NCSR Demokritos has more than 1,200 staff, 180+ Researchers and 500+ research staff with many years of experience and numerous projects under its belt which are funded by the Greek State, the European Union, International organisations and the Industry. NCSR Demokritos conducts world-class basic and applied research, for advancing scientific knowledge and promoting technological development in selected areas of national socio-economic interest. The Center also plays a pivotal role in graduate education and professional training and its unique infrastructure is employed for high technology services to the Industry and the Society.

NCSR Demokritos is the coordinator of the VAST project, participating with SKEL The AI Lab of the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications. Dr. Georgios Petasis is the lead person responsible for the overall management of the project. NCSR Demokritos is also leading WP6 Maximise Impact: Communication, engagement, dissemination and exploitation as well as WP7 Manage: Coordination and management.

NCSR Demokritos also participates in the project with the House of Classical Greek Ideas, a model exhibition on classical Greek ideas and ancient Greek philosophy. This exhibition on moral values will be a prominent physical venue where VAST’s activities can be put into practice and evaluated, engaging a wide audience of visitors, from students and youngsters, to tourists. As the coordinator of the project, NCSR Demokritos will provide the potential to organise VAST-specific events and exhibits, and use VAST results as a means to enhance its existing exhibitions. In addition, VAST will have full access to the repositories, datasets, digital assets and virtual exhibits of the House of Classical Greek Ideas, including a registry of values, an ontology of values concerning the axial age of the Greek-Roman world, organised as a graph, and connected with positions and opinions from many ancient Greek philosophers. This registry of values will be used as a basis for grounding VAST’s value-based semantic relations.