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IN2PAST was granted the statute of Associate Laboratory in February 2021 and signed the program contract with FCT in the beggining of 2022. Already operational, it started to generate intensive collaborative relations between:
1. Academic, laboratory-based,
theoretical and empirical research;
2. Public policies concerning the domains of cultural heritage, arts and civic memory;
3. An important set of Portuguese cultural institutions and facilities, namely monuments, museums, archives, archaeological sites and natural parks.
Often divided by type of facilities or disciplinary fields, the study and promotion of cultural heritage finds in IN2PAST a perfect institutional environment, by bringing together scientific areas often set apart by academic tradition.
IN2PAST has a unique multidisciplinary nature, joining chemists, art historians, musicologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, architects, urban planners, archivists, museologists, geologists, and biochemists, among others.
Furthermore, it encourages the establishment of connections between tangible and intangible (including digital) cultural heritage.
IN2PAST extends its operations from laboratorial innovation in the field of heritage sciences to the design of collective memory public policies, favouring the emergence of an integrated vision with the related partners and stakeholders.
IN2PAST brings together SEVEN RESEARCH UNITS present throughout the Portuguese territory:
Established in 2009, HERCULES Lab is a research infrastructure at the University of Évora, devoted to the study and valorization of cultural heritage, focusing on the integration of physical and material sciences methodologies and tools in interdisciplinary approaches.
The Institute of Contemporary History (IHC) is the largest R&D unit in its field in Portugal, with branches at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (NOVA FCSH), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and at the University of Évora. It hosts the Digital Humanities Laboratory.
The Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA) is an interuniversity research and development unit founded in 2007, based on four universities: ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, University of Coimbra and University of Minho.
Lab2PT is an R&D unit at the University of Minho focused on Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities. Created at the end of 2013, it is currently composed of researchers from different areas, namely Archaeology, Urbanism, Architecture, Visual Arts, Design, Geography, Geology and History.
CESEM is a research unit dedicated to the study of Music and its correlations with the other arts, culture and society, incorporating diverse approaches and making use of the most recent perspectives and methodologies in the Social and Human Sciences interdisciplinary approaches.
IHA is an R&D unit hosted by NOVA FCSH, committed to Portuguese art history and to the field globally. Not only Portuguese art history entwines with general art history questions, but artistic production is also historically related to distinct geographies (European, Asian, African and American).
An R&D unit at the University of Évora, CHAIA’s main scope of intervention is the study of the various forms of historical-artistic, landscape and monumental legacy, towards a consolidation of knowledge on the various modes of artistic expression, including creation, practice and spatial intervention.
An Associate Laboratory is made up of one or more R&D Units, seeking the pursuit of specific national scientific and technological policy objectives. It is up to the Portuguese public agency Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) to propose the granting of the Associate Laboratory status. Associate Laboratories are formally consulted by the government and public administration on the definition of programs and instruments for national scientific and technological policy. One of the differentiating aspects of an Associate Lab is the ability to promote scientific or technical careers suitable for PhD holders.
«The idea of creating an associate laboratory with the goal of contributing to the definition of public policies in the area of Heritage and Arts arose from the contemporaneity of Avenida de Berna, materialized itself in Évora and gained a territorial dimension in Minho.»
António Candeias, IN2PAST President of the Board
«Chemists devoted to the restoration and conservation of cultural heritage, who in 2020 were already contributing to the study and protection of art works such as the ‘São Vicente Panels’, met with contemporary historians and anthropologists interested in Critical Studies on Heritage, as well as protest movements against state memory policies, like the ones carried out by Black Lives Matter!.»
José Neves, IN2PAST Vice-President
2024 © IN2PAST. All rights reserved.
IN2PAST – Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory is funded by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I. P. under reference LA/P/0132/2020 (DOI 10.54499/LA/P/0132/2020)
