Team

INOVA+ is a consultancy company that for 25 years has supported the growth of organisations through innovation, international cooperation, digital transformation, and access to funding. INOVA+ is the Portuguese leading company in the field of the promotion, management, dissemination, and exploitation of international projects on Innovation, Training and Research & Technological Development, having supported over 500 organizations across various sectors, managed more than 300 projects, and coordinated more than 30 European projects. Since 2016, INOVA+ has been involved in various actions promoted within the S+T+ARTS initiative in which it has coordinated the enlargement and strengthening of S+T+ARTS community; the design, update, and promotion of co-creation methodologies; and promoted capacity building programmes. The company brings together and has access to a multidisciplinary team, comprised of professionals with proven experience in data collection and analysis, training, monitoring, digital technology development, designers, among others. The range of services and competences provided by INOVA+, includes project management and coordination, research and needs analysis, policy analysis, development of didactic and training materials and contents, networking, evaluation, event planning, communication and dissemination, exploitation, and transfer of results. The focus is on people and projects that contribute to mastering the social, ecological, and economic challenges the EU faces.

INOVA+ is the Project Coordinator, therefore it leads the Work Package on “Project management and Coordination”. It is responsible for overseeing the project's governance, ensuring that all operational, financial, legal, and contractual obligations are executed. INOVA+ is also in charge of guaranteeing that the VOICE Consortium meets its formal objectives, adheres to the allocated budget, maintains quality and accuracy in results, delivers planned deliverables and information to stakeholders on time, monitors progress, and manages risks, including reporting to the European Commission and relevant stakeholders.

Waag was established in 1994 by Marleen Stikker and Caroline Nevejan, emerging from the groundbreaking 'De Digitale Stad' (the digital city), an early internet access point and social media hub. Stikker led the charge in pioneering the digital public sphere, chronicling its evolution in her book 'Het internet is stuk (maar we kunnen het repareren)' (The internet is broken, but we can fix it). Originally known as the 'Society for Old and New Media,' Waag has transformed into a Future Lab exploring the intersection of technology, art, and science.

Today, Waag Futurelab is dedicated to crafting a sustainable, equitable society through collective research on emerging technologies and challenging cultural norms. We experiment, design, and advocate for alternatives rooted in public values, fostering an open, fair, and inclusive future in collaboration with civil society.

In VOICE, Waag Futurelab leads two Work Packages Art-Technology-Society interactions (ATSI) phase 1 and ATSI implementation phase 2.

ATSI phase one seeks to use art to put into action the discoveries from WP2 and WP3, using special programs called "invited ATSI schemes" to help communities tackle local sustainability issues through artist interventions. Through VOICE, we'll explore ways to share and test existing programs that blend art, technology, and community involvement, making it easier for everyone to benefit from new ideas and solutions.

In phase 2 we will aim to coordinate 20 socially engaged art initiatives/ works to link communities and empower them to address sustainability challenges unique to their region and social or cultural contexts. VOICE will concentrate on adapting and testing existing arts-technology-citizen interaction methods to facilitate the adoption of research findings and creative solutions by both society and the market.

UCD is one of Europe's leading research-intensive universities; an environment where undergraduate education, masters and PhD training, research, innovation, and community engagement form a dynamic spectrum of activity.

Since its foundation, the University has made a unique contribution to the creation of modern Ireland, based on successful engagement with Irish society on every level and across every sphere of activity. The international standing of UCD has grown in recent years; it is currently ranked within the top 1% of higher education institutions world-wide. UCD is also Ireland's most globally engaged university with over 38,000 students drawn from 152 countries, including over 5,000 students based at locations outside of Ireland. The University's main Dublin campus occupies an extensive parkland estate of 133 hectares and offers world-leading facilities including the UCD O'Brien Centre for Science, UCD Sutherland School of Law, UCD Lochlan Quinn School of Business, UCD Moore Centre for Business, and the UCD Student Centre.

As Ireland's largest university, with its great strength and diversity of disciplines, UCD embraces its role to contribute to the flourishing of Ireland through the study of people, society, business, economy, culture, languages, and the creative arts, as well as through research and innovation. The University's Strategy 2020-2024 Rising to the Future outlines the objectives and major strategic initiatives set in place to accomplish UCD's vision for this era.

Founded in 2000, the European Research and Project Office GmbH (EURICE) provides comprehensive support services for the planning, initiation, and implementation of international collaborative research and innovation projects. Today, EURICE ranks among Europe’s largest project management offices. In addition to offering backbone services for successful project management, EURICE is also managing impact and innovation in all areas of research and innovation projects. In order to pave the way for successful project exploitation, EURICE supports consortia in identifying, capturing, protecting and nurturing the Intellectual Property (IP) generated in research collaborations. Thus, Eurice accompanies researchers and innovative companies through the entire life cycle of a project – from the first idea to successful project completion – and beyond.

In VOICE, EURICE leads the Work Package “Outreach, dissemination & sustainability”. Thus, EURICE will be involved in the synthesis of the results from the scientific Work Packages, and support innovation-related activities such as dissemination and exploitation of results to maximize project impact. To the same end, EURICE will drive outreach and communication activities of the project.

Future Focus21c employs innovative, creative strategies to foster profound learning through tangible, evidence-based activities across our three key pillars of work: Research, Innovation and Delivery in education and community contexts. By tapping into and cultivating the creativity of learners, individuals and professionals we aim to instil innovative thinking that is applicable across various domains and locally relevant, appropriate and context-responsive. Our goal is to equip individuals for the challenges of the 21st century by providing experiences that facilitate the development of both content knowledge and practical skills with real-world applications. Collaborating with fellow researchers, we strive to reimagine various facets of contemporary life, aligning education, lifelong learning and professional development with the genuine needs of society today. Our comprehensive approach represents Ireland's sole research-driven, evidence-based, systemic, and integrated programmes and approaches, encompassing place-based STEAM education, circular design thinking in solution-oriented projects, inquiry-based learning, and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals and the Earth Charter.

• Leading the development of a sustainable deployment toolkit for ATSI
• The pCr orientation for artists on pilots and ASTI schemes
• Analysis and Assessment of Outcomes on pilot ATSI and ATSI schemes
• Contributing with SMARTlab IDRC’s Inclusive Design; the underpinning Methodology and Evaluation to consolidate the Community of Practice and Ecosystem Scanning of regions, technologies and concerns
• Contributing with RCA, Waag and UCD to Commissioning and mentoring artists

RISE is a research and innovation driven company committed to nurturing innovation culture, with a particular emphasis on the EU13 countries. RISE empowers the innovation ecosystem, promoting scientific excellence, fostering collaborations between research organisations, academia, and industry to enhance the prospects for creating inventive solutions and to strengthen competitiveness. The company offers comprehensive support services for the planning, initiation, and implementation of international collaborative research and innovation projects. With a focus on project management, impact assessment, and innovation cultivation throughout all project stages, RISE ensures successful project outcomes. Moreover, RISE is dedicated to guiding consortia in identifying, protecting, and managing Intellectual Property (IP) generated from research collaborations thus facilitating translation of research findings into sustainable products and solutions, contributing to economic, environmental, and social benefits, as well as improved policymaking for the public good.

In VOICE, RISE co-leads the Work Package “Outreach, dissemination & sustainability”. Thus, RISE will be involved in the synthesis of the results from the scientific Work Packages, and support innovation-related activities such as dissemination and exploitation of results to maximize project impact. To the same end, RISE will drive outreach and communication activities of the project.

The Royal College of Art is the UK’s only entirely postgraduate university of art and design, dedicated to teaching, research and knowledge exchange with industry. Founded in 1837, the Royal College of Art is the world’s largest community of postgraduate art and design students. It is also the oldest art and design university in continuous operation and has been ranked as the world's number one art and design university for a remarkable nine consecutive years, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 – the worldwide survey of academic and industry opinion. The College is located on three sites in central London, in Battersea, Kensington, and White City.

As well as welcoming students from around the world, the College’s global dimension is enhanced through extensive links with business and industry and its partnerships with leading art and design, cultural and educational institutions including, among many others, its neighbours in Kensington (Imperial College London, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal College of Music, the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum). Numerous eminent graduates have created far-reaching impact and influence, and the College boasts such noteworthy alumni as Sir James Dyson, Thomas Heatherwick, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Christopher Bailey, Julien McDonald, Margaret Calvert, Alison Jackson, Idris Khan, Sir Quentin Blake, Sir David Adjaye, Suzie Templeton and Sir Ridley Scott.

The School of Communication

The School of Communication is a collective community, which aims to co-create inclusive, intercultural communication and experiences. The school offers students and researchers the opportunity to develop their practices and careers as artists, communicators, curators, designers, and writers. All are encouraged to focus in depth on the particularities of their own work while also being exposed to critically diverse positions across the school and to wider contexts and issues beyond, both across the College and in relation to challenges of societal, environmental, economic, and cultural importance. Through exchanging dialogues, histories, and narratives, we create a space to encourage participation, learning and empowerment. The school has a distinctive research and knowledge exchange culture, based upon a dynamic interplay between communication practice and theory. We explore social, political, environmental, and philosophical implications of VR, AR, Al and quantum technologies in storytelling, experimental communication systems and interfaces. We conceptualise, craft and curate in many mediums including spatio-temporal experiences and soundscapes. Our goal is to support our research and knowledge exchange in addressing key strategic opportunities and challenges, linking effectively with national and international themes, and securing an increasing level of funding required to undertake research and knowledge exchange that is world-leading and internationally excellent.

The RCA Led by Dr Baker, will work across the Work Packages and lead on several tasks within other WP’s in the overall project, especially those that are focussed on artist invitation, selection, the mentoring framework, expert management in relation to mentoring, and working with communities, as well as contributing to the communities of practice (CoP) mapping, and scheme analysis and archiving, building on her experience in previous EU Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and FP7 projects (STARTS Ecosystem, WEAR Sustain, and FET-Art/ICT&Art Connect) working on artistic collaboration and artistic thinking as it catalyses communities, industry and institutions, as well as other Horizon Europe participants, research institutions, SMEs, IT providers and potential investors across Europe. The main challenge will be to combine artistic creative freedom with technology transfer processes.
The RCA will focus on maintaining artistic integrity of collaborations, within communities and criticality on ethics and sustainability issues as well as other community-identified issues, nurturing these aspects within the collaborative initiative/experiments and project development facilitated by the project in terms of its aims and objectives.

Brunel University London is a world-class research university, combining a technical focus with research excellence that is closely aligned with the needs of equitable and inclusive, environmentally-sustainable global societies and economies. With a strong social mission, distinctive staff talent and highly employable graduates, Brunel has exceptional international reach from our London campus. Brunel Design School’s role in the VOICE project is focused on skills development on human centric innovation, and coordination with other partners to valorise artist-led innovation through citizen engagement in Europe.

Professor Hua Dong is the Brunel Principal Investigator of the VOICE project. She specializes in inclusive design and will lead the Brunel team to deliver the skills development on human centric innovation for the VOICE project.

Dr Hitesh Patel is Senior Business Development Manager at Brunel University London’s Research Support and development office. He supports the VOICE project developing partnerships.

Research Assistant (currently under-recruitment) will support the VOICE consortium to complete relevant tasks.