Call for Applications for the Third Underground4value Training School Ayia Napa, Cyprus. 14-18 February 2022

Call for Applications for the Third Underground4value Training School
Ayia Napa, Cyprus. 14-18 February 2022

Application deadline: 8 January 2022

The COST Action CA18110 – Underground Built Heritage as catalyser for Community Valorisation is issuing a Call for Applications for its third Training School, managed by the Cyprus Institute, which will be held in Ayia Napa from February 14 to 18, 2022, hosted by the Cyprus Institute. The aim of the school is training new skills for planners, decision-makers, promoters, and local development facilitators. The training school will deal with innovative approaches to surveys, analyses, monitoring and testing Underground Built Heritage (UBH), foster the uptake of new tools for empowering local communities, as well as for supporting planners and
decision-makers. The training integrates multi-disciplinary knowledge about the underground heritage in a framework based on Strategic Transition Practice (STP), boosting new job profiles on cultural planning, strategic spatial planning, transition planning and management. These new job profiles will guarantee interaction with local communities, dissemination of innovative thinking, and methodologies for supporting the exploration of alternative social trajectories in an adaptive, forward-looking manner.

1. TOPICS
Organised in lectures and tutored research teamwork modules, the school focuses on four topics:
− Practices for local community empowerment in Underground Built Heritage (UBH)
valorisation: organisational, digital, and communication tools
− Investigating, studying, and outlining UBH: from Textual Data Analysis to 3D
Surveying and socio-cultural mapping
− UBH as ecological landscape
− Planning and monitoring UBH

2. PARTICIPANTS
The training school is addressed to planners, local community facilitators, promoters, and decision- makers, working on issues related to underground built heritage and community engagement for its conservation, monitoring and valorisation.

3. CONTENTS
The school is based on scientific approaches (regional sciences, urban geography, computer sciences, and economic policy), with the input of disciplines in the humanities, for taking into account cultural issues, as well as strategies and tools for urban/rural regeneration policies, sustainable tourism, community empowerment, and UBH conservation. Lectures and results of the school will contribute to produce a training toolkit for decision-makers, practitioners, stakeholders and local communities and will integrate a procedure for testing and validating the new training and learning methods. In particular, the training will expand the Historic Urban
Landscape (HUL) framework by developing new specific modules about UBH and introducing Strategic Transition Practice (STP). It will provide the participants with tools for stimulating, developing and supporting real-life experiments (Living Labs) in a practice- oriented modulation, aimed at shaping processes of strategic dialogue, co-evolution and co-creation.
Trainers and trainees will work together on specific topics related to the Ayia Napa Monastery case study, by exploring and preparing discussion arguments. The participants will visit the case-study site, interact with local stakeholders, and the last day they will present their ideas in a plenary meeting with the stakeholders. In particular, by applying the STP approach, trainees will interactively learn and experiment how to facilitate communities’ dialogue, and develop new social, economic and cultural behaviours from the opportunities offered by the UBH reuse also in terms of new lifestyles.

4. IMPORTANT NOTES
Applicants may apply for one of the 30 (thirty) grants for the participation at the training school. To apply, please see the information and instructions in the following paragraph “Applications Process”. The application is open to both Cyprus and COST action member states, with different granting system.
Applications can be sent to the Action’s Training School Coordinator – Mia Trentin (m.trentin@cyi.ac.cy) until January 8th, 2022. You can contact her in case you have questions regarding the call, the application process or the Training School.More details regarding the programme of the Training School are forthcoming. Please watch the page dedicated to the Training School on the Action’s website at: https://underground4value.eu/training-school/. Please feel free to disseminate this message within your own research communities. Early Career Investigators (ECI) from Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC) are strongly encouraged to apply:
http://www.cost.eu/about_cost/strategy/excellence-inclusiveness In case of pandemics national restrictions and/or hosting services closure, the training school will be postponed.

5. APPLICATION PROCESS

How to apply for a grant:
To apply for one of the 30 grants, please do the following things before January 8ᵗʰ, 2022:
1. Register a profile on e-COST and include your bank data there should be linked to the following URL:
https://underground4value.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/How-to-register-at-ecostdocx.pdf
2. Prepare the following documents:
− A one-page Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
− A one-page motivation letter specifying the following:
– a clear statement of intent to attend the training school;
– information about your current level of knowledge/ experience in underground built heritage and community engagement tools;
– what your expectations are (trainers & taught materials).

Applications must be sent to Mia Trentin (m.trentin@cyi.ac.cy), and in cc to Giuseppe Pace (giuseppe.pace@cnr.it)
After submission, all applicants are kindly asked to make sure they receive a confirmation of receipt within 24 hours, then to print it, signing and dating it, and send back to the Action’s Training School Coordinator (m.trentin@cyi.ac.cy) in pdf format.
If you don’t receive the confirmation of receipt, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Applicants will be notified of their acceptance on January 10ᵗʰ, 2022, at the latest.

The Trainee will receive a travel reimbursement according the rules defined in the COST Vademecum (ver. 04/2021) https://www.cost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Vademecum-28-April-2021.pdf.

Trainees can be reimbursed for their long-distance travel expenses in line with the eligibility rules specified in Section 5. Meetings – Financial Support of the Vademecum. In addition, they will be reimbursed a daily allowance rate of 120 €, which covers the incurred accommodation, meals, and local travel expenses, on the basis of the daily attendance list signed. For each meal provided by other sources or by the Local Organiser, the daily allowance is reduced with 10% of the daily allowance rate.

Trainees from Cyprus also will be reimbursed a lump sum equivalent to two days at a daily allowance rate of 120 €, which covers meals, and local travel expenses.

The trainee shall submit via e-COST a completed online travel reimbursement request within 30 calendar days after the end date of the approved activity
Selection criteria:
Basic COST eligibility criteria need to be met:
• Applicants with research interests relevant to the Underground4value’s goals and
activities are prioritised (Rank 1).
• Applicants who are early career researchers (including doctoral researchers) and
applicants from COST Inclusiveness Target Countries (ITC) are prioritised over other applicants
(Rank 2).
• Insofar as is allowable by the applications received and the
selection criteria above, representation across as many COST countries as possible and
a gender balance will be observed among the grantees (Rank 3).
• Where all the above criteria are satisfied, places are offered on a first come-first
served basis (Rank 4)
Participation without a grant:
Participants who can cover their travel and accommodation expenses from other funds and do not need a grant are also welcomed to join our Training School. If this is your case, although recommended, you do not need to register a profile on the COST website. However, we still ask you to submit the application materials (CV and motivation letter) by January 8ᵗʰ, 2022 to the email addresses mentioned above.
You will be notified of acceptance to the training school before January 10ᵗʰ, 2022.