On Wednesday 12 October 2022, teams of two Horizon2020 projects – rurAllure and VAST – had their first meeting focused on potential collaboration opportunities.  

The VAST project focuses on the transmission of moral values across space and time concentrating its research on three areas: Ancient Greek Drama, Scientific Revolution texts of the 17th century and Folklore & Fairy tales. VAST unites eight partners from five countries: the National Centre for Scientific Research Demokritos (Greece), University of Milan (Italy), University of Athens (Greece), NOVA University of Lisbon (Portugal), Fairy Τale Museum (Cyprus), Semantika (Slovenia), Museο Galileo (Italy) and the Athens & Epidaurus Festival (Greece). 

The VAST project envisages to bring fundamental European values to the forefront by using cutting-edge technologies to create a knowledge-based digital platform (VAST Platform). Through this electronic platform, the project aims to assist cultural institutions to curate, reuse, re-purpose their available materials, improving their communication approaches and enriching their services.  

During the meeting, VAST project coordinator Dr. Georgios Petasis and VAST partners Alfio Ferrara, Dora Katsamori, Elena Galifianaki and Maria Athanassopoulou, presented an overview of the project to the rurAllure team. 

rurAllure project coordinator Martin Lopez Nores together with Elena Dubinina and Simona Spinola, from the rurAllure communication team, shared their ideas on scientific collaboration and cross-marketing actions to be undertaken together.  

“The six cultural routes certified by Council of Europe and mapped by rurAllure pilots might be a perfect example of the common values promoted by rurAllure and Vast. Those are intercultural dialogue, shared European identity and human rights. This shared vision is a starting point for our collaboration”, Elena Dubinina commented.