The designated coordinating body is the Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing (LFMRS) of the Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUT). The coordinator’s main role will be to ensure effective coordination among the partners and successful completion of all actions and objectives of the project. During the first month of project implementation, a Project Management Committee (PMC) will be appointed. It will consist of the Coordinator and one or two members from each body and will deal with monitoring the progress of the project as well as issues related to intellectual property. More specifically, project management will be carried out by the PMC, headed by the project coordinator. The PMC will have the following responsibilities:

  • Informing the partnership bodies of their contractual obligations regarding the physical and financial scope of the project.
  • Communicating continuously with the partnership bodies and managing any cooperation issues that may arise within the partnership and among its members.
  • Organising PMC meetings/video conferences every six months.
  • Ensuring adherence to the time schedule.
  • Inspecting project deliverables and ensuring their high quality.
  • Liaising with EYDE ETAK.
  • Coordinating and supervising activities related to the dissemination and use of the results, in accordance with the disclosure rules under NSRF 2014-2020.

The PMC will be responsible for the overall supervision of the project throughout its duration. Continuously assessing the ongoing project results and checking the completeness of the deliverables will contribute to detecting any potential project risks, ensuring that countermeasures are activated immediately and on time. Particular attention will also be paid to the partners’ communication, which will be continuous and will take place both online (email exchanges, video conferences) and in person via PMC meetings every six months.

The proposed partnership consists of two SMEs (Creative People, Realiscape Typorama) and five research institutions (Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing – LFMRS, AUT, National Centre of Scientific Research – NCSR, Hellenic Agricultural Organisation (HAO) – DIMITRA, Centre for Security Studies – CSS, Samaria National Park Management Body – SNPMB), all of which will work together. The LFMRS has qualified scientific staff, with extensive experience in fire management studies and projects, and it has recently developed relevant services in the fire prevention and management sector (Greek National Observatory of Forest Fires).

The four research institutions (AUT, NCSR DEMOKRITOS, HAO DIMITRA, CSS) will work together to develop the tools and content related to natural hazards. The AUT will process and analyse the land observation data , and the NCSR  the meteorological data and models. At a local level, the HAO will analyse information with morphological and other features for the areas of interest, in order to determine fire risk zones.  The HAO, CSS and Creative People will predict potential fires and their behaviour, and perform risk assessment for natural hazards to the relevant sites. The CSS will also be responsible for collecting data through the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The two IT companies (Creative People, Realiscape Typorama) will develop the relevant platform, smartphone app and required technological infrastructure. The Samaria Management Body will identify user requirements and assist in the pilot implementation of the tools that will be developed. Furthermore, the Body will provide information and other material (photos, videos, texts, etc.) that will be incorporated as content in the smartphone app. Relevant content will also be collected by the Ministry of Culture through HAO DIMITRA, in collaboration with local authorities at the selected exhibition site and the Diazoma association.