Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ThoriumNuclearClock (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of Würzburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 87500.0 €

Th-229 has an exceptionally low-energy excited nuclear isomer state with an excitation energy of only a few electron volts, making it accessible to laser manipulation. With a predicted relative radiative linewidth of 1e-19, constructing a Thorium nuclear clock becomes possible that could rival todays most advanced optical atomic clocks. The few-eV transition emerges from a fortunate near-degeneracy of the two lowest nuclear energy levels. However, the Coulomb and strong-force contributions to these level energies differ on the MeV level. This makes the Th-229 nuclear level structure uniquely sensitive to variations of fundamental constants and ultralight dark matter. Very recently, the applicants have proven the long-sought existence of the low-energy isomer, determined the lifetime in different electronic environments, quantified the nuclear moments and charge radius based on the hyperfine splitting, and constrained the isomer energy. However, knowledge on the electronic and nuclear properties is still insufficient to exploit the Th-229 system for fundamental tests. This project aims to close this gap and realize three prototype nuclear Thorium clocks using complementary approaches in trapped ions and solids. We will develop customized VUV laser systems and perform precision spectroscopy of the Th-229 nuclear transition. Comparing these clocks among each other and with state-of-the-art optical clocks will allow us to benchmark the new frequency standard before ultimately applying it to test fundamental physics. This project requires a unique combination of experimental and theoretical expertise in atomic and nuclear physics, high precision metrology and fundamental symmetries. Furthermore, special infrastructure is required for (distributed) clock comparison, precision spectroscopy as well as processing of Th-229. The synergy team is composed to optimally respond to these challenges while being rooted in established and successful collaborations.

Mots-clés : atomic clocks and frequency standards,fundamental constants,dark matter search
Projet ERC : ThoriumNuclearClock (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 210287.5 €

Th-229 has an exceptionally low-energy excited nuclear isomer state with an excitation energy of only a few electron volts, making it accessible to laser manipulation. With a predicted relative radiative linewidth of 1e-19, constructing a Thorium nuclear clock becomes possible that could rival todays most advanced optical atomic clocks. The few-eV transition emerges from a fortunate near-degeneracy of the two lowest nuclear energy levels. However, the Coulomb and strong-force contributions to these level energies differ on the MeV level. This makes the Th-229 nuclear level structure uniquely sensitive to variations of fundamental constants and ultralight dark matter. Very recently, the applicants have proven the long-sought existence of the low-energy isomer, determined the lifetime in different electronic environments, quantified the nuclear moments and charge radius based on the hyperfine splitting, and constrained the isomer energy. However, knowledge on the electronic and nuclear properties is still insufficient to exploit the Th-229 system for fundamental tests. This project aims to close this gap and realize three prototype nuclear Thorium clocks using complementary approaches in trapped ions and solids. We will develop customized VUV laser systems and perform precision spectroscopy of the Th-229 nuclear transition. Comparing these clocks among each other and with state-of-the-art optical clocks will allow us to benchmark the new frequency standard before ultimately applying it to test fundamental physics. This project requires a unique combination of experimental and theoretical expertise in atomic and nuclear physics, high precision metrology and fundamental symmetries. Furthermore, special infrastructure is required for (distributed) clock comparison, precision spectroscopy as well as processing of Th-229. The synergy team is composed to optimally respond to these challenges while being rooted in established and successful collaborations.

Mots-clés : atomic clocks and frequency standards,fundamental constants,dark matter search
Projet ERC : nuDirections (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : European Organization for Nuclear Research — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CERN
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 264475.0 €

Thanks to tremendous advances in terrestrial, astrophysical and cosmological experiments, neutrino physics has again become one of the driving forces of progress in astroparticle physics. The proposed project nuDirections provides the indispensable theoretical counterpart to the rapid experimental developments. Our goal is to investigate from a theoretical point of view a multitude of unexplored phenomena within and beyond the Standard Model of particle physics that are now becoming experimentally accessible in new neutrino experiments. The three main pillars of the project are: (1) Light sterile neutrinos. With hypothetical eV-scale sterile neutrinos coming under intense scrutiny by new experiments, sophisticated global fits will remain a linchpin for the theoretical interpretation of experimental data. We plan to carry out these fits using upgrades of our world-leading numerical codes, and to use our results as guidelines for exploring new theoretical models featuring sterile neutrinos as part of a larger "hidden sector" of particle physics. This includes in particular the unique phenomenology of self-interacting sterile neutrinos. (2) Decoherence effects in dense neutrino gases. As neutrinos propagate, coherence between different mass eigenstates is eventually lost due to their different group velocities. We will demonstrate that decoherence can completely modify neutrino oscillations in dense environments such as supernovae or the early Universe. Mapping the rich phenomenology of decoherence effects in neutrino oscillations thus has the potential to play a game-changing role in the physics of supernova neutrinos. (3) Neutrinos and dark matter. We plan to develop a new mechanism for the production of sterile neutrino dark matter in the early Universe and to play a leading role in the theory and phenomenology of neutrino signals from dark matter annihilation or decay.

Mots-clés : neutrino oscillations,sterile neutrinos,supernova neutrinos,quantum decoherence
Projet ERC : BioMNP (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Genoa — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniGe
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1131250.0 €

The BioMNP objective is the molecular-level understanding of the interactions between surface functionalized metal nanoparticles and biological membranes, by means of cutting-edge computational techniques and new molecular models. Metal nanoparticles (NP) play more and more important roles in pharmaceutical and medical technology as diagnostic or therapeutic devices. Metal NPs can nowadays be engineered in a multitude of shapes, sizes and compositions, and they can be decorated with an almost infinite variety of functionalities. Despite such technological advances, there is still poor understanding of the molecular processes that drive the interactions of metal NPs with cells. Cell membranes are the first barrier encountered by NPs entering living organisms. The understanding and control of the interaction of nanoparticles with biological membranes is therefore of paramount importance to understand the molecular basis of the NP biological effects. BioMNP will go beyond the state of the art by rationalizing the complex interplay of NP size, composition, functionalization and aggregation state during the interaction with model biomembranes. Membranes, in turn, will be modelled at an increasing level of complexity in terms of lipid composition and phase. BioMNP will rely on cutting-edge simulation techniques and facilities, and develop new coarse-grained models grounded on finer-level atomistic simulations, to study the NP-membrane interactions on an extremely large range of length and time scales. BioMNP will benefit from important and complementary experimental collaborations, will propose interpretations of the available experimental data and make predictions to guide the design of functional, non-toxic metal nanoparticles for biomedical applications. BioMNP aims at answering fundamental questions at the crossroads of physics, biology and chemistry. Its results will have an impact on nanomedicine, toxicology, nanotechnology and material sciences.

Mots-clés : molecular dynamics,metal nanoparticles,lipid membranes,coarse grained models
Projet ERC : BioMusic (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149901.0 €

The BioMusical Instrument project will create a product prototype of a wearable digital musical instrument based on biosignals from the performer’s muscles. It will allow musicians to perform electronic sounds from bodily gestures. Muscle tension will be sensed by innovative new electromyogram sensing hardware packaged in an ergonomic housing and coupled to wireless communication. Sophisticated machine learning methods developed in the ERC MetaGesture Music and H2020 Rapid-Mix projects will track musician gesture and create meaningful relationships with computer-based synthesized sound. The BioMusical Instrument will be marketed to three distinct application areas: First, it will enable “hands-free” performance of electronic music. Second, the visualization of body states will make it a useful training tool in traditional musical instrument pedagogy. Finally, the sonification of physiological signals will allow the instrument to be used in the health sector in physical rehabilitation exercises. The BioMusical Instrument will be the first product to combine EMG sensing, machine learning, and advanced audio signal processing. We have identified partners in the biomedical hardware field, the music technology industry, and rehabilitation research with whom we will benchmark and evaluate the product prototype.

Mots-clés : wearable,digital musical instrument  dmi,embodied human computer interaction  hci,human interface device  hid,biosensing,electromyogram,gesture,machine learning,synthesizer,performance
Projet ERC : Euler systems (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1070473.0 €

The Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, one of the Millennium Prize Problems, is one of the central unsolved problems in mathematics. It predicts a relation between the arithmetic of an elliptic curve and the properties of the L-function of the elliptic curve. Some special cases of the conjecture were proven by Kolyvagin; the main ingredient in his proof is an algebraic construction called an Euler system. Even though Euler systems are extremely powerful tools, so far only five examples are known to exist. I propose to construct several new examples of Euler systems, in order to prove new cases of the Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. In particular, I believe the following theorem to be within reach: Let A be either a modular elliptic curve over a (real or imaginary) quadratic number field, or a modular abelian surface over the rational numbers. If the L-value L(A, 1) is non-zero, then the Mordell--Weil group of A is finite (i.e. the Birch--Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture holds for A).
Projet ERC : CRAFTWORK (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIMI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1152170.0 €

The CRAFTWORK project is a multi-methodological, pan-European study that explores the relationship between identity and work in the context of the ‘new forms of work’ of the digital era. To do so, it focuses on the lived experiences, cultures and practices of ‘neo-craft’ work across different sectors and geographical contexts in the EU. The project investigates the subjectivities and pathways to work of ‘neo-craft’ workers, their perception of class location and their cultural conceptions of social status. At the same time, it questions the distribution of ‘neo-craft’ work across the urban-rural divide, and the role of social media in this context. The overarching goal of the CRAFTWORK project is to produce a new interpretative framework to understand the relationship between identity and work, that allows to account for the specificities of the ‘new forms of work’. Conceived as such, the project will significantly innovate and empower the critical study of the ‘new forms of work’ across different disciplines and research areas, and contribute to address the major societal challenge of the ‘future of work’. The project is ground-breaking for three reasons: a) empirically, it is the first comprehensive inquiry on ‘neo-craft’ work, currently hidden in existing data, in the EU area; b) methodologically, it experiments an innovative combination of digital methods and qualitative research for the study of work; c) theoretically, it aspires to provide a rethinking of the interpretative categories for the study of the relationship between identity and work in the context of a society transitioning out of the industrial era and into a fragmented scenario, whereby old and new forms of work coexist.

Mots-clés : new forms of work,identity,subjectivity,craft work,neo artisanal work,digital methods,hipster culture,creative labour,future of work
Projet ERC : ENGINEERING (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Vienna — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Univie
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1887444.0 €

The Chinese Social Credit System (SCS) is an ambitious social engineering scheme of an unprecedented nature. It collects information from commercial, legal and social spheres; integrates this data into a centralised platform; and establishes reputations to steer the behaviour of individuals and organisations through incentives and sanctions. The SCS ties in with global discussions on information collection, governance and authoritarian rule. It is of major significance for European interests. Empirical research on the SCS is still in its infancy. What is the shape of this system, how does it vary across regions and how does it evolve? How does the Chinese public perceive and evaluate the SCS? What are its social, political and cultural impacts? This 60-month project will provide answers to these questions and push forward theoretical debates on governance with information collection and classification schemes, data privacy, trust and trustworthiness. The project’s empirical strategy is centred on public opinion surveys, complemented by field research as well as qualitative and quantitative content analysis. Its survey data will allow an assessment of the utility of face-to-face and online survey methods and generate rarely available longitudinal data from China. The project will help to clarify important unresolved questions on the shape of the SCS and provide the public with empirically grounded insights. It will establish a centre of competence on the SCS in Austria and train junior scholars in social scientific China Studies. The project is led by H. Christoph Steinhardt (Assistant Professor, University of Vienna, Department of East Asian Studies). The research team includes a post-doctoral researcher, a doctoral student and two student research assistants. For selected parts of the project, Steinhardt will work with collaborators in Austria, China and Germany.

Mots-clés : information,governance,credit,trust,trustworthiness,privacy,china
Projet ERC : PeVSPACE (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Geneva — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNIGE
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499097.0 €

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) mission has recently marked a new epoch in astroparticle physics, extending the direct measurements of cosmic ray spectra beyond a TeV with unprecedented energy resolution. With this project, based on my leadership position in DAMPE and its unique data, I propose to fundamentally improve the precision of direct cosmic ray measurements at the highest energies – in the TeV–PeV range, using for the first time a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence approach. The project will help to solve the century-long problem of cosmic-ray origin at such high energies and its effects on the Universe composition. It will study the cosmic-ray spectrum close to the region of a mysterious decline, so-called “knee”, and shed light on the nature of Dark Matter through the discovery of characteristic fine structures in cosmic-ray and gamma-ray spectra. To achieve this, based on my expertise I propose: i) to develop the TeV–PeV cosmic-ray track reconstruction and identification techniques, using a deep learning or similar artificial intelligence approach; ii) to set up a unique research programme to iteratively improve the precision of hadronic Monte-Carlo models in this rarely explored energy domain, based on the available DAMPE data and data from future experiments. The developed results will be applied to the processing of DAMPE data at the first stage, and will be then extended to the next generation High Energy Cosmic Radiation Detection (HERD) experiment. The research strategy is designed to reduce drastically the dominant uncertainties of the cosmic-ray measurements in space, related to the particle type/direction identification and modeling of hadronic interactions in the detector. As a result of the project, cosmic ray spectra will be directly measured in space in TeV–PeV energy range with qualitatively higher precision, opening up an unprecedented opportunities for new discoveries.

Mots-clés : tev pev cosmic rays,cosmic and gamma ray reconstruction and identification techniques,hadronic interactions at tev pev energies,dark matter searches in cosmic and gamma rays
Projet ERC : DISSINET (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Masaryk University — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1991868.0 €

The DISSINET project will provide an unprecedented, “networked” understanding of dissident religious and inquisitorial cultures in medieval Europe through a vast computational analysis of the social, spatial, and textual relationships by which they were formed and recorded. Rather than treating these cultures through narrative case-study or traditional social-historical analysis, our approach will build upwards from the microscopic details of human interactivity towards a broader social picture. Historiographical impressions of the social grounding and spread of religious dissidence, the specifics of dissident cultures as well as their shared characteristics, and the confrontation between inquisitors and suspects will thus be challenged from a previously inaccessible perspective. To achieve this goal, we will manually collect data on every aspect of dissident and inquisitorial interactivity from inquisition records that cover thousands of individuals from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The resulting database will be large-scale and yet retain every nuance of our sources. Our data model will allow us to employ cutting-edge computational techniques, well-adapted to uncover hitherto undetected and historically significant patterns: these methods will include social network analysis, geographic information science, and computational text analysis. In its broader implications, the project will open up a significant new dimension in the conversation between history and the social sciences. It will offer the former a novel approach to challenging historical material, and the latter pre-modern perspectives on the bottom-up emergence of larger social phenomena such as covert networks, repression, and shared religious culture. Finally, DISSINET will make a significant contribution to the digital humanities, providing a powerful digital toolkit for research into multifaceted human phenomena that retains and makes use of the complexities of textual sources.

Mots-clés : medieval heresy,medieval inquisition,computational modelling,computational history,social network analysis,geographic information science,computational text analysis
Projet ERC : RNAging (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Ttfactor srl — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Ttf
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 40000.0 €

The DNA damage response (DDR) is a set of cellular events that follow the generation of a DNA damage. We have previously discovered a novel class of small non-coding RNAs, named DNA damage RNAs (DDRNAs), which are necessary for the full DDR activation upon a DNA double-strand break generation. Our preliminary data show that also at damaged/dysfunctional telomeres telomeric transcrips are produced. By using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) targeting them, we aim at modulating DDR in cultured cells and in vivo in animal models.

Mots-clés : 1  ageing,2  telomeres,3  non coding rna,4  dna damage response,5  infertility,6  tissue atrophy,7  pulmonary fibrosis