CARISMED project kicks off, promising better life quality in Mediterranean Basin urban areas
A common challenge across the Mediterranean is revitalizing urban city centres through cultural and creative industries in small and medium-sized enterprises (CCI SMEs) supporting the adoption of circular practices through innovation, external knowledge inclusion & clustering. As is known, Mediterranean cities have not yet got the best use of their cultural and creative tradition and stock, and it is clear that the adoption of new, innovative, smart and sustainable practices for the restructuring of underutilized or abandoned urban stock in Mediterranean cities centres is urgent.
On January 28th and 29th 2022, the new “CApitalisation for Re-setting Innovation and Sustainability in MED-Cities” (CARISMED) project had kicked off. CARISMED aims to disseminate and capitalize on an already acquired conceptual and systematic approach for improving the sustainability of urban environments and fostering synergies among multiple stakeholders and professionals, i.e., cross-border cultural dialogue, cooperation, and networking.The kick-off meeting saw the participation of several keynote speakers, among them: Dr. Esmat Karadsheh, from the Eastern Mediterranean Branch Office of the ENI CBC MED Programme; Dr. Khaled Elsaadany, from the ENI CBC Med Joint Technical Secretariat; Mr. Alejandro Lafarga, from the Western Mediterranean Branch Office of the ENI CBC MED Programme; and Professor Allan Tubaileh, dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at Birzeit University.
The kick-off meeting gave partners the chance to become acquainted with each other and discuss several important tasks, including the roles and responsibilities of each partner and the visual identity of the project.
CARISMED is a 24-month-long project, with a total budget of €1.1million, and it is co-funded by the European Union under the ENI CBC MED Programme 2021-2023.
The project will benefit from a number of ongoing ENI CBC MED projects, such as INNOMED-UP MAIA-TAQA , and SME4SMARTCITIES, as well as UNDERGROUND4VALU and other relevant projects. This integration aims to develop an integrated urban policy to improve the sustainability of old buildings within Mediterranean city centers by promoting synergies between projects launched under the ENI CBC MED Programme. In the long-term, the project will help support creativity in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a means for achieving a better life quality in urban areas and the inclusion of communities inhabiting city centers in the Mediterranean Basin. The project also makes use of asynchronous e-learning platforms where knowledge and resources pooling fosters the mainstreaming of good practices towards central principles. Additionally, CAFISMED promotes innovative approaches and circular economy methodologies for re-setting the built environment in Mediterranean cities.
CARISMED is led by Birzeit University and has eight partners from six countries of the Mediterranean area: Palestine, Greece, Spain, Italy, Jordan, and Tunisia, CARISMED partners are: Birzeit University’s Department of Architectural Engineering, in Palestine (Lead Partner); the National Technical University of Athens and the Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving, in Greece; the Business Innovation Centre of Murcia, in Spain; the Centre for Social and Economic Research in Southern Italy and the National Research Council of Italy’s Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean, in Italy; the Creative Collective, in Tunisia; and Future Pioneers for Empowering Communities’ Members in the Environmental and Educational Fields, in Jordan.
- At completion, the CARISMED project is expected to have provided awareness and training activities to eight cultural and creative industries in small and medium-sized enterprises, refurbished eight underutilized or abandoned urban stocks as creative studios or labs, upgraded the capacities of 40 small or medium-sized enterprises through various workshops, and published toolkits and advisory guides on upcycling buildings and areas
Find out more at:
CARISMED’s official webpage
https://www.enicbcmed.eu/projects/carismed
ENI CBC Med program:
For more information, please contact:
Project Coordinator, Prof. Shadi Ghadban
e-mail: [email protected]
Assist. Coordinator & Communication Manager, Prof. Mohammad Jawabreh
e-mail: [email protected]
