The lack of accessible tools that integrate scientific knowledge with traditional understandings of cultural landscape formation and transformation limits inclusive decision-making. This undermines anticipatory territorial governance approaches that connect past, present, and future, and reduces the capacity of communities to respond to accelerated sociocultural and environmental transformations.
There is a lack of models integrating AI, the humanities, historical ecology, and local knowledge to support cultural and territorial decision-making. Existing tools often fail to engage communities or reflect co-produced science, making it difficult to translate complex data into participatory and scalable solutions.
Grounded in over two decades of transdisciplinary research in archaeology, historical ecology and social anthropology, the initiative is based on the learning organization model. It fosters intercultural collaboration through a network of Makerspaces, Fab Labs, and Living Labs, operating both in-person and virtually. Integration among communities will also be supported by vertical AI agents specialized in scientific topics, co-defined with local stakeholders.
The project will be developed with three pilot communities: a rural territory in Portugal’s Middle Tagus Valley, an Indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon and an Afro-descendant urban community in Rio de Janeiro. Facilitating exchanges among these communities will strengthen mutual learning and enhance model adaptability.
