The CNR is the largest public research institution in Italy, the only one under the Research Ministry performing multidisciplinary activities. From its foundation in 1923, the mission of CNR is to perform research in its own Institutes, to promote innovation and competitiveness of the national industrial system, to promote the internationalization of the research, to provide technologies and solutions to emerging public and private needs, to advise Government and other public bodies, and to contribute to the qualification of human resources. The main resource of CNR is available knowledge which means people, with their skills, commitment, and ideas. This capital comprises more than 8,000 employees, of whom more than half are researchers and technologists.

The Research teams at the National Institute of Optics (CNR-INO) have a consolidated experience in laser science and photonics with applications in many fields, from the environment to health, from aerospace to security, with excellence gained in the last two decades for quantum technologies. Furthermore, the Researchers are strongly supported in funding rising by the CNR-INO Project Research office which is composed of skilled and qualified staff with consolidated experience in the whole life cycle of national, EU- and extra-EU projects. To date, CNR-INO has 59 active projects capitalizing up to 15 M€.

   Team leader: Dr. Caterina Credi

The Abbe Center of Photonics at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, is the ideal representative of the unique photonics ecosystem of Jena. Jena, known as Germany's City of Light, has held an appreciation for the light sciences and technologies for a long time. The city's high level of recognition for the subject is deeply embedded in the minds and lives of its inhabitants. The Friedrich Schiller University Jena maintains its commitment to light by choosing the triad LIGHT-LIFE-LIBERTY as its motto. Throughout the University's long history, the tradition of light and photonic studies owes its importance to three individuals in particular: Carl Zeiss, Otto Schott, and Ernst Abbe. The Abbe Center of Photonics (ACP) was established in 2010 as part of the University. It pursues one "leitmotif" of the Center's namesake, Ernst Abbe, "ground-breaking science is only possible if individuals work cooperatively to achieve a higher goal".

At ACP, theoreticians and experimentalists, among them, physicists, chemists, material scientists, biologists, and physicians are working together in its three key research domains ultra optics (including laser physics, nanooptics, photonic materials, optical systems, quantum technologies), strong field physics (ultrahigh peak power lasers, nonlinear and relativistic laser physics and x-ray optics) and biophotonics (novel spectroscopic techniques, bioimaging and biospectroscopy, chip-based analytics and diagnostics). The center has currently 57 members from four different departments, each of them leading an individual research group, which naturally ensures an interdisciplinary perspective. ACP's integrated Abbe School of Photonics, where currently about 300 doctoral and 50 postdoctoral researchers perform their research, is covering different graduate schools in one lean and efficient administrative unit.

   Team leader: Dr. Christian Helgert

The widening country partner institution, Faculty of Biology University of Belgrade (FBUB) is represented by its core facility Centre for Laser Microscopy (CLM; http://clm.bio.bg.ac.rs) is closely related to the coordinator (IPB) organizationally (through University of Belgrade) and scientifically (mutual projects, academic courses, workshops, and symposia). CLM will offer biological and biomedical expertise to the project.

The CLM's main research area is Neurophysiology and Neurobiophysics of neurological disorders. The research focus of the CLM group is to better understand the cellular and biophysical basis of neurodegenerative processes and to develop new experimental approaches to enable translational research. Previous studies in CLM established the biophysical profile of molecular and cellular markers in well-characterized in vitro (neuronal and astrocytes cell culture) and in vivo models (e.g. transgenic ALS rat, a rat model of ischemia, tenascin C^-/- mice). Studies of experimental models of neurodegenerative diseases and conditions are performed by using a range of state-of-the-art biophysical techniques based on live cell imaging (confocal and high-speed time-resolved video microscopy), supported by patch-clamp electrophysiology, and diverse immunohistochemical approaches

In recent years CLM is engaged in developing a medical device (NIMOCHIP^®) for precise and early in vitro diagnostics of neuroinflammatory diseases based on a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technology with micro-optics for fluorescence light measurements and decoding. This device is already the subject of two projects (H2020 #778405 – „AUTOIGG“ and Innovation Fund Republic of Serbia – PoC #5360 „IMAGINED“) and has gained the attention of several innovation promotional events (Brain Innovation Days, Brussels; Imagine IF, Innovation Forum, UK; 100 Bestech ZGC Forum, China).

   Team leader: Prof. Pavle Andjus