PIONEER is an Alliance of European Universities dedicated to SDG 11 'Sustainable Cities and Communities', addressing the need for cities to become inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The alliance brings together 10 impact-driven universities, including an associated Swiss partner, and covers 32 cities and 16 regions across Europe. By bringing together academics, public institutions, private organisations and citizens in our orchestration framework, we will develop joint challenge-based education, impact-driven research and innovation co-creation initiatives that contribute to many European, regional and urban agendas, such as the EU Green Deal and the 'Fit for 55' package. To this end, PIONEER will also be a facilitator of inter-institutional learning and a tool for institutional change. We will achieve this ambition through strategic integration at the institutional level: gradually aligning our individual strategies and institutional trajectories, building a common development strategy to become truly international institutions integrated in a federal framework.This framework will be inspired by the European Union, with a strong strategic centre that draws on and supports the diversity and autonomy of our partners to build a flexible and complementary academic ecosystem, while working together on a common strategy and development path. Committed to spreading European values and promoting inclusion and diversity, the PIONEER Open Campus will offer seamless mobility for students and unique leadership development opportunities for staff. Our Knowledge Hub will enable member universities and over 40 associated partners from regional ecosystems to work together on matters concerning SDG11.

The research will focus on the dynamics of Christian built religious heritage: chapels, churches, monasteries, and convents (maintaining, or not, their original functions). Alentejo region (southern Portugal), is the groundwork for the development of novel cross-disciplinary analysis. Due to historical, cultural, and socio-economic factors, this territory has accommodated a great number of religious built structures. Nowadays, more than 30% is unused. In other cases, religious heritage sites still serve small and often dwindling communities. Indeed, this region shows the lowest population density in Portugal (5 times less than the national average), with a high rate of aging, and inequality in terms of access to employment and education. It is urgent to understand how to (re)integrate this endogenous resource, providing solutions to contemporary challenges, and pursuing the interrelated well-being of heritage and society as a whole. Building on this framework: How can we trigger new ways of thinking about religious heritage, through the lens of dynamism, sustainability, and innovation?

Over the centuries, religious built heritage played and essential role in Europe, shaping social, economic, environmental and cultural values. It defined communities and left a deep imprint on territorial development and their silhouettes, still visible in present-day city landscape. In Portugal, as well as in Norway, at present, the dominant religions face common challenges, socially, in terms of dwindling communities, environmentaly and economically, due to the reduction of the number of parishes and the territorial change that result from this. this often leads to a low utilization rate or even redundancy of religious buildings. The transHERITAGE iniciative aims to establish a first cooperation among Portuguese and Norwegian partners, aimed at knowledge sharing and creating access to innovative solutions using the transformative role of religious heritage: its potential to cause importante and enduring changes in the territories of northern and southern Europe.

Program and monitoring of scientific and technological research activities for master's students, integrated into the international project “F-Atlas | Franciscan Landscapes” and in “COST ACTION CA18214 - The geography of New Workspaces and the impact on the periphery”. SUMMER WITH SCIENCE is a special support for scientific and technological research activities in R&D units to boost scientific and technological capacity and its relationship with higher education and society. The program provided for the funding of 11 research initiation grants for a period of one month, with an amount of €5303.32, from funds from the State Budget.

The project aims to combine traditional and innovative techniques, in order to develop methodologies, protocols and risk assessment tools and create user-friendly interfaces for the management and preservation of cultural heritage.

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