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

According to a recent report of the European Commission (EC), the feeling of discrimination among sexual minorities is rising, with many experiencing hate speech and violence, including rape. An EU survey of LGBT individuals showed that many of rape incidences go underreported. Victim-blaming by bystanders has been considered as a key driver for why victims remain silent. While previous research has focused on victims’ experiences, there has been less attention on bystanders’ perspectives, despite their potential impact on victims. Therefore, my proposal will address this gap by examining bystanders’ perspectives regarding sexual minority victims of rape. VictimPro will examine the mechanism of victim-blame and the drives behind rape proclivity toward heterosexual, bisexual, and gay male victims of rape by testing the role of the defensive attribution and sexual attraction hypotheses. My research will adopt an interdisciplinary approach involving psychology, criminology, and victimology. The findings will contribute to improve victim support, reduce underreporting, identify vulnerable groups, and inform rape prevention programs. The methodological novelty of my project lies in proposing a model on the overlap between victim-blame-rape perpetration using advanced statistics. This model will deepen our understanding of the perceptions toward rape victims and can be tested with further research examining public perceptions toward other victims of rape. This project aligns with the EC's current strategy (2020-2025) to fight discrimination and ensure the safety of LGBTIQ people. Beyond the project’s timeliness, benefits, and innovative aspects, this fellowship will expand my theoretical and methodological expertise in the field of sexual violence, provide mobility experience as well as strengthen my international academic network and transferable skills essential for a successful academic career.

Mots clés : rape victimization sexual violence victim blame rape proclivity sexual minorities criminology psychology

Participants :
- Université de Gand (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 216240.0 €
Projet MoDeIF (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : SIGNED

Iridescent structural colors produce some of the most vibrant colors in nature, particularly in birds – such as throats of many hummingbirds. These colors are produced by interactions between light and organic structures, such that optical effects from the nanoscale arrangement of melanin-containing organelles called melanosomes within bird feather barbules produces color variation. Uniquely to birds, these melanosomes can take four distinct forms: (i) rods (rod-shaped and solid); (ii) hollow rods (rod-shaped and hollow); (iii) platelets (flat and solid); and (iv) hollow platelets (flat and hollow). While their importance for production of colour variation is well explored, how these unusual melanosomes form during feather development in nearly unknown. In the MOlecular and DEvelopmental bases of Iridescent Feathers project (MoDeIF project) I propose a developmental genetics approach to identify developmental and molecular pathways by which melanosomes achieve hollowness and flatness. To explore hollowness, I will test two hypotheses: the phaeomelanin-core hypothesis and the air-filled-core hypothesis. To explore flatness, I will test the hypothesis that the pre-melanosome structural organizational gene Pmel enables the development of flat melanosomes by providing scaffolding for pigment deposition. Comparative transcriptomics and concurrent elucidation of the physical processes via electron microscopy will greatly improve our understanding of the mechanisms of development of these unusual melanosomes. Finally, I will focus on whether melanosome shape and nanostructuring are developmentally constrained for other colors once a species evolves iridescent coloration. Understanding the molecular basis of iridescent feather development is vital for comprehending its evolution. Furthermore, insights into melanosomes' optical packing could inspire innovative synthetic color production techniques.

Mots clés : developmental biology iridescent colours evolution of plumage colouration morphology and functional imaging of cells organelle biology transcriptomics

Participants :
- Université Columbia (Etats-Unis) — Partner, associated partner, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 0.0 €
- Université de Gand (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 266684.16 €
Projet DISASTERDISTORTION (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

I explore how the representation of disasters in contemporary fiction warps our understanding of the threat posed by the climate emergency. To do so, I coin the term disaster distortion. Disaster distortion refers to how catastrophes monopolize the imagination when representing the consequences of climate alterations in ways that restrain or omit other forms of violence associated with human involvement and which are systemic, stretch over longer periods of time, and affect the most disenfranchised. I focus on two ways for fictional disasters to produce this distortion: first, disaster dystopias promotes the idea that the climate emergency is a hypothetical concern and not a pressing issue; second, disasters estranges and alienates human agency and responsibility and exclude acts of interpersonal or environmental care.  In this project, I propose to study the challenges of climate crisis representation by fashioning an exercise of comparative literature that explores the deployment of the trope of disasters in fiction produced across the Pacific from the second decade of the twenty-first century onward. I choose to focus on three literary hubs distributed across this space: Japan, Australia, and Mexico. I will select a corpus of up to 12 contemporary novels or anthologies of short stories, 4 for each of the literary ecosystems. The texts will be first analyzed using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines close-reading with qualitative data analysis to examine the mechanisms through which we are imagining the climate emergency.  My goals are to devise a theoretical framework that can question the usefulness of the trope of disasters, assess to what extent climate dystopias are rising to the challenge of representing the climate crisis effectively, examine whether representations of interpersonal and environmental care foster a sense of agency and responsibility, and implement a functional methodological model of multipolar transpacific comparative literature.

Mots clés : ecocriticism, climate crisis, climate fiction, disaster studies, transpacific, slow violence, pacific, ecofeminism

Participants :
- Université de Gand (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191760.0 €
Projet WWTBP-by-Microalgae (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Water pollutions and increasing atmospheric CO2 levels are two critical environmental issues causing significant harmful effects on the environment and human health. Biological wastewater treatment using microalgae has been intensively studied in recent years. However, its implementation has been hindered due to challenges associated with the high costs of harvesting and drying steps. Therefore we aimed to design an integrated platform utilizing microalgae with the minimized cost of harvesting without any drying step. In our designed system, we will harness the power of blue-green microalgae due to their high capacity to sequester CO2, digest wastewater, and accumulate high concentrations of pigment (phycocyanin, a blue pigment). We will encapsulate cells in the first reactor to protect the cells from high concentrations of pollutants, while in the secondary reactor, filamentous microalgae can treat partly treated wastewater and then be flocculated by adjusting mixing speed. The growth of microalgae will be monitored by a respirometer, which estimates the algal growth kinetics based on the oxygen production and proton consumption rate. Subsequently, the flocculated biomass will be harvested and will undergo pigment extraction in water, as phycocyanin is a water-soluble pigment. The high phycocyanin price (approximately 221 Euro/kg) adds additional economic viability. The wet pigment-free biomass still contains compounds that can be anaerobically digested to biogas. The generated biogas can be utilized to provide energy for the system, while the emitted CO2 can be recycled back for microalgae cultivation. The digestate of microalgal biomass still contains carbonic material, which can be further transformed into high-value compounds such as bio-crude oil, biochar, and liquid phase through hydrothermal liquefaction. Thus, this project offers a circular economy platform that offers conversion of waste (wastewater and CO2 emissions) to high-value products.

Mots clés : wastewater treatment, microalgae cultivation, circular economy, biomass conversion

Participants :
- Université de Gand (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191760.0 €
Projet ElectronsOnRun (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2021)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Despite the prevalence of fluorination reactions of organic compounds in the pharmaceutical industry, these reactions still encounter several problems such as low selectivity, yield, high demand on safety operational process and low sustainability. Introduction of fluorine into drug molecules increases the drug’s lipophilicity, improves its stability and pharmacokinetic properties. Thus, the fluorination chemistry is of great importance in a pharmaceutical industry. This project is focusing on fluorination and trifluoromethylation of functionalized piperidines, organic compounds with several biological and therapeutic properties. We propose a cutting-edge interdisciplinary approach to make the fluorination reactions more sustainable, safe and to increase the reaction yield, by transferring electrochemical fluorination reaction into a flow microreactor. Advantage of electrochemical reactions is that the side products are minimized as no chemical reagents are necessary. The main advantages of microreactors are excellent heat and mass transfer properties and high surface to volume ratio. The precise control of the temperature profile in the reactor and the residence time enhances process safety and leads to high reaction selectivity. An electrochemical flow microreactor will be developed and optimized for fluorination reactions of piperidines. Collaboration of organic chemist and chemical engineers is upmost importance to succeed in this interdisciplinary project connecting organic chemistry, flow technology and microreactor engineering. Proposed innovation will show a new specific application of electrochemical microreactor. This is an important step in electrification of chemical and pharmaceutical industry which leads to overall higher sustainability of the chemical production. In addition, by overcoming above mentioned problems with fluorination reactions in the batch, we will demonstrate that microreactors have a valuable place in the chemical industry.

Mots clés : electrochemistry, flow chemistry, continuous technologies, microreactor, fluorination, cation flow process, piperidine derivatives

Participants :
- Université de Gand (Belgique) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 191760.0 €
Projet R-PETFOAM (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2023)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

During the last century, the unique properties of plastics have enabled human civilization to continuously improve its living conditions. An example is the polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) that has become the primary packaging material of beverage containers. However, the short life cycle of these materials created a significant environmental problem, as they tend to end up in landfills or occasionally in the environment. In this project, the mechanical reprocessing method of colored PET is going to be combined with extrusion foaming assisted by supercritical carbon-dioxide (sc-CO2) that presents high advantages as a high dissolution in polymers (enables foamed products with very low density) and a green process since CO2 is an environmentally friendly physical foaming agent. The project is fully in line with the interests of the Researcher, Dr. Daniel Vadas. He has been studying the CO2-aided extrusion foaming technology for 7 years, firstly he successfully produced and characterised flame-retarded poly (lactic acid) (PLA) foams in 2015 and managed to secure 1st place on the Conference of Student Research Societies at both University and National level. The project proposed herein will enable him to acquire and reinforce unique research-related experiences and transferable skills in mechanical recycling of lower value post-consumer PET waste as well as in Management and entrepreneurship. The intersectoral industrial relationships of the host organization whom the candidate will closely and intensively collaborate with, would significantly improve his leadership competences. The project results will improve the recyclability of almost non-recyclable colored PET, thereby reducing the volume of plastic materials sent to landfill or incineration.

Mots clés : recycled pet, foams, extrusion foaming, polymer circularity

Participants :
- Foundation for Transport and Energy Research and Development (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 135864.72 €
Projet CoMeTES (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Chemistry
Statut du projet : SIGNED

CoMeTES is intended to meet EU environmental concerns with the objective of spreading greener power generation systems by making concentrated solar power (CSP) technology economically viable and more secure. With a high global generating potential, CSP has emerged as a promising solution, effectively utilizing intermittent sunlight with the help of thermal energy storage systems. However, the current solar-to-electric conversion is too low due to the commonly used molten nitrates as heat transfer fluids, having limited operating temperature of 580 °C. An alternative would be to use new carbonate mixtures, able to operate at temperatures over 700 °C thereby increasing the thermodynamic efficiency. However, this would require the use of materials resistant to these conditions without increased costs. Therefore, this is CoMeTES challenge: developing low-cost and high-temperature (HT) corrosion resistant slurry aluminide coatings considering new deposition processes, and focusing on hitherto unreported mechanical and stress corrosion cracking aspects. The aim is to increase the TRL of the coating solution from 3 to 5. The project will take place at INTA, a Spanish Public Research Organization, during 24 months with a 4-months Secondment in France at EDF, the main French electric utility company, which has shown profound interest in CoMeTES related to their upcoming CSP plants projects. The applicant is adept in various technical skills in materials science including HT oxidation, corrosion, mechanics and their synergetic effects which forms the core of CoMeTES. Combined with the coating expertise at INTA, it will enable an efficient two-way transfer of knowledge and to get significant research outcomes. CoMeTES will expand the candidate’s experience in coating development and molten salt corrosion as well as large-scale project management, which along with the development of his international professional network will help him to become a distinguished researcher.

Mots clés : concentrated solar power, heat transfer fluid, thermal energy storage, molten salts, high temperature corrosion, mechanics, stress corrosion cracking, slurry aluminide coatings

Participants :
- Électricité de France (France) — Partner, associated partner, Organismes privés (hors enseignement), subvention : 0.0 €
- National Institute for Aerospace Technology (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 165312.96 €
Projet Expo-IS-omics (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Environment and Geosciences
Statut du projet : TERMINATED

Expo-IS-omics is an interdisciplinary and highly innovative project in the field of human exposomics and bioinformatics. The main objective of EXPO-IS-OMICS is to obtain a holistic picture of both the external and internal chemical exposome in a large cohort of pregnant women to study which are the contaminants that can cause metabolic alterations. Once we know which contaminants are having more effects, we will develop new cheminformatics tools, capable to predict the chemicals with potential to dysregulate human metabolism based on in-silico predicted molecular predictors. EXPO-IS-OMICS will analyse samples of blood and urine of >200 pregnant women residents in Greece from the Rhea Cohort. This project will use state-of-the-art instrumentation to provide nontarget data at trace levels from a vast chemical domain, obtaining with the same data information of both contaminants’ presence (external chemical exposome) and specific alterations in the endogenous chemical profile (internal chemical exposome), by means of target, suspect, nontarget and metabolomics strategies. EXPO-IS-OMICS will also be pioneer in developing cheminformatics tools to predict when a certain chemical may represent a problem to human health. For the development of the tool, experimental data from this project will be joined with others cohort’s results in which the applicant is currently involver and the principal investigators have agreed to share (e.g. BISC (https://www.projectebisc.org/) and Insulin (https://www.tecnatox.cat/list-of-projects)) for validation purposes. The expert knowledge of fellow and host group gives the security to reach the ambitious objectives.

Mots clés : human exposure, metabolomics, high resolution mass spectrometry

Participants :
- Université nationale et capodistrienne d'Athènes (Grèce) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 169326.72 €
Projet FIHELaD (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2022)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

Intra-European migration has populated the school classrooms of mainstream education in Europe’s countries with multilingual students. In European primary schools, typical classrooms include bilingual children of Greek descent who speak Greek as their home language in Germany and bilingual children of German descent who speak Greek as their environment language in Greece. For these pupils being competent in both the home and environment language is pivotal for school achievement. Notwithstanding the large number of studies on the interplay of language systems in the human mind, the fundamental question of language development in multilingualism has yet to be addressed sufficiently: How do linguistic and extra-linguistic person-level factors predict the acquisitional outcome of both the home and the environment language in multilingual classroom populations? The proposed Factors In Home and Environment Language Development (FIHELaD) project addresses this question from an interdisciplinary approach bringing together multilingualism and developmental psycholinguistics along with didactics and data science. This project makes incremental progress towards the goal of advancing the scientific understanding regarding language acquisition and processing and feeding back into society those answers that inform citizens of the beneficial state-of-affairs of multilingualism. FIHELaD is a comprehensive project examining how linguistic and extra-linguistic factors shape the parsing routines of grammatical phenomena with complex syntactic structure, specifically focus sentences, in the home and environment language of 150-200 Greek-German bilingual children. To predict future language development trajectories via statistical modelling, FIHELaD triangulates a unique experimental methodology by combining gaze and pupillometry eye tracking data with classroom-based and baseline experimental observations.

Mots clés : psycholinguistics bilingualism heritage language acquisition minority language majority language immigrants sentence processing teaching methodology statistical modelling syntax focus

Participants :
- Université nationale et capodistrienne d'Athènes (Grèce) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 153486.72 €
Projet QPIDControl (Horizon Europe, appel à projets 2024)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

The QPIDControl project will theoretically investigate the use of control schemes known from classical theory, namely proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers, to control the state of quantum systems. Over the last decade, interest in applying measurement-based feedback control to quantum systems has increased considerably. Given the versatility of PIDs, it is reasonable to expect that they may be applied to quantum systems, for instance for information processing and feedback control.  Most experimental implementations of feedback loops in quantum systems exclusively rely on the proportional action. Despite their relevance in classical control schemes, the integral and derivative actions have not been studied sufficiently in the context of quantum systems. The goal of QPIDControl is to achieve a new level of understanding of feedback loops by studying the combined effect of the proportional, integral and derivative actions, and to demonstrate the applicability PIDs for the generation of quantum states. First, we will theoretically study the use of PIDs for cooling and controlling a mechanical degree of freedom in an optomechanical system. Second, we will study how classical control schemes translate into quantum systems. Third, we will apply PIDs to characterise the generation and stabilisation of the state of an atom coupled to a waveguide.  During the project, we will actively collaborate with experimental groups to put the results into practice. The results of the project will be useful, for instance, for enhancing the design of optomechanical gravitational wave detectors, and in quantum computing, where qubits need to be initialised in specific states.

Mots clés : quantum control, optomechanics, quantum computing, quantum information, nanomechanical oscillators, entanglement, quantum sensing, quantum speed limit

Participants :
- Université de Jyväskylä (Finlande) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 226276.8 €