Beyond Space-Time: Tor Vergata joins international consortium for frontier research in physics
A global research effort to probe the quantum roots of space, time, and gravity—pushing toward a new framework where spacetime itself may emerge from deeper informational principles.
Tor Vergata University of Rome has joined the international consortium WithOut SpaceTime (WOST), a project that began on December 1 and will run until August 2028.
The consortium consists of 17 research institutions from across the globe and aims to explore fundamental questions at the intersection of quantum information, spacetime, and gravity, with the long-term goal of reshaping our understanding of spacetime as an emergent or operational concept. WOST is generously funded with EUR 4.7 million by the John Templeton Foundation (JTF), and is managed by the Center for SpaceTime and the Quantum (CSTQ).
At Tor Vergata, WOST research is led by Flaminia Giacomini, a researcher in the Department of Physics. Giacomini's group studies conceptual questions related to how general relativity—the theory that describes the laws of gravity we experience in everyday life—fits together with quantum mechanics, the theory that describes atomic and subatomic physics.
These two theories are the pillars of modern physics and have been experimentally confirmed countless times over the past century.
“However,” Flaminia Giacomini emphasises, “their fundamental principles are strongly incompatible with one another, and there is no theory that unifies them. Starting from the basic concepts underlying both, we can however imagine some features of a unifying theory.”
“For example, while general relativity provides a smooth description of space and time, measured with rulers and clocks as we know them from our everyday experience, quantum physics suggests that these concepts should obey quantum laws.”
“In a unifying theory of gravity and quantum physics,” Giacomini explains, “clocks and rulers inevitably become quantum objects and can therefore be subject to the principle of superposition. What happens if a clock measures time in quantum superposition? And how does a quantum particle ‘see the world'?”
To explore these questions, the group uses ideas from quantum information theory to rethink concepts such as observers, reference frames, and time when these are treated as quantum systems.
The group also works to understand which ultra-high-precision experiments could, in the coming decades, test whether gravity possesses quantum properties. This research aims to clarify how our understanding of space, time, and gravity might change at the most fundamental level.
About the WithOut SpaceTime (WOST) consortium.
The WithOut SpaceTime (WOST) consortium builds on the success of the Quantum Information Structure of Spacetime (QISS) initiative and brings together a global network of researchers working at the frontier of topics such as the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum information, and quantum gravity.
By combining conceptual, mathematical, and informational approaches, WOST investigates how familiar notions of spacetime may emerge from deeper, non-spatiotemporal structures.
The consortium is led by Francesca Vidotto and Flaminia Giacomini, whose scientific leadership is supported by an international senior advisory committee. WOST is organised into interconnected research groups, each coordinated by leading experts in the field, ensuring strong collaboration across institutions and disciplines.
The scale and vitality of the WOST community were already evident at the QISS conference in May 2025, which brought together a large and diverse group of researchers from around the world and showcased the growing momentum behind information-theoretic approaches to spacetime physics.
WOST Members
Here are the universities in the WOST Group:
- Institute for the Structure of Matter and Complutense University of Madrid;
- Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) Vienna;
- Tor Vergata University of Rome;
- Centre de Physique Théorique, Marseille University;
- ETH Zurich;
- Florida Atlantic University;
- Lichtenberg Group for History and Philosophy of Physics, University of Bonn;
- Louisiana State University;
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST);
- Pennsylvania State University;
- Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics;
- Quantinuum & University of Oxford;
- Royal Holloway, University of London;
- University College London;
- University of Melbourne;
- Université Libre de Bruxelles;
- Université Paris-Saclay.
For more information about the consortium, visit withoutspacetime.org.
[PICTURE] From left to right: Davide Mattei, Emanuele Panella, Flaminia Giacomini, Vittorio D'Esposito e Giorgio Lo Giudice.]