Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Academy of Sciences -- ITAM (Czech Republic)

Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic has been supported since 2000 as a European Centre of Excellence ARCCHIP (Advanced Research Centre for Cultural Heritage Interdisciplinary Projects) under 5th EC FP. About 30 research workers and 30 technicians in the Institute are engaged in problems relatinged mostly to civil and structural engineering. This research is supported by on average 25 national and international research grants per year. In the field of historic materials and structures the ongoing projects involve two EC 5th FP grants, a US-Czech project and two national grants, e.g. a Czech Ministry of Culture project on Monitoring of environmental effects and diagnostics of damage on historic objects. The Institute is located in Prague and has a detached laboratory in Tel. - a World Heritage City. In both localities monitoring programmes also take place.