Birzeit University recently won funding for “SIERA” project in the field of multilingual and multicultural knowledge sharing technologies. The project is funded by EU FP7 program with about half-million Euros budget.
The scientific impact of this project is very remarkable; however, its significance also relies in the fact that it is the first FP7 project that Birzeit University wins as a Coordinator Grant Holder. and The success of obtaining such a significant grant will facilitate acquiring such European projects in the future, since FP7 is considered one of the most important programs supported by the EU and which is subject to very demanding qualifications and high level standards and competencies.
The idea of SIERA emerged as a response to the rapid growth of cross-border markets and global concerns which is generating a huge demand to facilitate knowledge sharing between societies. The diversity of languages, cultures, and standards are the main barriers to sharing and consuming knowledge.
The objective of SIERA project is to reinforce closer and sustainable scientific cooperation between Palestinian and EU scientists in the field of multilingual and multicultural knowledge sharing technologies. Sina institute will twin with four leading European research institutions that are pioneers in this field to: (1) set up joint research cooperation and (2) facilitate PhD students’ co-supervision, and (3) organize summer courses and conferences.
Two domains are selected as testbeds: (A) Cultural Heritage and (B) Environment and Ecology. For cultural heritage, a large set of Palestinian digital content will be integrated with MICHAEL, which is a large EU portal of digital collections from museums, archives, and libraries across Europe. The second, KYOTO, a multilingual wiki-portal about environment and ecology, will be also extended to support Arabic language and content. Extending such portals to support Arabic content and semantic search is a challenging task due to the complexity of the language, and as the Arabic content needs to be semantically interlinked with EU content.
Prof. Adnan Yahya, the Vice President For Academic Affairs and a key researcher in the project, has announced that the focus of this project as well as other projects in the Institute on the Arabic language processing, enriches the Arabic language, and most importantly it enriches the software industry in Palestine which is of increasing importance in the national economy, Yahya also explained that the joint supervision of PhD students at Birzeit University in cooperation with reputable European universities increases the experience of the university and its ambition in establishing an independent doctoral programs, especially in areas in which the university has notable scientific achievements and leadership.
Project Name: SIERA
Project Duration: 3 years
Budget: 500,000 Euro
Partners:
- Birzeit University, Palestine (Grant Holder)
- Coordinator: Prof. Mustafa Jarrar
- New University of Lisbon, Portugal
- Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Germany
- University of Trento, Italy
- University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
