Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet LABandFAB (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The reduction of greenhouse emissions is currently acknowledged as a major European objective, and by 2040 a 40% emissions cut is expected, with renewable sources contributing up to 27%. In this respect LAB&FAB aims at developing the fabrication of efficient, cheap and stable organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology printed on flexible substrates, which will be scalable and eventually transferred from a lab-environment to production line. LAB&FAB action will spread on the two parallel fronts: the pilot-scale on one side, and the lab-scale on the other. At the pilot-scale, LAB&FAB will exploit state-of-the art printed OPV modules to push their efficiency, while doubling their lifetime by the end of the project. Long-term stability tests will be carried out and allow for a complete durability assessment, while technological improvements will be introduced to target the efficiency/lifetime goals, as specific weaknesses will be spotted. At the lab scale, novel and efficient materials will be thoroughly explored and characterised and optimised printing protocols will be established for their subsequent integration into solar cells large-area production. Degradation tests will also help assess the materials/devices performance, and at the end of fellowship new efficiency/lifetime benchmarks for such scaled OPV cells will be set. The Experienced Researcher (ER) acquired a solid background on physics of OPV, and thanks to this fellowship she will capitalise and expand it toward more technologically-based challenges related to its technology upscaling. The Host Institution ENI (Italy) is embracing a full transition toward a low-carbon scenario, and thanks to the multidisciplinary aspects of LAB&FAB (covering physics, device engineering, and intellectual property management just to name a few) the Host will be able to offer the ER the perfect environment for future growth and advancement of her professional career in the non-academic sector.

Mots clés : solar cells, organic photovoltaic technology, scale up, stability

Participants :
- Eni (Italy) (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 171473.28 €
Projet MERCURY (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Economic Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a vital target for the coming decades. From a technology perspective, power generation is the largest responsible for CO2 emissions, therefore great mitigation efforts will be required in this area. From a policy perspective, it is common opinion that the European Union is and will remain leader in implementing clean policies. Basing on these considerations, the power sector and the European Union will be the two key actors of this project. The main tool adopted in this work will be WITCH, the integrated assessment model developed at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM). The description of the power generation sector in WITCH is quite detailed, but needs to be integrated, especially as far as the electric infrastructure downstream the power generation system is concerned. In the first half of the project, developed at the outgoing host, the modeling of the electric sector will thus be completed and refined. In particular, four main aspects need to be assessed: i) system integration (i.e. the issues related to the non-negligible penetration of intermittent renewables in the grid), ii) electricity storage, iii) electrical grid, and iv) electricity trade. In the second half of the project, developed at the return host, the improved WITCH model will be employed in scenario assessment calculations. Firstly, the prospects in Europe of renewables, CCS and nuclear will be analysed. In particular, attention will be focused not so much on the pure technology aspects, but rather on policy issues such as the role of incentives in renewable diffusion, the slow CCS deployment, or the effects of the nuclear reactors ageing, or of their phaseout. Secondly, the focus will move on assessing the role of these technologies (and the consequent evolution of the electric infrastructure) according to different mitigation scenarios, and in particular considering different levels of global participation in EU-led climate mitigation.

Mots clés : european union, climate policy, power generation, renewable energy, nuclear energy, system integration, electricity storage, electrical grid, electricity trade

Participants :
- Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (Italie) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 164203.8 €
- University of California System (Etats-Unis) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet EPICA (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The requirements for the basic building blocks of Quantum Information Processing (QIP) are sometimes contradictory: one must seek components that are immune to interactions to preserve their fragile quantum properties, and, at the same time, to have strong, controllable interactions to perform operations on the quantum information they carry. Different implementations using atomic, solid state or photonic systems have different strengths and weaknesses, so there has been a growing interest in the study of hybrid systems, that combine different technologies to implement those basic building blocks. Photons are the best system to transfer quantum information, because they travel very fast (as fast as it is possible) and are virtually immune to losing their quantum properties; however, photon-photon interactions are very weak, and most materials only show nonlinearities at high photon numbers. Recently, it has been shown that Rydberg atoms can mediate strong, controllable interactions between individual photons, thus being an ideal system for QIP tasks. "Exploring Photon-photon Interactions using Cold Rydberg Atoms" (EPICA) is a project aimed at exploring the effective photon-photon interactions mediated by Rydberg atoms. The aims of this project are three: – To combine Rydberg atoms with externally generated single-photons. – To describe in a fundamental way dipole-dipole interactions in the context of multiple stored photons in a highly interacting medium (Rydberg atoms). – To apply this fundamental knowledge to implement basic building blocks for Quantum Information Processing, such as two-photon gates, that could eventually work with single-photons that can be entangled; or others such as a Fock state discriminator or a Fock state emitter.

Mots clés : rydberg, photon photon interactions, dlcz, rydberg blockade

Participants :
- Institute of Photonic Sciences (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet SPRINTAFO (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The research action involves an experienced researcher, Dr Xijin Hua, previously working at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and now working in the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), Department of Engineering at University of Cambridge in the UK, to work on the project “Simulation-based design and development of a novel 3D printed ankle-foot orthosis (SPRINTAFO)” for 24 months under the supervision of Dr Sebastian Pattinson. The project aims to develop a simulation-based platform for the personalised design and development of 3D printed orthoses, and apply the platform to the design and optimization of a novel 3D printed ankle-foot orthosis (AFO). The action also aims to provide a platform for the fellow to acquire new knowledge and skills, and for the fellow and the host organization to share and transfer knowledge and skills in the fields of Musculoskeletal computational simulation, Biomechanics, Optimization, 3D printing, Material Sciences and Medical Devices. The outcome of the project will provide a leap forward in the development and manufacturing of cost-effective, highly personalised and functional tailored orthoses, through the integration of personalised biomechanical simulation model and 3D printing technologies, which will further strengthen the host organization’s leading position and competence as a multidisciplinary research unit in 3D printed medical devices. Moreover, the project will aim to develop long-term research collaborations between University of Cambridge and ETH Zurich, as well as between Europe and China by taking advantages of existing academic networks and industrial partnerships.

Mots clés : musculoskeletal simulation, biomechanics, 3d printing, medical devices, orthoses

Participants :
- University of Cambridge (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet PhotoNanoBone (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The research aim of PhotoNanoBone is to develop of a novel nanotechnological strategy based on stimuli-responsive nanocarriers together with a microfluidic platform for spatiotemporal control of cell reprogramming and differentiation of 3D cell cultures towards bone tissue engineering. The project entails three steps. (1) Synthesising stimuli-responsive nanocarriers by layer-by-layer assembly and loaded with cell reprogramming factors (cargo). Polymeric walls of nanocarriers will be further functionalized with magnetic and plasmonic nanoparticles. By applying magnetic fields, nanocarriers can be locally enrichment in 3D cell culture. Upon external light irradiation, plasmonic nanoparticles will be heated, leading to local opening of the polymeric walls and subsequent cargo release. (2) Set-up of a microfluidic platform for externally controlled intracellular magnetic targeting and light-triggered release of cargo. (3) Application of the developed technology in 3D cell cultures of fibroblasts (mouse model) for bone tissue engineering. I (the ER) will prepare, characterize and test the materials and application proposed, with the support of a multidisciplinary hub of specialists. The prime training aim of PhotoNanoBone is to provide me with a truly solid formation in biomaterials, which will support my future career endeavors, both in the academia or industry, to be an independent researcher, a founder of a start-up company or to become key player in the biomaterials sector. I will be hosted by the Centre for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS) of the University of Santiago de Compostela, a cutting-edge multidisciplinary research center at the interface of chemistry, biomedicine and molecular materials. The training will be further strengthened by two secondments focused on the following topics: synthesis of plasmonic NP with lasers (Complutense University Madrid) and development of microfluidic platforms (Micronit Michrotecnologies).


Participants :
- University of Santiago de Compostela (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet ARAB PARLIAMENTS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The research analyses the role of national parliaments in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia since 2011, and assesses their contributions to the political transformation processes. It diminishes an existing research gap since parliaments have received almost no consideration in ‘Arab Spring’ research yet. Semi-structured interviews in all four countries with local parliamentarians, academics, NGO representatives, diplomats and similar decision-makers will produce primary data that will be further discussed in workshops at academic institutions in Amman, Cairo, Rabat and Tunis as well as a conference at the University of Dundee. Peer-reviewed articles, open-access contributions and a monograph will disseminate findings to the public. The underlying hypothesis is that parliaments have influence only in policy topics that (a) do not tackle national security questions and (b) are of domestic nature. In other words, parliaments in the four selected Arab countries may be influential in less sensitive facets of the countries’ individual justice and home affairs, yet to different extent. For this, Prof. Christian Kaunert is the perfect supervisor, as he is one of the most distinguished scholars on EU justice and home affairs with strong affinities to the Arab world; the action will be connected to his newly established European Institute for Security and Justice, created within the School of Politics at UNIVDUN, and contribute not only to excellent basic research but also help increasing the institute’s visibility within the EU as well as within core countries of the EU’s southern neighbourhood. For the intended research action, the experienced researcher can already built on initial research that he has conducted in 2013 and 2014 as visiting professor at Cairo University. However, this research was just a first step into this innovative research field; with the intended action, more steps shall follow to tackle the research topic more comprehensively and in more detail.

Mots clés : arab spring, parliaments, transformation, democratisation, european union

Participants :
- University of Dundee (Royaume-Uni) — Partner, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160800.0 €
Projet MILORD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The research in the field of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has greatly advanced over the last decades, driven by the potential of OLED technology for various display applications. Yet, today, most of the commercial OLED devices contain expensive rare metals like Iridium and Platinum. An alternative promising strategy is based on the use of all-organic emitters, featuring the recently reported thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) mechanism. Relying on a reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) process, TADF-based OLEDs may utilize all electrically generated singlet and triplet excitons, going well beyond the 25% spin statistical bottleneck of organic electroluminescence. Nowadays, however, only a few TADF-based OLEDs have demonstrated efficiencies comparable to the best metal-organic materials. Research efforts so far have been mostly based on a trial-and-error approach in absence of a solid fundamental understanding of the underlying processes. The project MILORD aims at providing a comprehensive picture of the TADF mechanism through the use of an original multiscale modelling approach, going all the way from the molecular to the device scale. We will explore the energetics and nature of the involved excited states, describe the kinetics of competing processes, and model the diffusion and interactions of singlets and triplets in a realistic medium. The results of MILORD will provide detailed mechanistic insights into the TADF process, which will ultimately allow us to identify structure-property relationships and propose new strategies to minimize losses. By integrating the research into a large collaborative network around the Host and the Fellow, we hope that our theoretical work will guide synthetic efforts towards the discovery of a new generation of more efficient materials and device architectures.

Mots clés : organic light emitting diodes, thermally activated delayed fluorescence, reverse intersystem crossing, multiscale modelling, kinetic monte carlo

Participants :
- University of Mons (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172800.0 €
Projet GRAND-PAHs (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

The research objective of this proposal is to use complimentary laboratory techniques to study the photo-ionization and photo-dissociation of large (>50 C-atoms) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules. These molecules are omnipresent in the interstellar medium (ISM) where they are irradiated and electronically excited by ultraviolet photons. This excitation causes PAHs to ionize and/or fragment, contributing substantially to the molecular complexity in space. The underlying chemical pathways are largely unexplored and recent studies show that PAHs play a key role in the formation of i) smaller organic species along a top-down scenario, ii) fullerenes and carbon cages and iii) graphene flakes, i.e., bare PAH skeletons that have not been observed in the ISM yet. These molecules will be studied with a rather unique, fully operational and mobile 'instrument for Photodynamics of PAHs' (i-POP) that is capable of studying the fragmentation of mass selected PAH cations. The mobility of i-POP allows its implementation at different light sources, which include Synchrotron SOLEIL (Saint Aubin - FR) and the free electron laser laboratory FELIX (Nijmegen - NL). The project is timely as its results will actively contribute to European excellence by producing laboratory data relevant to data interpretation from international multi-billion Euro research facilities such as The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The training objective is aligned along this research program. The existing expertise in physical chemistry will be extended to the emerging field of astrochemistry and unique knowledge will be obtained through research projects at Synchrotron SOLEIL and FELIX. A secondment is planned in the first year at FELIX to expand my experimental portfolio to include varied irradiation techniques including a free electron laser, to obtain complementary information about astronomically relevant chemical species.

Mots clés : astrochemistry, pahs, laboratory astrophysics, photo dissociation

Participants :
- Leiden University (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet TEVI (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Doctoral Networks - Industrial Doctorates
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The research of this EID focuses on ultra-low power sensors incorporating artificial intelligence. The current solution for such systems requires an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) prior to the signal processing block, usually implemented with a neural network (NN). The innovation consists of removing the ADC prior to the NN by directly coupling the sensor to it and encoding the sensor signals with a voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO). VCO-based ADCs have been used to implement integrated sensors. Achieving this goal requires to develop a new multiply-accumulate cell (MAC) for the first layer of the NN that operates with signals from the VCO, and a suitable VCO interfaces with existing sensors. In most applications, the raw data form the sensor is required as well. Here, signals coming from the VCO can also be converted to a sampled sequence by enabling a digital decoder, which is not needed when detecting a pattern in the NN. As a benefit, power consumption can meet the requirements of battery-operated products. Power improvement comes from both the ADC removal and the power efficiency of the NN implementation. Approaches to implement a sensor interface using a VCO and to implement a phase/frequency-encoded MAC unit (P-MAC) for a NN have been attempted separately but, there is no combination of both ideas. The research in this EID tries to bridge this gap. This architecture can be useful for both research and industrial applications, such as neural probe chips, wearable electronics or battery powered IoT devices. This EID proposal requires intersectoral involvement of both academia and the industry, to develop a doctoral program and train researchers that will be in high demand by having the specific skills developed in this research. We have selected waterproof smart microphones as an application to benefit from this research, which may directly lead to a product development of interest to microelectronic industries in the EU producing MEMS microphones.

Mots clés : vco based adc, time encoding, mixed mode microelectronics, mems microphones, deep learning accelerator

Participants :
- Carlos III University of Madrid (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 752714.64 €
- Infineon Technologies (Austria) (Autriche) — Partner, beneficiary, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 0.0 €
Projet MOVAC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The research programme outlined in this proposal addresses a key question in evolutionary biology: how diversity in appearance is maintained under natural selection. In particular, I will investigate how colour pattern variation is maintained in species that exhibit warning coloration. This in an especially intriguing area of research because theory predicts that warning signals should look the same in colour and pattern so that they are more easily recognized and avoided by predators. I will investigate this topic using a charismatic polymorphic species of nudibranch mollusc that is common to the coasts of the United Kingdom. Nudibranchs are shell-less marine molluscs with an astounding array of colours and patterns, which they use to either hide from predators (camouflage) or to deter predators by warning them of nasty chemical defenses (warning signals). Nudibranchs are popular spectacles to divers and underwater photographers, yet the anti-predator coloration of this taxon is relatively under-explored. Therefore nudibranchs offer an especially exciting avenue for future research. In addition, research into the chemical defences of nudibranchs has led to the discovery of novel compounds with medicinal value, and the proposed research will contribute to our knowledge of the chemical ecology of these important species. The results of this research project will be used to inform and shape future theoretical models, which will be applicable to a range of ecological and evolutionary processes. The programme will draw attention to a fascinating and unique species, generating international interest and bringing new insight into Europe's coastal ecosystems.

Mots clés : visual signals, warning signals, camouflage, anti predator colouration, sensory ecology, aposematism, predation, polymorphism, mollusc, opisthobranch, nudibranch, chemical ecology, chemical defense

Participants :
- University of Exeter (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 319400.64 €