The IPERION HS proposal aims at establishing and operating an Integrating Activity for a distributed pan-European research infrastructure, opening key national research facilities of recognised excellence in heritage science. Heritage science is a young and cross-cutting scientific domain embracing a wide range of research disciplines enabling deeper understanding of the past and improved care for the future of heritage. Since 2016, heritage science is included in the ESFRI Roadmap as one of the strategic areas in the domain of Social Sciences and Humanities, where it is represented by the ESFRI Project E-RIHS (European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science). IPERION HS will provide to the advanced community of heritage science - built and reinforced with the support of four EU projects spanning across four Framework Programmes, approaching 20 years of constant service to the heritage domain - a further level of pan-European integration, in view of the establishment of E-RIHS. IPERION HS is a further step towards a unified scientific approach to the most advanced European instruments for the analysis, interpretation, preservation, documentation and management of heritage objects in the fields of art history, conservation, archaeology and palaeontology. IPERION HS core activity will be offering Trans-National Access to a wide range of high-level scientific instruments, methodologies, data and tools for advancing knowledge and innovation in the domain. In addition, IPERION HS will contribute joint innovative research for a better interoperability not limited to data, but including sample materials, methods and instruments. The networking activities in the project aim at reinforcing the binding in the group and at creating a sense of belonging for heritage science researchers which will exploit the RI services. IPERION HS consists of partners from 22 Countries clustered around their national nodes.

PALAMUSTO ETN, a network of leading European universities, heritage institutions and palace-museums, investigates the court residence or palace as a phenomenon of cultural exchange, not only in the past but also today and in the future. A new history of the palace is indeed needed in order to define its relevance for present-day Europe. The palace’s status as heritage, as prime touristic attraction and as part of the experience economy offers a continuous challenge to society in a global context, considering that the heritage industry is gradually replacing many traditional sectors of European economy. PALAMUSTO ETN offers multidisciplinary, trans-sectoral training to early career researchers who will become the first exponents of a new professional profile capable of meeting these challenges. Training through individual research on the palace, shored up by specific methodology modules, will run parallel with teaching the palace as heritage in all its complexity. PALAMUSTO researchers will learn to conserve, curate and manage the palace-museum on-site, interacting with professionals. They will learn to explain the palace’s societal relevance to all stakeholders and audiences engaged with this heritage. Together the PALAMUSTO researchers will establish a new history of the palace, based on the insight they gain in the material culture and architecture of the courts which constitute the case-studies of their doctoral research. They will map the patterns of diffusion of specified movable objects with representational value in the world of European courts, paying special attention to location and display; some of these define the palace as functional machine. In parallel, they will map specific representational architectural spaces of the palace, their functioning, placing, and routing to/from. The overlay of patterns of diffusion, realized through digital means based on a GIS platform, is expected to generate a new understanding of the court residence.

The European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science (E-RIHS) was designed as a pan-European distributed infrastructure with the vision of replacing the traditional science-for-art approach to conservation through the new widely interdisciplinary sector of Heritage Science (HS) to improve the understanding and sustainable preservation of cultural heritage. E-RIHS was admitted in the 2016 ESFRI Roadmap and is now preparing its step 2 application to take the legal form of an ERIC. The E-RIHS Implementation Phase (E-RIHS IP) consortium brings together representatives of the national nodes of the countries that expressed their willingness to support the establishment of the ERIC and one permanent observer. It aims at enabling the E-RIHS implementation phase and preparing the operation of E-RIHS ERIC, also in support of its positioning as the reference RI for the HS domain at the EU and global level. The objectives and methodology underpinning the E-RIHS IP work plan target and intend to overcome the bottlenecks highlighted in the recommendations of the 2020 ESFRI monitoring report, the EC High Level Expert Group report (2020) and the ERIC step 1 assessment (2021). Coordinated actions are dedicated to: (i) implement the E-RIHS governance structure and finalise its distributed architecture; (ii) support the E-RIHS management with strategies and related implementation plans regarding HR, procurement, risk management and quality system; (iii) maintain and build upon the established E-RIHS excellence in user access and foster FAIR open access with the design of the DIGILAB platform; (iv) strengthen international cooperation, cultivate synergies and consolidate the HS community around E-RIHS, while establishing E-RIHS in the landscape of EU RIs and global initiatives; (v) secure the ERIC sustainability and unlock its socioeconomic impact potential by providing E-RIHS with an updated business plan and a marketing strategy tailored for its new lifecycle phase.