Heritage and Landscape Management

Objective: To understand the mechanisms and variables of human behavior in the last 100,000 years, focusing on cultural transitions, their continuities and discontinuities, using an interdisciplinary approach anchored in the geosciences and humanities (especially history, anthropology) and natural sciences (paleobotany, materials analysis, paleotechnology and isotope analyses).

Objective: To develop research methods and their application to rock art contexts, with priority given to the study of the earliest manifestations of Paleolithic art and schematic art in Southern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

Objective: To study contexts in coastal, humid or submerged environments, developing methodologies that allow characterizing human occupations in the past, in their relationship with marine, fluvial or lacustrine resources.

Objective: CGeo participated directly in the design and detailing of the BRIDGES programme, from the proposal for the creation of the APHELEIA network (2014, funded by the European Council) to the preparation of the UNESCO document on sustainability science (2017) to the proposal for the creation of the programme (2019) and its preparation and coordination of one of the two pilot projects (2020-21) and, finally, its implementation. This program has the dual objective of producing theory and supporting the implementation of territorial-based projects, with identical methodologies that start from the intersection of Geosciences and Humanities.

Objective: the CGeo is part of the International Association for the Promotion of Geoethics and aims to contribute to the deepening of scientific strategies that incorporate transdisciplinarity and promote projects for the application of sustainability science that are based on the relationship between human behavior and the planet's resources, understanding the latter, at the same time, as a natural system and as a network of meanings and culturally based interpretations.

Objective: As part of the research on the perception of territories and their resources, CGeo will continue the interface studies with domains of physics and geotechnology, in the reconstruction of landscapes structured by senses other than sight, namely sound (archaeoacoustics), odor (in articulation with palynology) and touch (technologies). This program will have a particularly relevant articulation with museums.

Objective: To continue to support the expansion of the UNESCO Geoparks Network (including the UNESCO Chair at UTAD), and to strengthen the influence in international organisations through the UNESCO IGGP, as members of the Executive Board and of the Advisory Committee of the Global Geoparks Network; to develop innovative approaches to enhance the geological knowledge, use and conservation of natural stones of historical importance worldwide through the Global Heritage Stone Resource (GHSR) designation.

Objective: To build geoheritage concepts and analytical models that secure their scientific and transdisciplinary ground already applied in several contexts and countries; to continue the pioneering work of inventorying and characterizing the still unknown geological heritage of Africa, namely of regions integrating the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries; and to cooperate with local researchers to implement geoconservation solutions of managing it with a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development.

Objective: To foster geosciences education and literacy, as a fundamental condition for sustainability and Geoethics through the implementation of research projects in science education focused on the role of geology in achieving all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals.