Nicosia: The Mnemosyne Research Centre of the Cyprus University of Technology aims to turn Cyprus into a global reference point for the preservation of cultural memory, the Deputy Minister of Culture, Dr. Vasiliki Kassianidou, said on Monday, during her address at the event on the establishment of the Research Centre at the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Centre in Nicosia.
According to Cyprus News Agency, Kassianidou highlighted that the team behind this joint effort ‘is well known and respected not only in Cyprus but also worldwide as they have been extremely successful in securing very competitive European grants including the European Research Area Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage and the very prestigious UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage’, calling the contribution of the two Chairs to the preservation and enhancement of world cultural heritage through digital technology ‘undoubtedly very important, as is the work of Earth Observation Cultural Heritage Laboratory’.
Mnemosyne is expected to extend the mission of the UNESCO and ERA Chairs and strengthen the shared knowledge of humanity through education, science, culture, and communication, she continued.
‘As Deputy Ministry of Culture, we welcome this new breakthrough step regarding research, innovation and education in the cultural heritage domain, which brings together the Digital Heritage Research Laboratory, the Earth Observation Cultural Heritage Laboratory and the Mechanical Engineering Design and Additive Manufacturing Laboratory of the Cyprus University of Technology’, she further noted.
‘My aim is for the Deputy Ministry of Culture to be actively involved in research pertaining to our expertise but also to enable cooperation, research and innovation by acting as a supporting vehicle for the highest-quality research’, stressed the Deputy Minister, adding that to that end, they strive to foster greater cooperation between academic institutions and research centres with their own departments, namely the Department of Antiquities, the Department of Contemporary Culture and the Cyprus Handicraft Service but also the Cyprus National Committee for UNESCO which functions under the Deputy Ministry’s auspices.
‘Thus, we express our readiness to closely cooperate with the newly established Mnemosyne Research Centre. The State will stand by your side in your efforts to combine in a constructive and innovative way digital heritage, computer science, engineering, and the humanities’, she concluded.