koper (Capodistria, SI): Insights into Glass Consumption and Production at the Turn of the First Millennium CE” Materials 18, no. 9: 2135.
    https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/18/9/2135
  • RIJAVEC, Tjaša, BUJOK, Sonia, ANTROPOV, Sergii, NEWSOME, G. Asher, GRAU-BOVÉ, Josep, KRALJ CIGIĆ, Irena, KRUCZAŁA, Krzysztof, BRATASZ, Łukasz, STRLIČ, Matija, Heritage PVC objects: Understanding the diffusion-evaporation of plasticizers, Polymer Degradation and Stability, Volume 235, 2025, 111270, ISSN 0141-3910.
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141391025001004
  • PAOLIN, Emma, BEMBIBRE, Cecilia, DI GIANVICENZO, Fabiana, TORRES-ELGUERA, Julio Cesar, DERAZ, Randa, KRAŠEVAC, Ida et al. (1753). Ancient Egyptian Mummified Bodies: Cross-Disciplinary Analysis of Their Smell. ACS Publications. Collection. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2025 147 (8), 6633-6643
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.4c15769
  • NOVAK, Mario, GRAU-BOVÉ, Josep, RIJAVEC, Tjaša. et al. A quantitative study of acetic acid emissions from historical cellulose acetate at room conditions. npj Herit. Sci. 13, 22 (2025)
    https://doi.org/10.1038/s40494-025-01551-y
  • KRAŠEVEC, Ida, KRAVOS, Aleksander, RETKO, Klara, KRALJ CIGIĆ, Irena, STRLIČ, Matija, MAHGOUB, Hend, Impact of accumulation of organic acids on the degradation of cellulose in historic paper, Carbohydrate Polymers, Volume 352, 2025, 123163, ISSN 0144-8617
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144861724013894?via%3Dihub
  • SAAD, Marwa, BUCKI, Marek, BUJOK, Sonia, PAWCENIS, Dominika, RIJAVEC, Tjaša, GÓRECKI, Karol, BRATASZ, Łukasz, KRALJ CIGIĆ, Irena, STRLIČ, Matija, KRUCZAŁA, Krzysztof, The impact of heat and humidity on unplasticized poly(vinyl chloride), Polymer Degradation and Stability, Volume 238, 2025, 111334, ISSN 0141-3910,
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0141391025001648