ERC Starting Grant: Double success of Politecnico di Torino in Europe
Politecnico di Torino has once again been recognised for the quality of its research. Researchers Marta Tuninetti from the Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering-DIATI and Sofia Nannini from the Department of Architecture and Design-DAD will conduct highly innovative studies thanks to funding from the ERC – European Research Council. Established in 2007, the ERC supports frontier research projects that are highly ambitious, pioneering, and unconventional.
The results of the latest ERC Starting Grant selection were announced today. This prestigious grant is awarded to emerging research leaders with 2-7 years of experience after completing their PhD and provides up to €1.5 million in funding over five years. Out of 478 projects awarded across Europe, and 30 in Italy, two will be hosted at Politecnico di Torino: TIP-FRESH (Social Tipping Points in the Food System for Freshwater Sustainability), coordinated by Marta Tuninetti, which has been allocated €1.470.000; and Animal Farm (An Architectural History of Intensive Animal Farming, 1570-1992) led by Sofia Nannini, which has received €1.485.000.
From the search for rapid solutions to reverse the water resource crisis to the exploration of the historical roots of current environmental and biodiversity challenges, these two projects, though rooted in different disciplines and methodologies, offer fresh perspectives to better understand and address the great issues of our time, from climate change to its impacts on ecosystems. At the core are new perspectives on sustainable consumption and resource management, as well as the historical investigation of the human-animal relationship, aimed at envisioning a more respectful balance between territories and the species inhabiting them.
The TIP-FRESH project will test an innovative approach to tackling water scarcity, a visible consequence today of the overexploitation of water basins for agricultural purposes. Landscape conversion for agriculture and the increasing irrigation demand are intensifying water stress and groundwater depletion, while altering atmospheric moisture recycling, essential for climate regulation and Earth system stability. The research proposal focuses on accelerating the transition of the food system toward more sustainable diets, specifically those with low-water diets already adopted in certain niche markets. The key concept is that the triggering of a rapid adoption of virtuous dietary shifts, both individually and collectively, can set off chain reactions across international trade networks and production systems.
To achieve this objective, the project will draw on multiple disciplines: Hydrology, to gain a deeper understanding of how dietary patterns affect precipitation regimes; Mathematics, to reconstruct the historical evolution of the food system using data, and to identify how and when the most abrupt dietary changes have occurred in recent decades; Sociology and Behavioural Psychology, to investigate the role of individual choices and collective dynamics in accelerating dietary transitions.
The Animal Farm project is conceived as a multidisciplinary exploration of architectural history with farm animals as its protagonists. The analysis will examine the spaces, buildings, and construction technologies used in intensive animal farming, from Renaissance villas and stables to contemporary industrial-scale facilities for intensive farming, passing through the livestock buildings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Nannini’s work engages in dialogue with other disciplines such as the History of Veterinary Medicine, Labour History, and Critical Animal Studies. The research will unfold along three historical lines of inquiry: architectural typologies, construction technologies and materials, and institutions and stakeholders involved in the creation of these structures. The project pursues two main objectives: to historicise a phenomenon that is key to interpreting the present and to offer new perspectives within architectural history for analysing complex phenomena. From a geographical perspective, the investigation will focus on North American contexts, particularly Canada and the United States, where the concept of intensive animal farming originated, as well as several European contexts, including Northern Italy, France, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom.
“TIP-FRESH addresses the water crisis with a new approach, starting with food choice – comments Marta Tuninetti – The project aims to accelerate the adoption of diets with a low water footprint through social tipping points: by studying virtuous consumer niches and innovative markets, we will understand which social, psychological, and behavioural mechanisms can foster large-scale adoption of low-impact diets. The novel methodologies developed within the project will advance scientific debate in the field of socio-hydrology while also offering the non-academic community innovative solutions to speed up the food transition”.
“Intensive animal farming is an undisputed reality of our present, leaving behind architectural traces that are both visible and hidden within the folds of the industrial landscape – explains Sofia Nannini – By investigating the evolution of livestock spaces from the early modern period to the present day, Animal Farm aims to tell an architectural history centred on animals and on the unbalanced power relationship between humans and animals. I am convinced that only by focusing on this phenomenon through careful historical investigation can we understand its current state and imagine a different, more ethical future”.