Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento Sant’Anna (SSSA) is a public academic institution located in Pisa, Italy is a public university institute - with special autonomy - working in the field of applied sciences: Economics and Management, Law, Political Sciences, Agricultural Sciences and Plant Biotechnology, Medicine, and Industrial and Information Engineering. It has the profile of a research-oriented university, and is ranked 1st among Italian small‐sized universities. In 2016, SSSA placed 10° in the global ranking of the best young universities (<50 years) compiled by the Times Higher  Education  (THE). SSSA is organized in six Institutes, among which is the Institute of Communication, Information and Perception Technologies (TeCIP), and the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), that are participating to PHOOD project. In PHOOD, SSSA includes the subunit of Consorzio Nazionale per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT), which will bring experties in the field of photonics based RADAR and LIDAR and in the design of Photonics Integrated Circuits.

TeCIP institute

TeCIP was created in Pisa in 2001 as a Centre of Excellence of the Italian University, Scientific and Technological Research Ministry, and was located in the 1st position in the national ranking for the Industrial and Information Engineering, among medium-sized departments, during the recent Quality of Research Evaluation, run by the National Agency for University and Research Evaluation. Core activities of the Institute are research and education linked to Communication, Information and Perception Technologies.

The main research areas at the TeCIP institute are: 

  • optical communication networks through the use of photonic technologies, also in the fields of sensors and biophotonics;
  • IT applications of embedded real-time systems and sensor networks for the Internet of Things;
  • virtual environments and interface robotic systems for the study of human-machine interaction and human perception.

Since 2015 TeCIP is equipped with the Integrated Photonic Technologies Center (INPHOTEC). INPHOTEC mission is to provide fabrication facilities and technology platforms for research, prototyping and production of high added value components and circuits to academic and industrial SME. INPHOTEC also includes an advanced packaging platform.

Scientific and technological research has an interdisciplinary character and is developed inside TeCIP laboratories, equipped with the utmost leading edge instruments and technologies. The around 300 professors and researchers can count upon an annual budget of more than 10 million euro to develop their research activities, with the main objective of leading the innovation to an extent of technological development to be used on field.

ILS institute

The scientific mission of the ILS covers two macro-areas:

  • Agricultural Sciences and Plant Biotechnology; 
  • Biomedical Sciences.

The Agricultural Sciences area includes the following disciplines: Agroecology,  Agronomy, Biotechnology,  Entomology,  Fruit  Crops  and  Post-harvest  Technology,  Plant  Genetics  and  Genomics,  and  Plant  Physiology. In  the  latest  national  assessment  of  research  and  higher  education  quality  (ANVUR  2011-2014),  SSSA was ranked 1st among Italian Universities in Agricultural Sciences.

ILS carries out multidisciplinary studies on the relationships between agriculture, environment and biodiversity protection, and rural territory management. ILS has an international team conducting inter- and trans-disciplinary research on several aspects of agronomy and field crops, with emphasis on:

  • Sustainability of food and non-food cropping systems;
  • Soil fertility and plant-soil interactions; 
  • Influence of management techniques on greenhouse gas emissions;
  • Agricultural water management;
  • Remote sensing to support the development in rural and and peri-urban areas;
  • Management of functional biodiversity at species and habitat level for the provision of agroecosystem services;
  • Agroecological management in low input and organic cropping and farming systems;
  • Integrated pest and weed management;
  • Management techniques for increasing nutraceutical properties of food and feed.

These research aspects are strongly interconnected and have in common the up-scaling from plant to landscape level. ILS’s projects are implemented through numerous network-based collaborations with Universities, research centres, local government bodies, private enterprises, and various stakeholders at regional, national and international level. 

CNIT sub-unit

Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT) is a non-profit, university-generated consortium of 37 Italian universities. CNIT brings together member and partner staff and facilities to the aim of coordinating innovation in the field of telecommunications. CNIT aims at promoting and coordinating research in telecommunications; fostering partnerships among industries, operators, public and private research centres; providing training programs, stimulating initiatives of scientific research and divulgation. CNIT research topics are mobile communications, optical satellite and radio-links communications, digital signal processing, telecommunications networks, telematics, intelligent transport systems, remote sensing and radar, television, information theory, multimedia communications, telecommunications security, electromagnetic compatibility, optical and microwave components and circuits, electromagnetic diagnostic, environmental impact of telecom-munications systems, propagation and antennae.

The operating structure of CNIT is based on Research Units within the involved universities, and National Laboratories operated directly by CNIT through its own research and administrative personnel.

In PHOOD, CNIT participates with the Photonic Networks and Technoilogies National Laboratory (PNTLab), situated in Pisa, where PHOOD Principal Investigator developed the photonics-based RADAR and innovative LIDAR. CNIT-PNTLab makes available all these acquired competences together with its Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) design skills.