The project Multidimensional Persistence and Toric Topology is jointly funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) as one of the ten projects financed in the scope of bilateral scientific collaboration between two countries in a three-year period of 2021-2023. Indeed, these ten projects are the first projects ever funded in a joint research funding call of Turkey and Serbia.

Two leading institutions on this project are the Middle East Technological University, Department of Mathematics in Ankara and the Mathematical Institute SANU with Prof Mehmetchik Pamuk (Turkey) and Dr Đorđe Baralić (Serbia) as the project leaders. Mehmed Ali Batan, Prof Tülin Altunöz and Oguz Yildiz from METU, Prof Tane Vergili from Karadeniz Technical University and Prof Hanife Varli Çankırı Karatekin University are researchers from the Turkish team and researcher of the Serbian team are Prof Aleksandar Vučić, Dr Aleksandra Kostić, and Filip Jekić from FM UB, Prof Jelena Ivanović from FA UB, and Prof Nevena Marić from the Faculty of Computing, Union University.

The main objective of the project is to establish the connection between two modern mathematical disciplines that have been developing fast for the last three decades: persistent homology and toric topology. Persistent homology is the widest applied method of algebraic topology based on assigning a persistent module to the cloud of points, i.e. a simplicial complex whose homology is calculated in certain intervals and the so-called `barcode’ as the result of this calculation. It was broadly applied in image processing, shape recognition, machine learning, but also in medicine. Toric topology studies spaces with toric actions associated with combinatorial structures such as simplicial complexes, and their invariants. The project develops the methods of persistent homology for calculation of topological invariants coming from toric topology.

The two teams organise an on line research seminar weekly, every Wednesday, while the first exchange of researchers is planned for autumn 2021. Joint workshops, mini-courses and conferences are planned in the framework of the project, and having in mind the current actuality of the topic, it is expected that the cooperation will continue to grow and boost further collaboration in mathematics and computer science between Serbia and Turkey.