Researchers from the University of Vienna – Coordinator of the RESONATE project (“Building individual and community resilience through nature-based therapies”), visited MU-Plovdiv. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizons Europe Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101081420 and co-funded by the UK Research and Innovation grant award No. 10063874. The Austrian scientists got acquainted with the progress of the local team in conducting one of the key case studies within the project, as well as with the infrastructure of MU-Plovdiv and the locations in the city where the research is being conducted.
Among the guests were Dr. Mathew White – RESONATE Coordinator and Senior Scientist at the University of Vienna Cognitive Science Hub; Dr. Julia Egger – Project manager; and Prof. Sabine Pahl – team member and head of the Environmental psychology group at the University of Vienna.
The research team from MU-Plovdiv, which presented to the guests the conducted studies and analyses, is led by Assoc. Prof. Angel Dzhambov, MD, PhD, DSc – head of the MU-Plovdiv team and the Environment and Health Division at the Research Institute of MU-Plovdiv, and includes Prof. Donka Dimitrova, PhD, Prof. Mariana Murdzheva, MD, PhD, Sr. Asst. Prof. doctor of arch. Angel Burov, Sr. Asst. Prof. Yordan Kalchev, MD, PhD, and Sr. Asst. Prof. Delyana Davcheva, MD, PhD.
Dr. Mathew White presented the essence and scope of the RESONATE project, which aims to investigate the links between contact with nature, its therapeutic benefits and biopsychosocial resilience of individuals and communities to stressors in different centres across Europe. Dr. White emphasized the importance of the case study conducted by MU-Plovdiv, which is one of the largest-scale and innovative studies in this field.
Prof. Dzhambov presented the current progress of the MU-Plovdiv team – the first phase of the cohort study in Plovdiv has already been completed, and a representative sample of over 1,500 people has been collected. Within 12 months, indicators of their exposure to different natural environments, mental well-being, psychological resilience to stressors, as well as a set of immunological and clinical-laboratory biomarkers will be evaluated. Prof. Dzhambov also introduced the attendees to the work done by the MU-Plovdiv team in the other work packages.
The project partners visited the MU-Plovdiv campus, the laboratories of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology “Prof. Dr. Elissay Yanev” and the Department of Clinical Laboratory, where they got acquainted with the equipment and procedures that will be used in the collection and analysis of biosamples from the study participants. Possibilities for collaboration between the laboratory units of MU-Plovdiv and other partner institutions in the project that analyse similar biomarkers were also discussed.
A workshop for building conceptual models and planning the upcoming analyses and collaborations within the project was held in the office of the Environment and Health Division of the Research Institute.
The researchers, together with Prof. Dzhambov, Prof. Dimitrova and Dr. Burov, conducted a series of field surveys and assessments at various locations in Plovdiv, where the MU-Plovdiv team is conducting measurements of the factors of the urban environment and is recruiting a representative sample of the population.
The visiting scientists shared that they were impressed by the progress of the MU-Plovdiv team on the project, the infrastructure of the University, the expertise and attitude of the team, as well as by the selection of the visited locations in the city.
