RuralDispossession investigates Ottoman privately-owned landed estates (çiftliks) in the late 18th and late 19th century. These estates were crucial to the Ottoman (and post-Ottoman) transition from a pre-modern economy to an industrial one. While debates on the nature and function of these estates constitute one of the fundamental historiographical issues for Ottomanists, they have remained dormant in past decades. More importantly, historians remain in the dark regarding the phenomenon's complexity and regional differentiation.The project traces the history of the Balkan çiftlik in relation to the transformation of rural society, peasant dispossession, labor regimes, and the textiles sector. It focuses on the district of Manastır (modern North Macedonia), a region crucial to the çiftlik phenomenon, characterized by a complex network of relations between the estates, villages, and centers of textile production. It wıll analyze the patterns of population change to determine the extent of labor mobility between settlements -especially instances of movement from villages into çiftliks and rural textile centers- to identify short- and long-term labor migration patterns. The overall project objective is to investigate the relationship between peasant dispossession, çiftlik formation, and textile production. Archival sources include Ottoman tax and property registers, population surveys, and court registers, will be combined and analyzed via GIS tools to make it possible to investigate the rural history of the district, establish a comparative framework with other regions, and contribute to the literature on the dynamics of the economic history of the Ottoman as well as post-Ottoman Balkan world. These methods will shed new light upon the çiftlik debate, given that Ottoman tax and property surveys have been under-utilized in historiography, and contain a wealth of information that promises much richer and more detailed understanding of the significance of the phenomenon.

As migratory movements surge around the world, Greece and Mexico, two countries located at the doorstep of Europe and the United States, face the challenges of demographic changes. Among the many effects of migration on these nations, the presence of the migrant ‘other’ poses an interesting question: can the visual presence of otherness become a looking glass to redefines national ethos? STREAM anthropologically explores this conundrum by looking at different types of images, formal and informal, photographic, artistic, religious, animated and more – connected to migration, and to the figure of the migrant in both places. The comparison between these two nations is informed by their position as buffer zones on central migration routes and a similar geopolitical position, which is emblematic of the unequal political dynamics that separate the Global North from the Global South. Making a comparative analysis of these two countries through the examples of two regions, Crete and Oaxaca, which are at the forefront of migration flows, and are characterized by their relative independence from central governments as well as their status of internal "other", this study unlocks a sideway window into national imaginings. To do so, this research asks the following research questions: (1) Which kind of national imaginaries emerge when looking at images of migration? (2) What do these images reveal about local perceptions of national representation? (3) To what extent does this dialectical relation between nation and migration, seen through visual media, illuminate wider political international dynamics? Ultimately, STREAM’s objective is to generate innovative comparative research to enhance our understanding of the socio-political impact of images in reshaping national imaginings.

Time flies when we are immersed in creative activities, often causing us to lose track of it. Creativity is a complex phenomenon that thrives at the intersection of novelty and usefulness; a golden ratio where innovative ideas meet real-world value. However, most scientific research to date has studied creativity as a single construct. Additionally, previous research neglected to address how the artist’s intention enables creativity. NEUROMUSE will bridge both gaps through an in-depth investigation of the relationship between the feeling of time passage and musical creativity. A novel Instructed Musical Creativity Paradigm (IMCP) is introduced, in which musicians are asked to create their own musical improvisations after being instructed to be or not be creative, followed by an assessment of their improvisations by an audience. IMCP uses time estimation to uncover how creativity alters time perception by affecting neurophysiological dynamics. NEUROMUSE proposes a comprehensive multi-method approach combining neurophysiology (electroencephalography, heart rate, skin conductance) and computational modelling, to reveal the key neurocognitive mechanisms behind the generation and aesthetic appreciation of music. NEUROMUSE involves the Multisensory and Temporal Processing Laboratory at Panteion University and the Psychophysiology Laboratory of the University Mental Health Research Institute in Athens (Greece), led by world-recognized experts and equipped will the relevant physiological instruments. NEUROMUSE will provide me with the key skills to enhance my career prospects, by building a competitive profile in an underfunded area like the arts. Thus, I will be better positioned to pursue funding opportunities and establish my own research group in the future. Ultimately, understanding how we generate and perceive art is crucial in a world where creativity is increasingly imperative, driving productivity and innovation in academia and industry.

Oil price and oil price volatility forecasts are of major importance, given the oil market is well crowded by participants who proceed to decisions based on these forecasts (e.g. oil traders, monetary policy authorities, etc). The current state-of-the-art forecasting techniques, though, (i) involve a trade-off among internal consistency, forecasting accuracy and easiness to communicate aspects and (ii) do not use ultra high frequency data. Thus, this exciting and innovative project aims to develop new econometric model frameworks to forecast oil price and oil price volatility, which will be successful in enhancing internal consistency, forecasting accuracy and easiness to communicate extracting added-value (in terms of predictability) information from the ultra high sampling frequency. In addition, this project aims to use the forecasted oil price volatility to predict the economic policy uncertainty in Europe, given that oil price shocks exert significant impact on the effectiveness of economic policy. This project will allow the researcher to advance his existing scientific and transferable skills through the cutting-edge training in the state-of-the-art forecasting techniques, as well as, in programming, consultancy and policy formulation skills. The outcome of this training (i) will provide the fellow with an invaluable opportunity for the development of a pioneering research agenda and (ii) will position him as an internationally recognised scholar that contributes to research excellence in Europe. The established capacity of the fellow as an independent researcher in the area of energy economics, the expertise of the scientist-in-charge in state-of-the-art forecasting techniques and the infrastructure of the host organisation offer great complementarities, which will allow these highly innovative model frameworks to be realised. This project will have a great impact not only to the researcher, but also to the host organisation and to the European Research Area