Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica

Their core work

ICAC is a Spanish research centre in Tarragona specializing in classical and Mediterranean archaeology, with particular strength in applying advanced digital and scientific methods to ancient world questions. Their work spans landscape archaeology, archaeobotany, ancient material culture, and ritual spaces — consistently bridging traditional archaeological inquiry with computational tools like GIS, remote sensing, machine learning, and 3D reconstruction. They host international researchers through Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships, functioning as a hub for interdisciplinary archaeological science focused on Greek, Roman, and Aegean civilizations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

ICAC's earlier H2020 work (2019–2020) centred on classical landscape survey, Greek colonisation patterns, and ancient craft traditions like stone working — more traditional archaeological themes augmented by GIS and remote sensing. From 2020 onward, there is a clear shift toward quantitative and computational methods: machine learning for seed identification, stable isotope analysis, geometric morphometrics, and immersive 3D/VR reconstruction. The trajectory shows a research centre steadily embedding data science and digital tools into Mediterranean archaeology.

ICAC is moving decisively toward machine learning and quantitative science applied to ancient agriculture and spatial experience, making them an increasingly strong partner for digital humanities and archaeo-science projects.

How they like to work

ICAC operates exclusively as a project coordinator — all six H2020 grants are MSCA Individual Fellowships where they host incoming researchers. This means they function as a receiving institution rather than a consortium builder. With zero listed consortium partners, their collaboration model is bilateral (host–fellow) rather than multi-partner, which is typical of MSCA-IF hosts but means they have limited experience managing large consortia.

ICAC's H2020 network is structured around hosting individual Marie Curie fellows rather than building multi-partner consortia. Their direct partner count is zero in the data, but the fellowship model implies strong international researcher connections across Mediterranean archaeology communities.

What sets them apart

ICAC stands out by combining deep expertise in classical Mediterranean archaeology with genuinely modern computational methods — machine learning, geometric morphometrics, stable isotopes, and VR — in a way few traditional archaeology institutes achieve. Based in Tarragona (itself a UNESCO World Heritage Roman city), they offer incoming researchers direct access to one of the western Mediterranean's richest archaeological landscapes. For consortium builders, they bring rare interdisciplinary capability: archaeological domain knowledge plus quantitative analytical tools.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TransMed
  Largest single grant (EUR 241,399) and most ambitious scope — reconstructing the ecological and landscape transformations caused by Greek colonisation across the Mediterranean.
• iShape3DSeed
  Pioneering application of machine learning and geometric morphometrics to ancient seed identification, creating a reusable analytical toolkit for archaeobotany.
• STAR-AGESS
  Unusual combination of archaeoastronomy, cognitive analysis, and virtual reality to reconstruct how ancient Greeks experienced sacred spaces — a distinctive digital humanities project.