Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet CARBONDEV (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Relocating efforts to mitigate CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) seems like an appealing strategy to help contain global warming below 1.5°C. The CARBONDEV project explores how socio-political factors in developing countries affect the effectiveness of carbon offset projects, particularly REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) programs and studies the broader social and political consequences of conservation projects. The project will collect data from diverse sources such as REDD+ project geographical boundaries, satellite imagery, household surveys, and conflict datasets to study the effectiveness and socio-economic impacts of forest conservation programs.  This action, unfolding at Nova SBE in Portugal under the guidance of Prof. Alex Armand will explore these research questions while offering training and career development and greatly enhancing my skills and fostering my career prospects. By conducting the project at Nova SBE, I'll broaden my network, strenghten my scientific skills at the intersection of development and environmental economics, and leverage my expertise in impact evaluation, econometrics, and spatial data analysis to expand their research capacity.


Participants :
- Université nouvelle de Lisbonne (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191343.12 €
Projet BioH2Gen (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

In view of the urgent need to mitigate the environmental effects caused by the large amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere, alternative strategies for energy production using renewable sources (water, wind, biomass, sunlight) have been deployed. Green hydrogen (H2) is an alternative to fossil fuels due to its clean and high energy density combustion, but still limited the low efficiency of production and high cost. To respond to these limitations, BioH2Gen proposes an alternative strategy for green H2 production through biophotovoltaic (BPV) devices, taking advantage of photosynthetic microorganisms to generate H2 through sunlight capture. More specifically, this project proposes the development of new nanostructured photoelectrodes based on flexible polymeric scaffolds prepared by electrospinning modified with semiconducting conjugated polymers aiming at the construction of BPV devices through the interfacing with photosynthetic microbes (biophotoanode) and hydrogenase (biophotocathode). BioH2Gen addresses recent progress in the field and tackles this topic by deploying a multidisciplinary approach to develop an innovative solar powered H2 production platform. The structure, charge transfer kinetics, and band-gap design of new flexible photoelectrodes will improve biotic-abiotic interactions for charge transfer. Finally, a tandem BPV assembly and its incorporation into a photoelectrochemical cell architecture will be carried out, aiming at high solar-to-hydrogen efficiencies. The successful implementation of the research methodology will culminate in a sustainable alternative in BPV device development due to the lightweight, low-cost, and low-environmental impact of the materials employed in their construction.

Mots clés : bioelectrochemistry, electrochemistry

Participants :
- Université nouvelle de Lisbonne (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207183.12 €
Projet BEAMLOCKER (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Mode locking (ML) is the most important technique to generate ultrashort laser pulses. Tremendous progress has been made in locking longitudinal modes in lasers with a single transverse mode, e.g., single-mode fiber lasers. Spatiotemporal mode-locking (STML) has been proposed by locking transverse and longitudinal modes in multimode fiber (MMF) lasers to generate ultrafast spatiotemporal pulses, opening new directions in studies of nonlinear wave propagation. Thanks to fiber multimodality, such lasers generate pulses with higher power with respect to their single-mode counterpart. On the other hand, the irregular beating among transverse modes is detrimental to achieving high beam quality. This drawback can be overcome by Kerr beam self-cleaning in graded-index MMFs. As pulse power grows above a certain threshold, this process introduced by Kerr nonlinearity allows for an irreversible transfer of power from the high order modes into the fundamental mode, leading to a stable and robust bell-shaped output transverse profile. In this framework, the BEAMLOCKER project aims at studying the dynamics of STML MMF lasers with high-quality output beams by appropriate modeling. The models will be established starting from preliminary experimental studies, and they will be studied by analytical methods, direct numerical simulations, and numerical continuation and bifurcation methods. In addition, the noise behavior of STML lasers will be investigated in detail, with a particular focus on the beam self-cleaning regimes. The project results will stimulate further theoretical analysis and experiments on complex interactions in nonlinear multimode fiber systems. Furthermore, understanding the complex properties of STML MMF lasers will shed new light on frontier physical phenomena, such as spatiotemporal rogue waves generation and turbulence, which find applications in several fields, ranging from telecommunication to biomedicine.

Mots clés : spatiotemporal mode locking, mode locked fiber lasers, kerr beam self clearning, bifurcation, soliton, laser noise

Participants :
- Université de Rome « La Sapienza » (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172750.08 €
Projet MGELS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Responsive soft materials, made of crosslinked polymer networks, have emerged as a promising class of systems. In particular, thermoresponsive hydrogels and microgels are widely used from drug delivery to cell engineering and art restoration. An important feature of such systems is their internal elasticity, which can be tuned according to their preparation protocol and crosslinker concentration. Despite recent progress in their modeling by means of numerical simulations, there is no way to know a priori their structure and elasticity from only their initial constituents, and hence, extensive exploration of initial parameters through simulations and experiments must be performed. To overcome this difficulty, in the present proposal MGELS -Machine-learning polymer Gel’s ELasticity and Structure- I will exploit my existing knowledge on Machine Learning (ML) methods to develop novel tools able to predict structural and elastic properties of hydrogels and microgel particles to design in silico polymer networks with desired features. The project is based on four objectives. The first is to develop a ML-Neural Network (ML-NN) able to predict the network structure using data from molecular dynamics simulations of microgels and hydrogels already collected from the supervisor. The second is to explore structural and elastic properties of new configurations of networks, following the methods established in the host group. As a third objective, we will create a new database of polymer networks that will be made open access at the end of the project. Finally, we will extend the ML-NN approach to predict elastic properties and to identify the onset of auxetic behavior. With the accomplishment of these goals, we will be able to fully predict polymer networks properties, being very appealing for the soft matter and materials science communities. The scientific outcomes from the action and the development of new skills will help me to establish my future career in academia.

Mots clés : microgels hydrogels polymers colloids machine learning elasticity coarse grained simulations

Participants :
- Université de Rome « La Sapienza » (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172750.08 €
Projet ForestFireAI (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SUSPENDED

With the increasing frequency and intensity of forest fires, it is essential to better understand the drivers causing them. Identifying forest fire drivers offer valuable insights that can enhance our comprehension of forest fire variability and guide targeted regional risk management strategies. Recent advancements in satellite remote sensing and machine learning data processing techniques have significantly improved fire monitoring. However, while these efforts have resulted in accurate fire maps, they do not provide information about the underlying causes. Consequently, the full potential of Earth Observation data, along with advanced data processing and modelling techniques for studying the forest fire drivers, remains largely unexplored. The ForestFireAI project aims to leverage the availability of multi-source and multi-temporal Earth Observation data to propose new AI algorithms for estimating forest fire drivers. This includes creating a benchmark dataset of forest fire drivers in Europe, which will serve as a ground truth data for evaluating developed advanced AI algorithms. Moreover, the project will focus on developing AI techniques to improve the spatial resolution of data, use multi-source data and their temporal resolution, and establish efficient processing schemes for detecting forest fire drivers, such as human activities, high temperature, fuel, and dryness. To ensure the reliability, efficiency, and scalability of the developed algorithms, uncertainty-aware, explainable, and hybrid physical/data-driven techniques will be incorporated. Through this multidisciplinary approach—bringing together expertise in remote sensing, computer science, and forest ecology—ForestFireAI will take important steps toward developing the algorithms necessary for better understanding forest fire drivers. This knowledge could contribute in reducing the risk of extreme forest fires and will accelerate the advancement of Dr Benyamin Hosseiny’s research.

Mots clés : wildfire, forest, remote sensing, earth observation, satellite imagery, multi source data, time series data, machine learning, deep learning, in situ data, classification

Participants :
- Université d'Exeter (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 260347.92 €
Projet EpiNeuron (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurological diseases in humans, affecting 50 million people worldwide. This brain disorder is characterised by hypersynchronous neural activity resulting in seizures. Abnormal recruitment of cells induces unusual behaviour, sensations or loss of awareness. Epilepsy has a substantial economic effect on health care needs or the loss of productivity in work. Investigating the role of different neuron types in generating pathological activities is essential for identifying what makes a brain region predisposed to generate epileptic events. Most information regarding the properties of neuronal circuits during epileptic activity comes from animal models. However, recent studies have shown substantial differences when comparing human tissue to animals and epilepsy models to disease. I aim to utilise a unique multilevel approach to follow how neurons are recruited into epileptic events and categorise them at an unprecedented level of detail in human epileptic patients. I plan to analyse cellular activity in recordings obtained in vivo and characterise human cortical neurons in vitro with simultaneous intra- and extracellular electrophysiology completed with post hoc histology. This will be the first study examining neuronal behaviour and subtypes in the same epileptic patients, both in vivo (before surgery) and in vitro (after surgery). This innovative approach will provide valuable information on the role of the different neuron types in the generation of epileptiform activity. The fundamental knowledge of the cellular mechanisms of epileptic events specific to humans could help us understand the human disease deeply and thus achieve a significant breakthrough in epilepsy treatment. Enhancement in the diagnostics and cure of epilepsy would considerably decrease the cost of medical care and promise an invaluable improvement in the quality of life on the individual level.

Mots clés : epilepsy, human, neocortex, hippocampus, seizure, single unit, pyramidal cell, interneuron

Participants :
- Institut du cerveau (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 195914.88 €
Projet PhenoSSM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Sleep is a basic need that represents a critical public health issue when disturbed or insufficient. Sleep state misperception (SSM) – the mismatch between subjective reports (what individuals perceive) and objective measures (what sleep specialists record) – complicates the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. SSM is common in sleep disorders, including insomnia and narcolepsy, both of which struggle with managing the transition from wakefulness to sleep and exhibit severe overestimation of sleep onset latency. Despite recent advances in understanding the neurophysiological aspects of SSM, its subjective dimensions remain largely unexplored. This project aims to address this gap by integrating novel first-person methods from consciousness science, Micro-phenomenology and Temporal Experience Tracing, with objective neurophysiological data to better understand the experiential mechanisms behind SSM in insomnia, narcolepsy, and healthy controls. We will investigate SSM at three critical levels: 1) during the shift from wakefulness to sleep, using polysomnography and micro-phenomenology to identify the minimal requirements for feeling asleep and strategies developed by sleep disorder patients to facilitate/resist this transition; 2) during morning retrospective evaluation of sleep, using Temporal Experience Tracing to capture the dynamics of how sleep experiences are remembered and evaluated across a night of sleep, and its impact on morning fatigue; and 3) across multiple nights, to assess how day-to-day fluctuations in daytime cognition (mind-wandering, tiredness) and nighttime cognition (dreams) relates to SSM and mental health, using a 2-week protocol with actigraphy. This project has the potential to reveal key experiential dimensions related to SSM that have been overlooked, as well as a better knowledge of how SSM fluctuates over many days, which could lead to better evaluation tools or more personalized treatments for patients with sleep disorders.

Mots clés : sleep disorders, sleep state misperception, insomnia, narcolepsy, phenomenology, neuroscience, consciousness, dreaming

Participants :
- Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (France) — Partner, associated partner, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
- Institut du cerveau (France) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 242260.56 €
Projet EuWoRD (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

At a time when fundamentalisms and populisms threaten basic human rights, it is extremely important to investigate the roots of European values such as egalitarianism and democracy, in order to contribute to popular and scholarly debates on these subjects in an informed way. Addressing the historical relationship between religion and ideas of modernity, the EuWoRD project aims to provide a better understanding of laypersons’ contribution (women and men) to the development of the Enlightenment, when democratic concepts gradually emerged as basic rights. It addresses particularly the history of a religious minority in seventeenth-century Europe, the Dutch Collegiant movement, and pursues a specific goal: to reveal how the practice of enlightened concepts and the participation of women in free-discussion meetings co-created the development of enlightened values. The theory did not cause the practice: both were mutually implicated in development. To pursue this goal, the EuWoRD project blends the methodologies of social history, gender history, history of ideas and political philosophy, and has two objectives: 1) an updated account of the Collegiants’ practices, the presence of women among their ranks, and their European network, regarding their meetings as interconfessional free associations that fostered the birth of an early public sphere; 2) an examination of the interrelations between the Collegiants’ practices and the concepts they advocated, focusing on their debates on gender equality and women’s right to free speech, and revealing how these debates were related to similar ones throughout Europe. Due to its originality and interdisciplinarity, the EuWoRD project will have a major impact on several fields of study, as well as on the general public. Indeed, research outcomes will be disseminated through academic (e.g., a digital map of the Collegiants’ network and two scholarly articles) and public (e.g., a Twitter account and blog entries) activities.

Mots clés : early modern women religious dissent gender equality religion and modernisation radical reformation enlightenment freedom of speech practices of free expression democracy

Participants :
- University College Dublin (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 199694.4 €
Projet PremEat (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

One in 10 babies worldwide are born preterm (<37 weeks of pregnancy). Preterm infants’ nutrition and feeding are well studied during postnatal hospitalisation and early infancy, but little research is available on this topic beyond infancy. Eating and feeding behaviour is currently not part of the follow-up care of preterm children, which may be problematic if eating and feeding difficulties are indeed more common among preterm born children compared to those born at term, as some studies suggest. The main aim of the PremEat project is to provide insight into different stakeholders’ experiences of eating behaviours of children born preterm beyond infancy. PremEat’s specific objectives are: (O1) to explore parents’, children’s and healthcare professionals (HCPs)’ experiences and support needs regarding preterm children’s eating behaviour, (O2) to compare the eating behaviours of preterm children aged 2 to 6 years, the feeding practices of their parents, and influencing factors, to those of a term-born population, and (O3) to develop recommendations and communication material on this matter for families and HCPs. The project will use qualitative (interviews, focus groups) and quantitative research methods (surveys) to gather data in Switzerland (2-year outgoing phase at UZH) and Ireland (1-year return phase at UCD). The project is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on expertise from the involved partners in psychology, human nutrition, health promotion, neonatology, and developmental paediatrics. The PremEat project is also co-creatively designed with local organisations representing the interests of preterm born children – the Irish Neonatal Health Alliance and Frühchen Schweiz – ensuring that this research is based on their needs and the findings and outputs meaningful for affected families. The project objectives support the Horizon Europe strategic plan (2021-2024) for research and innovation and the EU Global Health Strategy to deliver better health for all.

Mots clés : prematurity, eating behaviour, parental feeding practices, pre schoolers, support needs, public and patient involvement, co creation

Participants :
- Université de Zurich (Suisse) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- University College Dublin (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 442243.2 €
Projet CANVAS (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The pre-eruptive pressure (depth) of magma storage beneath a volcano modulates the eruptive behaviour observed at the surface. Pressure controls the physical properties of magma such as the crystallinity via pressure-sensitive phase equilibria as well as the concentration of dissolved volatiles within the melt. Such parameters drastically affect how violently the volcano will erupt, and by extension the resultant societal and economic impact. However, it is increasingly apparent that one of the main ways that we recover pre-eruptive pressure from magmas, namely the link between the major element chemistry of the magmatic mineral clinopyroxene and pressure, is subject to large uncertainty. CANVAS will improve our understanding of the coupling between the chemical-structural variability of clinopyroxene and the crystallisation pressure. We will run a series of equilibrium crystallisation experiments on an Icelandic basalt starting material at atmospheric (1 atmosphere) and crustal (200 – 800 megapascals) pressures, employing thermal methods to grow large (>30 µm) crystals. Experimental clinopyroxenes will be measured for major elements using electron probe microanalyser. The same crystals will be subject to synchrotron X-ray microdiffraction to establish crystal structure and electron density, refining the “true” (observed) distribution of cations within the crystal lattice. The “true” composition of natural clinopyroxene has been previously shown to differ from assumed chemistry. In doing so, we will perform the first large, systematic study of clinopyroxene at crustal pressures by synchrotron to our knowledge. This approach will allow us to robustly isolate experimental pressure effects from temperature and melt composition, refining the observable chemical and physical response of clinopyroxene. Our findings will significantly improve the robustness of pressure estimates from erupted magmas, a key data source to benchmark geophysical signals in active volcanoes.

Mots clés : petrological monitoring of volcanoes, experimental petrology, mineral chemistry

Participants :
- Université de Manchester (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 260347.92 €