UNIGE’s Department of Life & Health Science (DISTAV) will coordinate the project. UNIGE’s project team will be drawn from the Laboratory of Environmental Archaeology & History (LASA, www.lasa.unige.it) and the School of Archaeology in the Department of Antiquity, Archaeology & History (DAFIST). The team – and the IRIS project as a whole – will be led by Dr Sebastiano Salvidio (Associate Professor, zoology). His expertise in traditional practices as a means of preserving animal biodiversity, and in biodiversity as a form of cultural heritage, provide an excellent basis for leading the IRIS project, which aims to connect traditional practices, cultural heritage and wider social and environmental benefits. This multidisciplinary team has extensive experience in the study of rural areas. The project archaeologists bring expertise in cultural heritage, while the geologists and zoologists will contribute to the environmental sustainability aspects of the research. The team is experienced in archaeological heritage research, in producing inventories of rural heritage, local practices and cultural landscapes, and in the restoration of local practices to manage and preserve biodiversity.

The UK research will be led by the Archaeology Department at Durham University (ranked 6th in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2020). This large department has 34 academics, 28 research and 9 administrative and technical staff, and an archaeological services unit. Particular strengths lie in the archaeology of Britain, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Protecting and ensuring the sustainability of global heritage under threat is a major theme for the unit, with projects across Libya, Tunisia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Georgia and Egypt. DUR hosts the UNESCO Chair in Archaeological Ethics and Practice in Cultural Heritage. DUR will collaborate with UK non-academic research partner, the York Archaeological Trust of Excavation & Research (YAT) and in particular, with YAT’s Institute for Heritage & Sustainable Human Development (Inherit; www.inherit-institute.org). YAT is a charity dedicated to ‘building better lives through heritage’ and it works in the UK, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Inherit specialises in applied research, community development and achieving policy impacts from research – particularly in relation to participatory conservation, land use decision-making and landscape heritage as an asset for rural development. The UK team combine DUR’s academic excellence with YAT’s expertise in applied research, community development and policy impact.

The MEMOLab-Laboratory of Biocultural Archaeology is a space for research and dissemination. MEMOLab provides a less common, more social perspective, combining Archaeology and environment. Our fundamental interest is in the recognition of the historical relationship between human beings and nature, and in related strategies and social relationships. We focus specifically on landscapes as socioecosystems, on the extraction and use of natural resources and on coevolutive processes in relation with nature. Our work is driven by the understanding that the conservation of landscapes can be achieved through recognition of this heritage (tangible and intangible) and the articulation of cultural and environmental conservation strategies for the sustainable development of rural areas.

MEMOLab is coordinated by Prof. José Mª Martín Civantos. It has carried out several local, national and international research and cooperation projects, including the FP7 MEMOLA project. The research structure currently comprises 9 researchers and a large network of interdisciplinary collaborations.

The GEODE research laboratory is a mixed research unit associated with Toulouse Jean Jaurès 2 University (UTJ2) and the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS). CNRS is ranked second in the Nature index and the Scimago Ranking 2017, with 51,800 scientific publications. GEODE’s participation in IRIS will be managed by CNRS Occitanie Ouest. GEODE collaborates with other local mixed units, bringing together Universities, the Polytechnic National Institute of Toulouse, CNRS and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research. It specialises in disciplines including archaeology, paleoenvironment, history, geography, biology, ecology, geology, sociology, and collaborates with several international universities and French non-academic research partners. The laboratory has high-tech research platforms for Palaeoenvironment, Geosciences and Geoarchaeology and for Images, Monitoring and GIS. GEODE is a partner in the Project ERC ITN TERRANOVA “The European Landscape Learning Initiative: Past and Future Environments and Energy Regimes shaping Policy Tools”.