UCL Institute of Archaeology participating in EC-funded Innovative Training Network

This 4-million euro Marie Sklodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, which will run from 2021 to 2025, will train Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) to conduct state-of-the-art, science-based research on the technology, use, and provenance of the most abundant materials in archaeological sites.

Eight universities and research centres from five countries have joined forces in this high-profile research partnership. The Cyprus Institute will co-ordinate the project’s consortium that also includes the University of Cyprus, the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos” in Greece, the British School at Athens, University College London and the University of Cambridge in the UK, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

The project will employ 15 doctoral researchers across the consortium, offering a wide range of training courses. Research will focus on the technology, know-how, raw materials and tools developed and employed for the production of pre-modern plasters and ceramics, in different regions of the eastern Mediterranean from prehistory to the post-medieval period.

The recruited Early-Stage Researchers will be enrolled as doctoral students at their host institutions, or in pre-identified universities, and the topic of their ESR project will also be the topic of their doctoral research towards a PhD title. The individual ESR fellowships will be announced separately by their respective host institutions.

Two ESRs will join the UCL Institute of Archaeology to work on prehistoric ceramics and plasters from Greece and Jordan in collaboration with colleagues at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of California San Diego. Patrick Quinn, Principal Research Fellow in Ceramic Petrography, will be the UCL scientist-in-charge and supervise the two UCL ESRs.

For general information about PlaCe-ITN and the ESR posts, please contact the project’s manager at the Cyprus Institute, Dr Maria Dikomitou-Eliadou, m.dikomitou@cyi.ac.cy