Speakers

Unfortunately the REACH conference planned for the 4-5 June 2020 in Pisa has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Silvana Colella - Coventry University - is Professor of English at the University of Macerata, in central Italy, and Senior Research Fellow at Coventry University. Her primary scholarly work focuses on nineteenth century British literature and culture. She has published books and articles on women writers, gender and feminist theories, and the interconnections between literature and economic thought. More recently her research interests have expanded to include cultural heritage as an area of critical inquiry. In 2015, she was appointed President of the European Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centres (ECHIC).

Neil Forbes, REACH Project Coordinator - Coventry University– is Professor of International History at Coventry University, UK. His research interests and publications lie in the fields of Cultural Heritage (conflict, contested landscapes and the memorialisation of war), the interaction of foreign policy formulation with the practices of multinational enterprise during the interwar years, the processes of financial stabilisation after the First World War, and Anglo-American relations and the rise of the Third Reich. He has played a leading role in several research projects, including a £1m digitisation and creative archiving project in association with the UK’s BT and The National Archives, and has recently acted as Co-ordinator of the EU’s FP7 RICHES project - Renewal, Innovation and Change: Heritage and European Society. He is a member of several professional associations and other bodies.

Antonella Fresa, REACH Network Coordinator - ICT expert, Director of Design and General Manager at Promoter SRL, she has been working on European cooperation projects since the nineties. Since 2002, she is Technical Coordinator and Communication Manager of national and European projects in the domains of digital cultural heritage, creativity and co-creation, citizen science, smart cities, digital preservation and eInfrastructures. From 2002 to 2012, she has been advisor of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, technical coordinator of the Ministry’s EC funded projects on digitisation, and from its establishment until 2012 Member of the Concertation Table between the Ministry of Culture (MiBAC) and the Ministry of Research (MIUR). From 1999 to 2002, she was Project Officer by the European Commission in Brussels. Previously, adviser of innovation agencies, Italian and European enterprises, universities and research centres. From 1980 until 1989 researcher at Olivetti in Pisa, Ivrea and Cupertino (CA, USA). She has been reviewer in the Call for the Portuguese National Roadmap of Research Infrastructures of Strategic Relevance (FCT, Portugal) and for the Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD-GmbH). She regularly serves as independent expert and evaluator for the European Commission. She is Vice-President of the PHOTOCONSORTIUM International Association for valuing photographic heritage and she is enterprise fellow at Coventry University. Founding member of IDEA - International Digital Epigraphy Association.

Tim Hammerton, REACH Project Manager - Coventry University - is an experienced project manager having most recently held that role for the highly regarded FP7 RICHES and CIP Europeana Space projects, coordinated by Coventry University.  He has previously managed European mobility and significant European funded projects, including the redundancy and redeployment contracts when the large MG Rover and Peugeot car factories closed; successfully meeting outcomes, within budget. As a result, he was invited to sit on regional committees such as the West Midlands Regional Redundancy Strategy Group and other key working groups to provide advice on developing effective project management infrastructure. His cultural heritage credentials are demonstrated, as he has had a Coventry located Treasure Trail published, using historical buildings and information as clues, which is now available to the general public.

Dr. Perla Innocenti - University of Strathclyde – is Senior Lecturer in Information Science at the University of Strathclyde, UK. She is a cultural heritage scholar, deeply engaged with curating, making accessible, and sustainably reusing tangible and intangible heritage via socio-technical means. She is an experienced PI and Co-I in several EU-funded and national grants, has published widely, and collaborated with over 150 organisations in Europe and beyond. Her work currently embraces passions focussed around digital technologies and intangible heritage practices. Recent research includes cultural networks in migrating heritage, food heritage traditions of marginalised groups, use of digital technologies in hiking and pilgrimage routes. Her expertise also encompasses digital preservation, digital libraries and repositories, digital imaging, museum and art history. For further information: https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/innocentiperladr/.

Zoltán Krasznai is senior policy officer at the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation, in unit E.6 'Economic and Social Transitions'. Zoltán is historian, holding his PhD from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) of Paris. At the European Commission he is the secretary of the Horizon 2020 Programme Committee in charge of social sciences and humanities (Societal Challenge 6: Europe in a changing world. Innovative, inclusive and reflective societies). He also coordinates the drafting of the new Horizon Europe work programme for Cluster 2: Culture, creativity and inclusive societies. In recent years he contributed to European research and innovation initiatives about culture and cultural heritage. Before joining the European Commission in 2013, Zoltán worked at the European Economic and Social Committee, a consultative body of the European Union.
http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/index.cfm?pg=home
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/
https://ec.europa.eu/info/designing-next-research-and-innovation-framework-programme/what-shapes-next-framework-programme_en

Gábor Sonkoly  - ELTE University - (CSc, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1998; Ph.D. EHESS, Paris, 2000; Dr. habil. ELTE, Budapest, 2008; DSc, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2017) is a Professor of History, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Director of the Doctoral School of History at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. He is the author of Les villes en Transylvanie moderne, 1715-1857 (2011) and Historical Urban Landscape (2017). He published three monographs in Hungarian, edited four volumes and wrote more than seventy articles and book chapters on urban history, urban heritage and critical history of cultural heritage. He presented at more than hundred international colloquia and was a guest professor in eleven countries of five continents. He is the scientific coordinator of TEMA+ Erasmus Mundus European Master’s Course entitled European Territories: Heritage and Development. He is Member of the Panel for European Heritage Label. He is an active EC expert since 2016. He is the Knight of the French Order of Academic Palms (2011).