UTH

UTH was founded in 1984 and admitted its first students during the 1988-89 academic year. It is the only higher education institution in central Greece and has its administrative seat in the city of Volos. The University has been developed in the greater region of Thessaly and Sterea Ellada in five cities: Volos, Larisa, Lamia, Karditsa and Trikala. The University has 8 schools, 37 departments and 71 postgraduate programs. The University enrols over 36,500 undergraduate and about 4,500 graduate students and doctoral candidates and 427 administrative employees. This makes the University a significant employer in the area of Thessaly.

The University of Thessaly is a dynamically developing higher educational institute that is among the top 1000 universities in the world, according to the 2019 Shanghai Ranking of World Universities. The University’s mission is to promote knowledge through teaching and research and to contribute to the cultural and financial development at a local, national and international level. For achieving these goals, the University strives to create a learning environment that promotes critical thinking, innovation, freedom of expression and faith in democratic ideals.

UTH acts as a consulting organization to the municipalities and authorities in Thessaly in subjects including educational strategies, economic development strategies, and technology transfer and has close ties with the educational community, the industry, professional organizations, and administrative authorities, including educational authorities, in the area of Thessaly. Examples of past consulting activities include the introduction of Internet services to all schools in the area of Thessaly, the development of an optical fibre network in Thessaly, and more. Besides, the organization has working relationships with the primary and secondary educational administrative authorities in the areas of Magnesia, Trikala, and Karditsa, all of which are located in the wider area of Thessaly as well as with numerous schools in the context of R&D validation activities. Also, as the only 4-5 year higher education institution in Thessaly, the organization has an extended working network of higher education providers and research organizations at the national and European level.

The Civil Engineering Department

The Civil Engineering Department conducts original research and participates in various FP7 and H2020 projects. It was one of the core partners in the SIM4NEXUS project that has just finished and produced a Serious Game that models the Water-Energy-Food-Land Use-Climate Nexus and can be used for policy-making or education purposes. The Civil Engineering Department collaborates with various other Departments at the University of Thessaly, such as the school of Agricultural Sciences, the Department of Environmental Studies, the Department of Energy systems and others. All departments adopt a user-centred R&D approach and have extensive experience technology, enhanced learning developed
through R&D, integration of research and teaching at the higher education level, and collaboration with educational authorities in the area of Thessaly, nationally, and internationally.

UTH in SMARTEN

The Civil Engineering department offers expertise in knowledge and information management, educational services design, serious games in non-leisure contexts such as learning, social networking for education, Internet and distributed applications targeting wide target and economic sectors ranging from lifelong learning to science and culture.

Concerning administrative and financial management, UTH has the Research Committee, which focusses specifically on the management and administration of research grants. UTH will deploy the Research Committee who will work closely with researchers in the SMARTEN technical implementation team for the sound management of the project. The Research Committee members have managed numerous EC funded projects, and this experience will be exploited in this project. The Research Committee uses an on-line electronic system for managing research grants horizontally.