In today's world, access to information, thought of as the resolution of uncertainty, is often considered a benefit or even as an indisputable human right. There is, however, the “dark side” of information: the abundance of data beyond one's capacity to process them leads to so-called information overload (IOL). This notion had troubled mankind long before even the print was invented and examined from different points of view, ranging from neuroscience to journalism. IOL is, however, usually considered at the individual level by examining a single factor or a specific level that eventually leads to switching off an active individual. The influence of IOL appearing simultaneously at different levels, i.e., a multilevel information overload is unknown, though. These observations lead to setting the main aim of the OMINO - Overcoming Multilevel INformation Overload project in the form of the following objectives:

1. create and apply means to measure multilevel IOL in different systems as well as methods to model IOL and counter-measures to mitigate this phenomenon,
2. training and knowledge exchange on IOL between partners in different domains using expertise from universities in UK, U.S., China, Singapore, Australia and Japan,
3. intersectoral knowledge transfer between academia and the media industry (Slovenian and Austrian Press Agencies, Zeta Alpha) by exposing researchers to real-life problems and giving business access to innovative methods and tools for information analysis.

One of the most important aspects of the undertaken research area is its interdisciplinary nature, requiring joint work of experts in different fields and topics, i.e., social sciences, neuroscience, journalism, computing, data mining and complexity science. OMINO will accelerate the individual careers of involved researchers, especially early-stage ones and increase their employability. The project will lay the foundations for long-term collaboration by strengthening existing links between partners and creating new ones.

Check a short video to find out what is the multilvel information overload and how it can be measured, modelled and mitigated

OMINO is a 4-year project (1st Jan 2023 - 31st Dec 2026) financed through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme Staff Exchanges (MSCA-SE) and was submitted in March 2022 in response to HORIZON-MSCA-2021-SE-01 call with the total budget of 1 297 000 EUR (see the breakdown at Cordis site). In general, the research in the project is carried out during secondments - visits (up to 12 months per single staff member) of researchers between Project's 7 Beneficiaries and 15 Associated Partners (see Partners section for a detailed list of entities involved in OMINO and Researchers to see specific people involved).

OMINO's implementation is centered around four scientific workpackages and additional three devoted to traning and dissemination, management, and ethical issues (see Workpackages section for details). OMINO is coordinated by Prof. Janusz Hołyst from Warsaw University of Technology, supported by Project Management Committe (representatives of all Beneficiaries) and aided by the OMINO Advisory Board:

• Prof. Hernan Makse, City College of New York,
• Prof. Natalja Menold, Technische Universität Dresden,
• Prof. Norbert Fuhr, University of Duisburg-Essen,
• Prof. Paweł Sobkowicz, National Centre for Nuclear Research.