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

This innovative project aims to investigate the phenomenon of the production of late-antique tokens as objects embodying the relations between different religious identities in Roman society. In particular, the study focuses on the so-called “Vota Publica coinage” (or “Festival of Isis coinage”) and “Asina tokens”, both minted in the Roman West during the fourth century and perhaps the fifth century AD. These issues are still partly unpublished and furnish valuable data. Since the creation of these “pagan” objects took place during the gradual repression of polytheistic cults by a Christian government, the project will shed light on the question of religious freedom and on the dynamics of religious “propaganda” during an era that saw the transformation of the pagan Roman Empire into a Christian one. Unlike traditional approaches, religious politics will be examined through the innovative perspective supplied by the numismatic evidence of tokens, which, as an expression of relationships, exchanges and culture, contain a remarkable informative potential for the understanding of broader aspects within ancient communities. Through this lens, the project will focus on specific social, religious, and cultural experiences in the context of the “conflict” between pagans and Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. The adoption of an interdisciplinary approach and the mobilization of intellectual tools forged by classical disciplines will help to formulate appropriate patterns and to develop an analytical inquiry on the psychological, social, religious and political changes and interactions revealed by tokens in the late Roman empire. This project will therefore make a historical contribution to current reflections on religious “tolerance” and “intolerance” that have a significant preponderance in societies past and present. Addressing a matter of continuing concern, the project will help inform contemporary debates in different fields of the scientific research

Mots clés : tokens, coins, iconography, tolerance, intolerance, religious conflict, religious coexistence, propaganda

Participants :
- University of Warwick (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet MICoMe (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This interdisciplinary project examines how knowledge about the past is produced in contemporary Portugal by analyzing individual and collective engagements with material and visual traces left by two entangled historical events: the 1974 Carnation Revolution and the return of Portuguese colonial settlers to the metropole. Both revolution and return were outcomes of the Portuguese Colonial War, known in the former colonies as the “Liberation Wars,” which resulted in the constitution of new African nations. Drawing on ethnographic participant observation, life history and oral history methods, and photo/object-elicitation strategies, this project gathers empirical data regarding how film, photography, and documents from institutional and family archives are animated in order to produce new narratives about the recent past. It thereby conceptualizes how knowledge about Portugal’s transition to democracy and, by extension, its relationship to the (de)colonial project is produced and mediated. In doing so, MICoMe puts forth novel theories regarding history and memory not separate entities, but rather co-constituting spheres of knowledge production and meaning making. As such, it develops innovative methodological approaches to understanding how contradictory and, at times, oppositional memories regarding the recent past are negotiated through public and private engagements with visual and material traces left by experiences with revolution and return. By juxtaposing colonial memories and militant imaginaries, this project posits that a cultural re-reading of the past and its mediations in the present can elucidate how historical knowledge is produced in in current contexts of political change while also unsettling closed narratives regarding empire, decolonization and political transition.

Mots clés : portuguese colonial war, carnation revolution, return, visual and material culture, oral history, memory studies, knowledge production, ethnography, historiography, institutional and private archives

Participants :
- Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 159815.04 €
Projet NCDM (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2019)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This interdisciplinary research project proposes a reframing of the crank organ and other mechanical instruments as proto-digital forms, offering a new perspective on the organ’s place in music history and opening up a new understanding of the emergence of digital music in terms of a continuity, rather than as something radically new causing a rupture with the analogue past. Due to be added to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Heritage, the crank organ is often viewed as a signifier for oldness, outdatedness, or the past; a closer look reveals strong commonalities with later digital music. Going beyond the technical level, I will confront these forms of music-making as part of a socioeconomic infrastructure utilising human and natural resources. The crank organ is the concrete shadow of digital music’s more obviously material past, and reintroducing into that history a hand-powered, wooden machine that operates on similar binary principles to electronically reproduced MIDI music can help re-anchor contemporary digital artefacts to their material roots. A massive increase in the accessibility of useable music composition tools with the advent of digital audio technology has correlated with a global division of labour which obscures the physical production of the machines. In terms of sustainability, the rematerializing of chains of production and consumption is an important project at this time. I will explore the social history of the organ as a window onto working-class, poor and itinerant urban musical life, alongside the technological history that sees the programming of these organs as a precursor to modern-day computer music, and demonstrate the intersections of these ideas. This fellowship will be carried out in Utrecht University under the supervision of Prof. Maaike Bleeker, with Dr. Floris Schuiling as a second supervisor, incorporating a 6-month secondment in the Speelklok Museum under the supervision of curator Marieke Lefeber-Morsman.

Mots clés : music sound mechanical digital 19th century technology media performance playback robotics automata clockwork museum object crank, barrel organ grinder busking analogue entertainers programming

Participants :
- Utrecht University (Pays-Bas) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 175572.48 €
Projet QuaIL (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Physics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This project aims at developing efficient, scalable and near-term-implementable decoders for long-distance communication on free-space or optical-fiber quantum channels. It is a timely proposal for the establishment of high-data-rate space communication and secure fiber communication. Its importance is recognized in the strategic quantum communication pillar of the EU Flagship on Quantum Technologies. In this setting, the main obstacle towards implementations is a joint quantum measurement, impossible with current technology. This project will investigate how to build a complex decoder by combining simple optical gates and photodetectors, augmented by a classical neural network that controls the quantum parameters and post-processes the measurement data. Moreover, it investigates the power of machine learning for quantum technologies, a very recent interdisciplinary field that still lacks killer applications. The applicant has a PhD and several excellent publications on the subject, while the host group comprises world-leading experts in quantum information theory and pioneers in the application of statistical-inference methods to it. Hence he is in the best position to carry out the project and become an established researcher, who will be acknowledged for his inter-disciplinary expertise and his contribution to an outstanding technological problem. The scientific part of the project is complemented with a well-balanced training program: advanced training-through-research, participation to a machine-learning school, transferable-skills for career development. The researcher will engage in teaching to undergraduate students, the organization of seminars and of a machine-learning reading club. Potential exploitation of the results will take place at a quantum industry day and hackathon. Moreover, outreach events will include an original proposal for the realization of a tape-art exhibition explaining quantum-mechanics by representing quantum-technological protocols.

Mots clés : quantum communication, quantum gaussian channels, continuous variable quantum information, quantum shannon theory, quantum state discrimination, deep space communication, quantum machine learning

Participants :
- Autonomous University of Barcelona (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 160932.48 €
Projet RBT (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : SIGNED

This project aims at developing the bifurcation theory of random dynamical systems in new directions beyond the traditional setting that are highly relevant in applied sciences. Despite huge developments in stochastic differential equations and their applications in both science and economics, bifurcations in this context are only poorly understood, although qualitative changes in the behaviour of random dynamical systems are omnipresent due to nonlinearities. Research on bifurcations in random systems has flourished in the last decade, with main contributions on local bifurcations coming from the applicant and the host, as explained below. The proposed research builds upon these foundations to address not only open questions in local bifurcation theory, but also develop a fundamental theory for global bifurcations of random dynamical systems.

Mots clés : dynamical systems, bifurcation theory, random dynamical systems, ergodic theory, stochastic analysis

Participants :
- Imperial College London (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 224933.76 €
Projet Water Coalitions (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2014)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This project aims at establishing and explaining the reasons behind coalition formation and coalition sustainability in water management. It sets its scope on selected basin councils operating in two Latin American countries, Peru and Brazil. Both countries, and the Latin American region in general, have faced numerous conflicts around water management in the past. The relationships between the state and civil society movements over water have been presented as dichotomous, dismissing the complexities of the ‘street-level bureaucrat’ category. To fill in that gap, this project asks: ‘what kind of coalitions do bureaucrats and social leaders establish to institutionalise and strengthen specific visions of water management?’ Coalitions are defined as groups of actors who have joined forces to accomplish common objectives. The project investigates (i) the types and characteristics of coalitions between bureaucrats and activists, (ii) the factors that explain coalition formation and membership and, (iii) the relationships between different coalitions. Peru and Brazil are similarly organized through basin councils and a national water authority. Yet, they have three important differences that would lead to fruitful comparison: the level of decentralization, the vision of water institutionalised and, the approach to social participation. This study will shed light on the power differentials between bureaucracies and on the tools available for weak bureaucracies to advance in their agendas. In order to explore these issues I will combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with the Social-Ecological Systems framework and analyse the data through a cross-case methodology. The project will produce a model on coalition formation and behaviour. Investigating coalition formation and behaviour is urgent if we are to provide multi-actor water governance the tools to perform better than traditional approaches.

Mots clés : coalitions, social ecological systems, latin america

Participants :
- Stockholm University (Suède) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 173857.2 €
Projet NPAD (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Life Sciences
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This project aims at predicting early cognitive decline using a neurofeedback performance endophenotype based on realtime functional magnetic resonance imaging in a population at risk for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). It has been proven that AD biomarkers change decades before the development of symptoms. In addition, there is a lack of robust hypersensitive methods capable of predicting impending cognitive decline in healthy subjects at risk. This constitutes a crucial obstacle for the implementation of AD prevention trials. To address this, we will identify and characterize a novel neurofeedback performance endophenotype in a subsample from a cohort of 2743 cognitively healthy volunteers at risk for AD. This will be based on state-of-the-art neuroimaging technology, in combination with a novel sensitive neuropsychological test that detects subtle alterations in episodic memory, which has been validated for our cohort. Then, we will evaluate the impact on our newly developed neurofeedback performance endophenotype of factors known to be related to AD such as various clinical and lifestyle variables, amyloid deposition, genetic background (including, but not restricted to APOE4) and most importantly cognitive reserve. A specific aim is to test the hypothesis that neurofeedback performance can become a reliable proxy to measure cognitive reserve. Finally, we will develop a novel statistical predictive model, featuring all the relevant genetic and clinical variables and will assess the capacity of neurofeedback performance for predicting impending cognitive decline during a two-year period in AD descendants.

Mots clés : magnetic resonance imaging, prediction, early cognitive decline, apoe, alzheimer s disease, biomarker, prevention, real time functional mri

Participants :
- Barcelonabeta (Espagne) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Recherche, subvention : 158121.6 €
Projet WIRED (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2018)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This project examines the critical and unforeseen role that infrastructure has played in the Buddhist revival in China and in China’s global Buddhist projects. Although both state-led developmental projects and religious revivalism in China have been widely discussed, they are usually treated as separate realms of study, as if one represents material development while the other represents immaterial perspectives. The main objective of my study is to show that these two movements are in fact interlinked and that Buddhism works as a form of infrastructure. I use an in-depth ethnographic method to explore the growing infrastructural connections between developmental and religious projects in Chinese domestic and transitional contexts by looking at Buddhist-related construction projects, schools, internet access, facilities, practices, and policies and their impact on the Buddhist revival in and outside China. My study investigates the much neglected relationship that exists between religious movements in society and infrastructural projects by the state. In doing so, it provides not only an alternative perspective from which to understand religious movements in the context of global China, but, more broadly, it offers a critical and theoretical reassessment of the relationships between materiality and immateriality, human and non-human agency, and object and subject. The University of Copenhagen is an ideal place in which to pursue my project. The Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies uniquely combines interdisciplinary inquiry and study across China Studies, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, all of which are crucial to my project. In particular, my project fits well with the research foci of the Department’s Center for Contemporary Buddhist Studies, a world-class research center led by Associate Professor Trine Brox with a focus on the mediating role that Buddhism plays for materiality, spirituality, economy, and value across contemporary societies.

Mots clés : infrastructure, development, materiality, tibetan buddhist revival, post mao china

Participants :
- University of Copenhagen (Danemark) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 207312.0 €
Projet Scoto-British (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2020)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Social Sciences and Humanities
Statut du projet : SIGNED

This project focuses on the Scoto-British subjects of James I. After the Union of of the Crowns in 1603, many Scottish writers and intellectuals moved to London, while James promoted the creation of a British national identity. Several Scottish writers referred to themselves as Scoto-British, openly supporting James’ British policies while displaying their consciousness of a distinct national identity. This project considers the period between 1603-1617, focusing on the (mostly still unedited) literature produced by Scoto-British writers, with the aim of clarifying their role in the creation of a shared idea of Britishness. The context for this research is that of early modern Europe, often regarded as the cradle of modern national sentiment. The negotiation process that resulted from the King's attempts to foster a unified Britain was complicated by the deep cultural and political bond between Scotland and Continental Europe. The project gives particular consideration to gender aspects, given the role of the court of Anna of Denmark in the cultural dynamics of the Jacobean world, and to ephemeral and occasional literature, neglected by literary histories until very recently. This project has a highly multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary focus, involving philology (codicology, palaeography and book studies), history (prosopography, political and identity history, literary history), practical skills, and a significant component of outreach and communication. By focusing on an under investigated sector of early Stuart society, this research will transform our understanding of the Jacobean period. Given the relevance of issues of British identity and European belonging to the current political discourse, this project will deeply impact both the scholarly and the wider world, stimulating scholarly research on a lesser-investigated topic and encouraging an educated debate on national and supranational identities in the UK and in the EU.

Mots clés : unedited literature in manuscript and print, scoto british, scoto european, great britain, early modern european literature, early modern identity, national identity, british identity

Participants :
- University of Sussex (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 212933.76 €
Projet InfGroups (Horizon 2020, appel à projets 2015)
Action : Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
Panel : Mathematics
Statut du projet : CLOSED

This project is in computational group theory (CGT), a novel domain of algebra at the interface with computer science. The main objective of the project is to build up a new area of CGT – computing with groups generated by a finite set of matrices over an infinite field. This entails: (i) development of a methodology to handle the main classes of finitely generated linear groups in a computer; (ii) justification of decidability and solution of fundamental algorithmic problems; and (iii) design of software for practical computation. In particular, we focus on practical algorithms for arithmetic groups, Zariski dense subgroups, and virtually solvable linear groups. The planned results will be the first of their kind. The project will impact group theory by replacing cumbersome methods with straightforward computation, allowing the solution of previously intractable problems. The project will impact other sciences and mathematics overall by providing a means for scientists to carry out effective mathematical experiments in areas where linear groups appear as a mathematical model of transformations. The planned research and related activities (such as the establishment of an international research team) will impact the career of the researcher by bringing her recognition as a leading expert in computational algebra and its applications. Training in computer science in the world-class environment provided by the host, and complementary training in IT skills provided by the industrial partner during secondment, will diversify competencies and career prospects of the researcher. The project is designed to make the host institution a world centre in this new area of computational algebra. The project's communication and public engagement strategy will promote mathematics as a profession for women, thereby impacting EU society by taking measures to redress gender imbalance in STEM.

Mots clés : computational group theory, group, algorithm, software, computing, linear group, finitely generated group, arithmetic group, solvable group

Participants :
- University of St Andrews (Royaume-Uni) — Coordinator, beneficiary, Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire, subvention : 183454.8 €