Founded in 1434, the University of Catania (Siciliae Studium Generale) is the oldest university in Sicily and one of the oldest and biggest in Italy, with about 50000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. UNICT is engaged in teaching, scientific research and technology transfer. Indeed, it participates as a coordinator and partner in various funding programs at regional, national and international levels.

The following two Departments of UNICT are involved in e-SAFE, both with sound experience related to the specific tasks attributed in the project and involved in several funded projects all around the world:

• DICAR – Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture (www.dicar.unict.it) follows the sound Italian tradition in building retrofitting and restoration, enriching its contents with energy efficiency and renewable energy source issues. The DICAR’s portfolio of research embraces technical, socio-economic and design-driven approaches and has resulted in significant outputs published as conventional peer-reviewed papers and books as well as in the design of landmark energy-conscious buildings.

• DIEEI – Department of Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering (https://www.dieei.unict.it/it) employs 68 professors and researchers from various disciplines related to important areas of engineering. With specific regards to e-SAFE topics, DIEEI includes a number of laboratories for testing large equipment, thermal characterization, mechanical and spectroscopic characterization of materials, air pollution and noise analysis, simulation and optimization of industrial systems for production and services, ICT.

In the quality of coordinator of the consortium, UNICT leads the project management and coordination activities and supervises all activities involving the stakeholders in Catania both at urban scale and at pilot scale. UNICT works on the numerical models for the simulation of the dynamic response of e-CLT and e-EXOS, and leads the definition and the design of the prototypes, where many different issues will be taken into account by the different experts from UNICT. Moreover, UNICT has a central role in demonstration activities, where they leads local data gathering activities and the detailed design of the building renovation (both for the real pilot and for the virtual ones), while also actively participating to the monitoring activities. Finally, UNICT takes an active role in dissemination activities at local level and training.