Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Thermoscopy (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499990.0 €

Efficient heat management is of paramount importance for modern-day electronics to ensure optimal performance and energy consumption. While Fourier's two-century-old macroscopic model for heat diffusion has served as a valuable tool, in particular for homogeneous solids at room temperature, it does not hold on short time and length scales. Notably, the model assumes that an abrupt and localized temperature perturbation propagates instantly everywhere in the rest of the material.  This project aims to visualize the breakdown of the Fourier's law, paving the way for the development of a more physically satisfying model of heat propagation. My investigation will focus on a specific and very illustrative non-Fourier transport regime that has recently attracted considerable interest in the scientific community: the viscous hydrodynamic regime. To achieve this, I will design and construct a highly sensitive, and spatially resolved thermometer, capable of probing material surfaces with an exceptional resolution to resolve heat propagation at the nanoscale. This tool is a SQUID-on-tip (SOT). I will carefully scan materials known to exhibit this phenomenon at different scales and play with geometries to enhance or attenuate its effects. By comparing the temperature maps obtained in these regimes with predictions from recent theoretical propositions, I will directly test these models. This project will illuminate the underlying microscopic mechanisms responsible for heat transport, offering crucial insights into the intricate nature of heat propagation in materials at the nanoscale.  THERMOSCOPY represents a groundbreaking initiative that will serve as a stepping stone towards the formulation of a comprehensive physical model for heat propagation in solids beyond the Fourier equation. This will impact the design of future more energy efficient materials.

Mots-clés : heat propagation,phonons,local imaging,squid
Projet ERC : IceDaM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1478971.0 €

The ice shelves of Antarctica act as giant dams limiting ice flow from the interior into the ocean. Recently, several of these dams have shown dramatic signs of damage. Once the ice is fracturing, the dam is weakened, allowing the ice to flow faster and increasing mass loss from the interior of the ice sheet, which results in an accelerated contribution to sea-level. As Antarctica is the largest reservoir of fresh water, correctly predicting its evolution is crucial to anticipate when and how much sea-level will rise. Damage is currently absent from projection of Antarctica evolution, because of the difficulty of representing this process in numerical models as well as the lack of observation to constrain them. The aim of the IceDaM project is to quantify and understand the evolution of damage on ice shelves around Antarctica. My team and I will first use a novel approach based on deep learning to automatically identify the evolution of fractures and their characteristics on satellite imagery. By combining this record with inversions from a high-order ice flow model, we will quantify the links between fractures and changes in ice rigidity, which controls the strength of ice shelves. To better understand the damage variability, we will measure the evolution of key variables that positively impact the rheological weakening of ice shelves. These time series will be analyzed in a unique fashion, to determine the major processes that led to the evolution of damage in the satellite observation era. Based on these results, we will set up the first “sentinel” of ice shelves by systematically mapping the evolution of fractures in near real time. This will be used to establish new vulnerability indices, based on changes in ice rigidity and their impact on glacier mass balance. This project will open a new window on the processes affecting ice shelves at an unprecedented level of resolution, ultimately allowing us to improve our ability to predict the fate of sea level rise.

Mots-clés : ice shelves,ice dynamics,ice ocean interactions,satellite altimetry,photogrammetry,image segmentation
Projet ERC : INFLUX (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Académie royale des sciences de Suède — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 204264.23 €

Emerging pests and pathogens (EPPs) are an increasingly disruptive force to human society that can cause large social and ecological changes far beyond their initial site of emergence. Three forces contribute to this growing challenge now and in the foreseeable future: first, potential EPPs are more likely to come in to first contact with human habitats as human land use expands. Second, denser human trade and travel networks mean that EPPs are more likely to emerge in new regions. Third, human technology, such as biocidal agents, increases risks for re-emergence. Understanding how EPPs cascade across scales in social-ecological systems is therefore an urgent priority, but no formal approach currently exists for analysing the ripple effects at scale, from their seeding to their lasting societal imprints. This project aims to fill this gap in sustainability science for society.  The INFLUX project will test the hypothesis that EPPs commonly cascade to interact with large-scale social and environmental challenges and that small differences in social-ecological conditions in turn influence the likelihood and nature of EPP cascades. I will test this hypothesis by leveraging a comparative, mixed-methods research design to assemble a large database for up to 1600 EPPs, encompassing microbial pathogens as well as arthropod and plant pests. Specifically, four objectives will be pursued, which are to understand:  1. The drivers of emergence risk and their connections to human environmental sustainability and social conditions. 2. The types of cascades that result from action aimed at governing EPPs. 3. The lasting impacts EPPs have on societies and the conditions under which they arise. 4. The feedbacks from 3.-1. including through implications for social equity and environmental sustainability.  INFLUX constitutes a major step in situating EPPs in the field of sustainability science, and for developing societal capacity to navigate a future characterized by them

Mots-clés : emerging pests and pathogens,social ecological systems,cascading cross scale dynamics,anthropocene
Projet ERC : EMBIOMO (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499998.0 €

Embolism, the formation of air bubbles in a plant’s vascular system responsible for water transport (the xylem), disrupts the flow of water and nutrients, leading to hydraulic failure. With the increasing frequency of droughts due to climate change, embolism has become a leading factor in the decline of forests worldwide, contributing to tree mortality and ecosystem collapse. Understanding how embolism forms, spreads, and is repaired in plant tissues is critical for predicting plant resilience to water stress, but current models lack the necessary data to make sufficiently accurate predictions.  The EMBIOMO project employs a multidisciplinary and multi-tool approach to address this challenge. By integrating on leaves ultra-fast optical imaging, advanced 3D micro-CT, and confocal microscopy, the project will capture embolism propagation with unprecedented temporal resolution and at high spatial resolution. In parallel, biomimetic systems replicating key aspects of plant leaves xylem will be developed to study embolism under controlled extreme conditions, such as negative pressure. These biomimetic models will not only help investigate embolism dynamics but also serve as validation platforms for advanced theoretical modeling of vascular flows in intricate fluidic networks. This synergistic combination of approaches will significantly advance the state of the art in plant hydraulics, enabling unprecedented mechanistic insights into embolism propagation, generating unique databases and opening unique perspectives for fluidic network dynamics studies, beyond plant vascular systems. The outcomes will be transformative, providing novel predictive models of plant vulnerability to droughts and contributing critical data to improve resilience strategies in agriculture and forest management, particularly in the face of increasing environmental stresses.

Mots-clés : biomimetics,fluidic vascular networks,cavitation,gas embolism,microfluidics,plant hydraulics,advanced imaging
Projet ERC : SymQuaG (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CERN
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1489823.0 €

Throughout the history of physics symmetries have played a pivotal role. In recent years our understanding of them has been revolutionized to include their action on extended, rather than point-like, operators, called generalized symmetries. So far, however, they have mainly been discussed in theories without gravity. In this project I will take on this important challenge and derive universal constraints on theories of quantum gravity with generalized symmetries. This combination of generalized symmetries and universal properties of gravitational systems allows to utilize the remarkable recent progress in both fields to provide insights into the hitherto unknown laws of quantum gravity, their manifestation in our Universe, and their implications at low energies. Applying these new laws to supersymmetric theories, I will show that all consistent low-energy supergravity theories necessarily have a string theory origin. I will further apply the constraints to restrict phenomenological models describing the dynamics of Nature.  The key strategy of my proposal is to investigate the gauging and explicit breaking of generalized symmetries, required by the absence of global symmetries in quantum gravity. Gauging demands the absence of anomalies, which would break the symmetries via quantum effects. I will classify these for generalized symmetries including the presence of quantum gravity fluctuations of the underlying spacetime manifold. The breaking of symmetries requires the inclusion of new objects, whose structure, properties, and applications I will explore systematically.  Both, the classification of these general anomalies as well as the classification of symmetry-breaking objects uses the mathematical formalism of bordism groups. Generalizing these to include localized degrees of freedom, SymQuaG uncovers a full web of novel anomalies in order to derive universal consistency constraints, which are then tested in the laboratory of string theory and beyond.

Mots-clés : generalized symmetries,anomalies,quantum gravity,string theory,swampland
Projet ERC : NonErgHydro (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497422.0 €

The Universe is a non-equilibrium system that cannot be fully understood by solely thermodynamics. Quantum many-body physics has emerged as a key field for exploring fundamental questions of cosmology, statistical physics, and condensed matter, serving as the foundation for the development of future quantum technologies. Contemporary experiments probe far-from-equilibrium metastable phases and realize different instances of nonergodic systems. The breakdown of canonical thermodynamics compels a reassessment of our understanding of emergent macroscopic properties of matter. Simultaneously, strong interactions and quantum effects limit conventional numerical methods to small scales or early times. The dynamics of nonergodic systems at large scale remain an underexplored frontier that demands urgent attention. The project NonErgHydro takes on the ambitious challenge of investigating nonergodic quantum systems at the macroscopic scale. NonErgHydro renounces to postulate thermodynamics and seeks to uncover how macroscopic physics emerges from the microscopic degrees of freedom. The project will extend the concepts of hydrodynamics to non-ergodic systems identifying novel phases of matter, new transport universality classes, and providing at the same time a long-sought computational framework able to supersede conventional numerical methods, by capturing quantum effects in non-linear classical hydrodynamic equations. The accomplishment of this project will significantly advance our understanding of many-body quantum systems, by answering fundamental questions in hydrodynamics and universality. NonErgHydro seeks immediate confrontation with experiments, which will benefit from the ground-breaking methodology developed by my research team and will provide new inspiration for exciting developments.

Mots-clés : thermalization,hydrodynamics,integrability,lattice gauge theories,monitored systems
Projet ERC : DOE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Wageningen University & Research — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499998.0 €

How do longstanding, primarily non-industrial, non-capitalist societies adopt and adapt digital technologies in their daily practices and systems of values? Classical anthropological theory once arranged basic economic types on an evolutionary ladder ranging from hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, pastoralists, and agriculturalists to industrialists. Today, the existence of these economies other than industrialism are correctly approached not as anachronisms but as contemporaneous to (post-)industrial life. Still, research on digitization has largely taken place in (post-) industrial contexts, meaning we know next to nothing about how different types of longstanding economies adopt and adapt digital technologies. At the same time, researchers have stipulated that digitization threatens global economic diversity. By comparing digitization to processes of colonization, they have argued that digital technologies facilitate assimilation into (post-)industrial economic systems and their often capitalist values by virtue of their technological design. This project empirically investigates these claims through in-depth ethnographic research among hunter-gatherers (Brazilian Amazon), pastoralists (Kyrgyz Republic), horticulturalists (Solomon Islands) and indigenous agriculturalists (India) who have long resisted assimilation into industrial-capitalism. Additional ethnological comparison of the four sites will offer unique macro-level insights into the possibilities for economic diversity in the digital age. Finally, the project advances a novel theoretical and methodological approach that advances both ethnographic research and ethnological comparison. This approach recognizes the significance of both technological design and contextual adaptations and provides tools for new research agendas not just on digital industrial-capitalism but on diverse economic systems and values.

Mots-clés : economic anthropology platform studies ethnography economic diversity smartphones anthropology of technology
Projet ERC : ENCODE (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cell Biology, Development, Stem Cells and R egeneration
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1937455.0 €

Tissue turnover and regeneration are orchestrated by stem cells that both differentiate and self-renew. The balance between self-renewal, proliferation, and commitment depends on the stem cell microenvironment, or “niche”. Importantly, stem cells are not simply passive responders to their niches; instead, they play an integral role in building and communicating with their immediate microenvironment. Although multiple studies have described the molecular and cellular composition of the niche to date, it is still unclear if and how the mechanical properties of the microenvironment regulate stem cell emergence and maintenance. This research project investigates the intricate dynamics between mechanical cues, the stromal niche, and stem cell behavior within the context of intestinal development, pathology, and tumorigenesis. Using multidisciplinary methodologies, this study aims to uncover how the mechanical microenvironment influences the emergence of intestinal stem cells (ISCs) during development, with a focus on substrate stiffness, tension, compression and topology. Additionally, the research delves into the role of the stromal niche in Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), a severe inflammatory disorder in preterm infants, seeking to elucidate altered stromal-ISC interactions that could contribute to the physiopathology of the disease. Finally, the project also explores the mechano-sensing function of PIEZO channels in colorectal tumorigenesis, investigating their impact on cancer stem cell properties and downstream signaling pathways.
Projet ERC : HOLOFAST (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Conseil national de la recherche — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499838.0 €

Solution-processed organic and hybrid materials have immense promise for low-cost photovoltaic devices. Their intrinsically heterogeneous morphology directly impacts the photophysical processes that happen over multiple timescales down to femtoseconds and which ultimately define functionality, such as carrier diffusion, charge separation and recombination. Currently, experimental techniques that can simultaneously study the nanoscale morphology and the ultrafast photophysics are limited. Ultrafast microscopes are restricted to single point or very small fields of view, lacking the large sample area coverage needed to place observations in their proper statistical context. Moreover, they are generally incompatible with super-resolution imaging, preventing the required nanoscale spatial resolution from being achieved. Recently, I introduced a widefield transient holographic microscope using off-axis holography that has shot-noise limited performance and can image large sample areas. Importantly, this approach is compatible with nonlinear structured illumination, a widefield super-resolution technique based on combining a spatially structured illumination pattern and a nonlinear sample response, with the spatial resolution being only limited by how many nonlinear terms can be acquired. In HOLOFAST, my team and I will combine the new ultrafast holographic microscope with nonlinear structured illumination to bring unprecedented photophysical knowledge of organic photovoltaic materials, with temporal resolution down to 10 femtoseconds, spatial resolution down to 50 nm while simultaneously imaging ~100 micron areas, correlating morphology with excited state dynamics. This will enable us to finally reveal the heterogeneity of charge separation and extraction processes over large sample areas. HOLOFAST will create a photophysical and morphological database that will be valuable to understand and solve the problems that currently limit device efficiencies and lifetimes.

Mots-clés : ultrafast spectroscopy,hot carrier transport,super resolution microscopy,ultrafast microscopy
Projet ERC : illicitLABOUR (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Conseil national de la recherche — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 618000.0 €

illicitLABOUR pioneers a study of the linkages between climate change mitigation and illicit economies and the resulting implications for ecological governance. This comparative and interdisciplinary project goes beyond the current state-of-the-art research in three significant ways. First, by investigating global photovoltaic industry production networks it reveals the dark sides of the green energy sector in three geographical sites (China, Ghana, and India). Second, it advances new theoretical perspectives on risk, vulnerability, and mitigation considering the interplay between the green energy sector and the illicit economy. Third, it attempts a transformative breakthrough by developing a ‘cultural political ecology’ framework that brings cultural economy and political ecology together, pushing labour studies frontiers forward.  The research will focus on several core questions: How do we explain the economic, political, and cultural processes linking illicit labour and ecological governance? Which illicit labour regimes in mining and manufacturing processes sustain solar panel production? How do informal energy markets work? What are the social and environmental challenges raised by end-of-life photovoltaic modules? How can we understand the illicit-ecology nexus in light of these processes? And, finally, how can this analysis reveal new ways to provide clean and affordable energy for all?  Climate change mitigation and illicit labour are two major challenges of modern times, whose interconnection poses growing concerns for society, such as energy insecurity, toxic waste production, and labour exploitation. Yet this relationship has surprisingly received limited systemic attention in labour studies to date. Through an analysis of the global photovoltaic industry, a major climate change mitigation sector, illicitLABOUR casts light on those neglected actors, practices, and processes that operate in the shadow of sustainable development.

Mots-clés : climate change mitigation,global production networks,illicit labour,informal economy,cultural political economy,political ecology,economic geography