Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-actions-marie-curie-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet SOS-CROPS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Crop yield depends in a large part on stem height and inflorescence structure. Mutations that reduce stem growth have been used widely to improve crop yields but also have undesired side effects, for example during seed formation. In spite of its importance, stem development is poorly understood. Fundamental knowledge of how genes control stem growth is required to develop more precise genetic tools to increase plant productivity by modifying plant height and shape. The ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA HOMEOBOX1 (ATH1) gene inhibits stem development but is rapidly downregulated prior to the floral transition to allow elongation of the inflorescence stem. Data from the host lab indicate that ATH1 integrates two of the key hormonal signals that control stem growth: gibberellin (GA) and brassinosteroid (BR). My objectives are to reveal the mode of action of ATH1 and use this knowledge to develop new ways of modifying plant height with fewer undesired side-effects. I will reveal how ATH1 influences GA and BR signalling, understand molecular mechanisms of ATH1 action and identify cis-regulatory mutations that result in dwarf plants due to persistent ATH1 expression after flowering. Such mutations would be particularly useful for two reasons: first, regulatory mutations have been selected repeatedly in evolution and crop improvement because they allow subtle changes in gene expression, with fewer pleiotropic effects. Second, this type of mutation would be expected to be dominant and especially useful in polyploid crops. In addition to addressing a fundamental problem with practical use, this work will give me cutting edge training in plant developmental genetics and quantitative phenotyping at cellular and macroscopic levels. At the same time, the project will benefit from my knowledge of plant hormonal signalling and extensive experience in genome editing. More broadly, the work will provide me with a valuable network on international contacts and skills for my future career.

Mots clés : brassinosteroids, gibberellin, organ boundary, regulatory mutations, rib zone, stem growth

Participants :
- UK Research and Innovation (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet CLUES-DECEB (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Cultural loss is a common phenomenon throughout human history, often in relation to major external shocks. Yet, there are few studies that analyse which process might govern it. CLUES-DECEB (Cultural Loss Under Emulated Shocks – Demographic Environmental Climatic Empirical Bottlenecks) homes in the resilience of culture under demographic and environmental shocks – prognosed to become more frequent and severe. By modelling and analysing drastic changes in population or in the environmental brought about by epidemics, climate change, mass-migrations, or natural hazards, CLUES pursues two key objectives: firstly, to model the cultural resilience after a given abrupt shock; secondly, to seek empirical testing of the models with archaeological case-studies. Adopting and adapting state-of-the-art analytical techniques that have been developed over the last two decades to study the relationship between demography, enviroment and cultural loss CLUES harnesses the computational power now available to run numerical models using the archaeological and cross-cultural databases such as Human Resources Area Files. CLUES is highly interdisciplinary, combining numerical and analytical modelling from a wide suite of fields, using tools developed to model cosmological datasets, data science, archaeological and anthropological data extraction and complex systems. This ambitious project will study culture aiming to forecast the requirements to achieve a general measure of the shock-induced tipping-points of culture. This is highly relevant at a global and European scale. At planetary scale, climate change and environmental degradation will bring to the tipping-point many vulnerable systems. In Europe, many rural areas and whole member states, are losing large amounts of population due to migration. Results will shed new light on our understanding of the past, and thanks to that help our present and have influence on the preservation of cultural diversity for the future generations.

Mots clés : culture, cultural loss, resilience, intangible heritage, bottlenecks, tipping points, disasters, shocks, modeling, mock datasets, arcehologcal datasets, empirical, numerical, preservation, bayesian

Participants :
- Aarhus University (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 255687.36 €
- Simon Fraser University (Canada) — Partner, organization partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet NOBILIS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Information Science and Engineering
Statut du projet : TERMINATED

Current EU strategies, the climate action and the European Green Deal require infrastructure to be provided in an economical and environmentally responsible manner, reducing material use, embedded carbon and other impacts on the natural environment and ecosystems. Innovative, low-carbon, sustainable solutions will therefore be needed for the maintenance an upgrading of ageing transport infrastructure facilities to meet future needs and the changing environmental loads due to climate change. Opportunities for transformative processes arise from advances in understanding and harnessing nature-based processes. The use of such processes in geotechnical engineering practice is relatively new and underexplored. Before industrial adoption field applications of the techniques are required to prove their practical viability, long-term sustainability and whole life costs. The aim of this research is thus to realise exciting new bio-based processes in situ as a viable, sustainable method of improving existing infrastructure earthworks. For this the UK railway network is used as a case study. The research comprises the development of exciting novel processes in the laboratory, their numerical modelling before upscaled application in the field, and a pilot field study application of the novel techniques on a railway embankment. Following this, the techniques will be evaluated in terms of environmental impact and whole life costs. This will lead to practical guidelines for industry, fostering the transfer of new technologies to engineering practice in order to address industry and EU priorities for low-carbon nature-based solutions and bio-economy.

Mots clés : sustainable development, climate action, ground improvement, biotechnology, biogeochemistry, materials

Participants :
- London South Bank University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet BioFUNC (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Current rates of biodiversity loss threaten the delivery of a range ecosystem services critical to human welfare. To maintain ecosystem multifunctionality there is a broad consensus that biodiversity must be conserved or restored, but a key aspect of this, which is still poorly recognized, is that ecosystem services can only persist over space and time if ecological communities are stable (i.e. species within communities do not go locally extinct). However, the mechanistic connections between the maintenance of species diversity and the stability of multiple ecosystem functions have yet to be established. Such ecological knowledge is basic to understanding the social and economic benefits of management actions on biodiversity. BioFUNC aims to investigate the effects of the mechanisms maintaining species diversity (niche and fitness differences) on the stability of multiple ecosystem functions. To accomplish this we aim to take a multidisciplinary approach by combining recent advances in ecological theory with plant population models and observational and field experiments, along with structural equation modelling and meta-analytical techniques. Two lines of related research will be pursued: 1) an investigation of the effects of species traits on species coexistence in spatially and temporally variable environments, and 2) an investigation of the effects of species coexistence mechanisms on the stability of ecosystem functioning in space and time. BioFUNC is a collaborative project between IRNAS-CSIC (Spain, beneficiary) and IPS-University of Bern (Switzerland, partner), which foresees three key results. First, developing a toolbox for predicting when ecosystems services are transient or stable. Second, disentangling direct and indirect effects of climate, soil and species traits on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Third, predicting the sign and magnitude of a change in multiple ecosystem functions due to the loss of diversity or changes in species composition

Mots clés : coexistence, complementarity effects, biodiversity, biomass, environmental variability, litter decomposition, niches, nutrient cycling, productivity, selection effects, traits

Participants :
- Spanish National Research Council (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 170121.6 €
Projet CuMOF-LED (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Current white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) are based on inorganic phosphors, such as CdQDs or rare earth elements. Those are toxic and/or scarce and therefore are considered as a critical aspect towards the sustainable development and use of the WLED technology. Hybrid WLEDs (HWLEDs) based on organic phosphors (OPs), such as coordination complexes, conjugated polymers, laser dyes, etc., are considered as an alternative if the stability and efficiency requirements are met. In this context, OPs based on emitting Ir(III) complexes have recently reached the desired device performance, but they are also considered as scarce material. CuMOF-LED proposes the development of new sustainable, non-toxic, and highly emissive OPs based on Cu(I) complexes-metal organic framework hybrid materials for next generation HWLEDs. Here, highly emissive blueish green Cu(I) complexes will be inserted in highly emissive yellowish orange Zn(II) or Zr(IV) MOFs, leading to a stable host-guest system prepared by either physical diffusion or chemical bonding. Both the host and the guest will be designed to reach high efficiencies and will be in synergy to stabilize each other. These hybrid OPs will be used for the implementation of highly performing HWLEDs, targeting features such as CIE coordinates close to 0.31; 0.31, CRI >90, efficiency >100 lm/W, and color efficiency over 100-500h under mid-power excitations. This multidisciplinary proposal covers a wide range of different fields of science, i.e. organic/coordination chemistry, material science, photophysics, coating fabrication, photo and thermal stability studies, and fabrication/analysis of lighting devices (HWLEDs). CuMOF-LED will open-up new horizons on the field of optoelectronics, with the implementation of sustainable OPs in HLEDs.

Mots clés : cu i  complexes, mofs, hybrid materials, host guest systems, polymer thin film coating, whleds, device fabrication, optoelectronics

Participants :
- Technical University of Munich (Allemagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 172932.48 €
- Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies (Espagne) — Partner, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 0.0 €
Projet HPSC-PAT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Currently, 12% of European citizens participate in organised sport weekly. Scientists and policy makers have underlined that the potential of sports clubs to promote health has been underutilized, limiting its contribution to society. Beyond the promotion of physical activity, sports clubs can also promote social, mental and physical health and well-being among its participants, as well as playing an active role in sustainable development. With the increase of unstructured sports practices (individuals practicing on their own), sports clubs need to reinvent themselves, in regard to the services they offer to their participants and society. Previous studies have identified sports clubs’ policies as a key determinant in health promotion efforts, but these have been acknowledged by sports clubs managers and coaches as their biggest weakness, across European countries. My knowledge in shaping the theoretical model of health promoting sports clubs and implementing health promoting interventions in sport, will combine with Professor Woods’ experience in physical activity policies framing and implementation to generate a health promoting sports clubs’ policies analysis tool (HPSC-PAT). Three research objectives will contribute to this aim: (1) document policies of sports clubs having participated in a unique health promotion program: the “Healthy Clubs” initiative of the Gaelic Athletic Association, (2) identify how national to local health and sport policies are known and implemented by sports clubs and (3) co-construct a policy analysis tool with sports clubs’ stakeholders. The provision of the HPSC-PAT for sports and health professionals will support sports clubs in their engagement of EU policies on the potential of sport to serve the society by developing health promotion. I will enhance my competences in 1/policies framing and implementation analysis, 2/ project application and management, 3/ interdisciplinary and international research project, 4/event organisation.

Mots clés : sports policies, physical activity policies, health promotion in sports clubs

Participants :
- University of Limerick (Irlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 196590.72 €
Projet HAT-TRICK (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Currently, direct C-H to C-C bond conversion achieved via photocatalyzed Hydrogen Atom Transfer is mainly limited to redox neutral transformations, where the electrons in the reagents are preserved in the product of interest. The few non-redox neutral approaches reported are oxidative processes that require aggressive oxidants or fragile dual-catalytic systems to remove the extra electrons. HAT-TRICK combines photocatalyzed Hydrogen Atom Transfer (p-HAT), electrochemistry (e-chem) and flow chemistry (flow-chem) to deliver a game-changing and easy-to-use technology to drive these net-oxidative transformations sustainably. On one side, p-HAT will be used as the substrate activation manifold because it consists in the direct activation of a C-H bond in the substrate by the excited state of a photocatalyst to deliver an organoradical to be exploited for synthetic purposes. This methodology shows unrivalled atom-efficiency, step-economy and sustainability and waives chemists from installing activating groups in the molecule. On the other side, e-chem stands as a unique way to remove extra electrons from the reaction mixture, since an anode works as a recyclable, bottomless sink of electrons. This strategy outperforms those based on chemical oxidants as it allows to have absolute control on the applied potential, which is vital in the presence of the fleeting reactive intermediates that will be generated via p-HAT. Finally, flow-chem consistutes a godsend for this project: in a flow electrochemical cell the interelectrode distance can be reduced to micrometers, ensuring that radical intermediates are generated next to the anode to encourage the needed oxidation. On top of that, flow-chem innate modularity enables the possibility of performing tandem reactions. Given the above, HAT-TRICK will open new avenues in organic synthesis and will allow to run cross-dehydrogenative couplings (RO1), functionalization of alkenes (RO2) and the dehydrogenation of alkanes (RO3).

Mots clés : electrochemistry, flow chemistry, hydrogen atom transfer, net oxidative

Participants :
- University of Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 187572.48 €
Projet NemHatch (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2017)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Cyst nematodes worldwide attack agricultural crops such as potato, sugar beet, rice and soybean and cause large losses in their yield. There is a great need for developing new control methods for cyst nematodes because 1) resistance in cultivars is overcome, 2) crop rotation is problematic and 3) most of the nematicides are banned. Plant roots secrete triterpenoid-like signaling molecules into the soil that are known to induce hatching of cyst nematodes, called hatching stimulants (HSs). In NemHatch, I will develop a new strategy to control cyst nematodes by manipulating the signaling relation – mediated by the HSs - between the host plant and the cyst nematodes. I will first create contrasting potato lines with different HS production by phenotyping potato genotypes and applying abiotic factors and stress hormones. Then I will use bioinformatics, biochemistry and forward as well as reverse genetics approaches to elucidate the HS biosynthetic pathway and its regulatory mechanism. This will allow me to create and identify genotypes that differ in HS production so I can study their importance for PCN resistance and possibly other physiological processes in the host plant. I will both obtain and transfer knowledge by secondment and visits to industrial partners. This project will expand my expertise in secondary metabolite biosynthesis with an ecological twist on the communication of plants with their abiotic and biotic environment, and I will learn advanced molecular breeding techniques. In addition, I will gain several skills such as project and IPR management. Vice versa, I will bring my expertise on triterpenoid biosynthesis and my molecular biology skills to the host. NemHatch will provide the fundamental knowledge enabling biotechnological and agronomical applications to control cyst nematodes and give me the chance to reach a state of professional maturity that will allow me to find an (independent) position in academia or industry.

Mots clés : cyst nematode, triterpene biosynthesis, breeding, pest resistance, potato, genetic modify plant, crop production and protection, transcriptome analysis, plant metablism, biochemistry, plant physiology

Participants :
- University of Amsterdam (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 177598.8 €
Projet metabolicomp (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2016)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Cytochrome P450 enzymes monitor the metabolism of many drugs and small-molecules, as well as selectively catalyze hydrocarbon substrates for application in biotechnology. Drug-drug interactions are critical to the management of safe and effective pharmaceutical treatments. Thus, it is important to better understand the biological functions and activities of P450 enzymes not only to maximize their clinical significance but also to develop broader application in other fields, such as biofuel. There has been significant investment in computational and theoretical studies of P450 enzymes; however, there remains a need for further dynamical calculations to better explore the involvement of the enzyme active site in competing pathways leading to various products. This project aims to determine the role of P450 enzyme in alcohol and alkene formations, compare and contrast heme and non-heme Fe-containing active sites, and model the effect of enzyme environment, using quantum mechanical calculations and inherent dynamics via quasi-classical simulation. The results from this study will help advance the field of computational modeling and its application in biologically important systems.


Participants :
- University of Oxford (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €
Projet DIASPORALANDS (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

DIASPORALANDS investigates the continuities and changes in Turkey’s diasporic landscapes during the last decade, which coincides with the democratic decline and regime change in Turkey. By using Turkey’s diaspora communities in the United Kingdom and in Germany as case studies, it investigates how the authoritarian drift in the homeland affects diaspora spaces and how host countries respond to authoritarian states’ engagement with their diasporas in their territory. It proposes a novel methodology which combines qualitative and quantitative methods, bringing together bottom-up voices with top-down narratives in order to present a comprehensive picture of the triadic relationship between Turkey, its diasporas and the host countries. It focuses not only on elite-level political processes but also on domestic transformations and their transnational impact on the everyday lives of diaspora communities in Europe, thus revealing visible and invisible effects of transnational authoritarianism on diasporic landscapes. DIASPORALANDS is interdisciplinary and draws on theoretical frameworks from various fields including political science, international relations, sociology and migration studies. The specific focus combines discussions on diaspora studies, foreign policy analysis, democratic decline, the international relations of authoritarian regimes as well as multiculturalism and opportunity structures in host countries. It aims to significantly advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of diaspora politics in Europe with its comprehensive approach and methodological innovation. The novelty of the project comes from the application of a mixed methods strategy, which has not been previously used to study the recent waves of migration and diasporic landscapes of Turkey after the coup attempt in 2016.

Mots clés : turkey, diaspora, authoritarianism, transnationalism, germany, united kingdom, transnational repression

Participants :
- Coventry University (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €