Collaborative Continuity from Digital to Human

The CONTINUUM project is a collaborative research infrastructure of 30 platforms and 37 research teams whose goal is to provide a key missing link between the current e-infrastructure of data centers, computing facilities and cloud services on the one hand, and human intelligence and expertise on the other. CONTINUUM enables a paradigm shift in the way we perceive, interact, and collaborate with complex digital data and digital worlds by putting humans at the center of the data processing workflows. 

CONTINUUM is organized along two axes: (1) Interdisciplinary research between computer science and the humanities and social sciences, with the objective of increasing knowledge and solutions in human-centered computing by creating new services and expertise deployed across the network of heterogeneous platforms; (2) Deployment of tools and services to support the needs of different areas in accessing big data, simulations and virtual/augmented experiences (physics, biology, engineering, computer science, medicine, psychology, didactics, history, archaeology, sociology, arts, etc.) 

The research teams develop cutting-edge research focusing on visualization, immersion, interaction and collaboration, as well as on human perception, cognition and behaviour in virtual/augmented reality. The infrastructure empowers scientists, engineers and artists with a highly interconnected network of high-performance visualization and immersive platforms to observe, manipulate, understand and share digital data, real-time multi-scale simulations, and virtual or augmented experiences.

CONTINUUM is tightly linked to PEPR eNSEMBLE on the future of digital collaboration and PEPR ICCARE on cultural and creative industries. It has recruited four engineers to develop cross-platform software and support the research activities, and is extending the network with 13 new platforms and their associated research teams. The international jury provided a positive mid-term evaluation of the project.