Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : TAPIR (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université libre d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Reading ability is essential in modern society. Yet, for many people it comes with considerable difficulty; and to cognition scientists it remains rather mysterious.  Here I outline a plan for testing and applying a novel cognitive theory of reading. The plan expands my recent model, PONG (Snell, 2024, Psych Rev), with a groundbreaking perspective on visuo-spatial attention to capture many reading behaviours (WP1). The exciting prospect is that PONG in a single stroke informs three big debates: parallel processing (WP2), position-coding (WP3) and peripheral interference (WP4).  In WP2, a novel combination of eye-tracking and EEG, Gaze-Contingent Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (GC-RIFT), will provide a first-ever direct window on the attentional distribution during reading.  It is konwn taht yuo cna raed tihs fnie. But many readers also fail to see the error in 'Do love you me?'. The topic of word position coding is new to the field, and PONG predicts key roles for attention and statistical learning herein. WP3 uses GC-RIFT to track their relative contributions in time and space, propelling a first-ever unifying account of letter- and word position coding.  PONG predicts that letter and word recognition is hindered by surrounding text; and possibly this is more severe in dyslexic readers. WP4 tests PONG's new account of dyslexia in which diffuse attention plays a causal role. An exciting element here is my new reading interface IRIS (the Interface that Reduces Interference using Saliency). Readers view texts while their eyes are tracked. Fixated words are shown at a higher contrast than surrounding text. Preliminary results show strikingly faster reading. Upgraded IRIS will tune its parameters to individual readers on the basis of incoming oculomotor data. This holds both theoretical and practical promise: testing dyslexic and non-dyslexic readers, IRIS' parameters will reveal reading profiles, to inform specific treatments and to further bolster the PONG theory.

Mots-clés : reading,orthographic processing
Projet ERC : Artin-Out-ME-OA (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
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 : 1079579.0 €

Negative curvature features of Artin groups, surface mapping class groups and outer automorphisms of free groups have been the subject of intense study in geometric group theory. I propose to confront this viewpoint with recent developments in measured group theory and operator algebras. The focus is on obtaining structural and rigidity theorems in measure equivalence, and for von Neumann algebras associated to these groups and their ergodic actions.  A first goal is to pursue the classification of right-angled Artin groups up to measure equivalence, describe the class of groups that are measure equivalent to a given one, and tackle the question of their rigidity for integrable measure equivalence. Beyond the right-angled case, I aim for new superrigidity theorems, both for quasi-isometry and measure equivalence, for many Artin groups (of hyperbolic type, of FC type); this will require describing lattices in the automorphism group of their Cayley complex. A second goal is to prove the proper proximality of Out(Fn) in the sense of Boutonnet, Ioana and Peterson, which would yield strong rigidity results for von Neumann algebras associated to its compact actions. This will require developing an analogue for Out(Fn) to the Masur-Minsky theory for mapping class groups. These new tools, as a by-product, are likely to be helpful to tackle some of the most challenging questions on Out(Fn), like the Farrell-Jones conjecture. The biggest challenge will be to investigate the group von Neumann algebra L(G), when G is an Artin group, a mapping class group, or Out(Fn). I will start with the W*-classification of right-angled Artin groups with finite outer automorphism groups. Ultimately, I aim at proving structural properties of L(G), like primeness, when G is as above and, as a long-term goal, establish rigidity phenomena.

Mots-clés : geometric group theory measured group theory von neumann algebras artin groups mapping class groups automorphisms of free groups rigidity
Projet ERC : EARTHWORM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University Hospital Erlangen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494536.0 €

EARTHWORM will develop a new paradigm of adaptive and focused comprehensive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques to study peristaltic motion and the underlying microstructure throughout the human body.  Peristaltic motion is responsible for multiple key functions in the human body such as food transport through the gastro-intestinal system, the rapid and directed sperm transport and embryo implantation and retrograde menstruation for the preservation of body iron. Alterations are linked to the pathophysiology of diseases such as adenomyosis, Crohn’s disease, endometriosis and Parkinson’s disease among many others, which together affect >10% of EU citizens. The underlying process requires a complex cascade of events, which can be disrupted by a range of factors from interrupted neuronal activity to altered biochemistry to changes in the interwoven layers of muscle fibres and connective tissue, resulting in hyper- and hypomotility of the involved organs. Similarly, changes in motility are associated with resulting microstructural damage. Despite the undisputed importance, current imaging techniques focus on suppressing or altering peristalsis through unphysiological preparations to make ongoing human life comply with the needs of the assessment techniques. The confluence of novel lower field MRI scanners, real-time end-to-end AI methods, external MR-compatible sensors and efficient multi-contrast techniques allows me to develop a new paradigm to study the link between the microstructure and motility patterns in the abdomen and pelvis. Replacing rigid, pre-defined examinations by a continuous running MR acquisition, adapting to the ongoing life provides novel eloquent information, paving the way for enhanced diagnosis and bespoke, data-driven nonlinear continuum dynamic modelling approaches to reveal signatures of disease and to interconnect previously disjoint observations. Two embedded clinical pilot studies will facilitate immediate translation.
Projet ERC : SEA-VOLC (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Université libre d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499670.0 €

Oceanic plateaus are amongst the largest geological phenomena on Earth, and their undersea volcanic formation had profound environmental effects, such as climate warming and ocean anoxia. Whilst huge progress has been made to link their land-based counterparts, continental flood basalt provinces, with climate change and mass extinctions, oceanic plateaus have been comparatively understudied due to their limited accessibility and relatively benign ecological impact. Yet, plateau volcanism triggered severe climatic and environmental disruption, but the precise mechanism(s) by which they influenced the Earth’s surface are unclear. Further, most known oceanic plateaus formed in the Cretaceous, with their likely existence and environmental impact earlier in Earth’s history seldom considered.  The SEA-VOLC Project utilizes my expertise in studying past environmental crises and geochemically fingerprinting large-scale volcanism to reconstruct the mechanism(s) by which oceanic plateaus triggered global change, and for the first time, investigate the history and impact of older plateaus that no longer exist. Combining inorganic and organic geochemistry, I will create global maps of trace-metal nutrient disruption and biological productivity during times of Cretaceous and Triassic plateau activity. Resolving the relative environmental impact of this process vs CO2 output and warming is critical to understand whether continental and oceanic volcanism influenced the Earth system differently, and why the former was often more lethal. State-of-the-art geochemical proxies that have recorded Cretaceous episodes of undersea volcanism will be applied to Silurian–Devonian sedimentary archives of Cretaceous-like anoxic events, showing whether earlier environmental crises were also linked to plateau formation for the first time. Exploring this possibility provides a unique new perspective how the Earth’s interior and its interactions with surface environments have evolved over time.

Mots-clés : oceanic plateau volcanism,oceanic anoxic events,carbon cycle
Projet ERC : OMEGA (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Helmholtz Zentrum München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HMGU
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1119346.0 €

Progressive pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a debilitating and incurable disease. Scaring of the lung leads to respiratory failure and 50% of patients die 3-5 years after diagnosis. Our understanding of the pathophysiology of PF is unfortunately limited to established and advanced stages when the extensive lung scaring is irreversible. OMEGA is designed to explore new mechanisms underlying PF progression, from early to advanced disease and propose therapies that timely target the disease, prior to becoming permanent. Two lines of evidence are at the core of OMEGA. First, I was among the first to show that circulating monocytes are strongly linked to PF pathology. Which subtypes are important and what roles they play in PF etiology, however, is still unknown. Second, interstitial lung abnormalities or ILA are the only detectable features characterizing earlier stages of PF and can be identified in people without clinical suspicion of disease. Studying ILA provides the unique opportunity to identify early targets that would prevent progression to PF. OMEGA will first provide a detailed phenotype definition of human monocyte subtypes from early to advanced PF. Second, it will probe mechanistically how and where the monocytes acquire a pathogenic phenotype as they journey from the bone marrow to the blood and differentiate in the fibrotic lung. I will use human and mouse material and state-of-the-art methodology to answer these questions. My current standing ensures direct and ample access to patient samples, clinical data, multi-disciplinary interactions, and a team of consultants/collaborators that will make possible identifying how monocytes and their progenitors are involved in the progression of PF, and what pathways we can target, as early as disease starts, and as early as monocytes egress the bone marrow, to end the progression of this deadly disease.

Mots-clés : pulmonary fibrosis monocytes lung
Projet ERC : TACOS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Helmholtz Zentrum München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HMGU
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1496000.0 €

With the advent of capable artificial agents comes the urgency to improve our understanding of how they learn, reason, and decide. This proposal aims to shape a new field of artificial cognitive science in which tools from cognitive psychology are used to understand and improve the behavior of the notoriously opaque artificial agents to which we increasingly delegate autonomy and authority. We will focus on the newly-emerged, disruptive, and increasingly powerful foundation models, huge neural networks with billion of parameters that are trained on hundreds of billions of words, and study them using tools from cognitive psychology. We will subject these models to experimental paradigms from the psychological literature and analyze their trial-by-trial behavior using detailed computational modeling. Psychological paradigms have been engineered to uncover precisely the mechanisms that underpin behavior. We will use cognitive psychology to study and improve prompt engineering, i.e. the design of textual inputs to these models that lead to a desired behavior. Afterward, we will build large cognitive benchmarks to assess foundation models' learning, decision-making, and reasoning abilities in both the pure language and the combined language and vision domains. Finally, we will attempt to improve these models' behavior using cognitive therapy. This proposal will help to create transparent and human-like agents and define an innovative and interdisciplinary research field in which cognitive psychologists and artificial intelligence researchers jointly examine and improve intelligent systems.

Mots-clés : foundation models,cognitive psychology,explainability
Projet ERC : CELL-NANO-REMOTE (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Andalusian Public Foundation for Health Research in Biomedicine and Malaga — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FIMABIS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1740080.0 €

CELL-NANO-REMOTE aims to achieve flexible, remote control over therapeutic cell behaviour. In previous work in optogenetics and magnetogenetics, only partial remote cell control has been attained using light or magnetic fields as triggers. Furthermore, these approaches are generally limited to single cell responses, typically influencing one particular gene, receptor, or ion channel. In contrast, CELL-NANO-REMOTE seeks to obtain independent control over various cell functions without cross-activation upon application of external stimuli (light, magnetic fields or ultrasound).  To surpass the limitations of current strategies and achieve the ambitious goal of the project, CELL-NANO-REMOTE combines various stimuli-responsive nanoparticles (NPs) and genetic engineering as ex vivo modification tools of the target cells. To ensure uniform and simultaneous uptake of all the different NPs by cells, they will be assembled into multi-NP assemblies. These multi-NP assemblies will be characterized by nano flow cytometry, a novel technique which enables optimization of assembly conditions to ensure the desired ratio of each component. In response to the application of external stimuli, the NPs will release different cargos inside the engineered cells, providing control over various cell functions. To demonstrate the potential of this approach to improve cell therapies, the project will unfold in two stages: a proof-of-concept stage using a model cell line followed by a second stage showcasing two case studies, in immunology and in regenerative medicine.  The CELL-NANO-REMOTE approach will offer flexible, real-time command of cell behaviour, allowing for adaptable and dynamic control of cell responses. This remote-control system could revolutionize how we manipulate therapeutic cells, offering significant advancements for a wide range of pathologies. Furthermore, this strategy will have applications not only in cell therapy, but also in biotechnology more broadly.

Mots-clés : stimuli responsive nanoparticles
Projet ERC : VAN MANEN (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Leyde — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1496250.0 €

This project offers an ambitious study of an important, yet mostly forgotten, collection of Himalayan texts and artifacts collected between 1920 and 1940. It will, for the first time, provide a view of the Van Manen collection through a study of its rare manuscripts, the material objects, undocumented marginal writings, and the unique Tibetan language autobiographies by ordinary Himalayan people commissioned by Van Manen. This collection, held in the Leiden University Library, contains a large number of Tibetan and Himalayan texts, collected by Johan van Manen who lived in India. After his death in 1943 a large part of his personal collection became housed at the university, totaling more than 1500 mostly Tibetan texts. He also collected Himalayan artifacts, now stored separately from the texts, in Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. The texts and artifacts reflect the collector's interest in the lived religion and the lives of Himalayan people. The project's goal is the examination of the van Manen Collection as a whole using historical, ethnographic and philological methods, and by employing Digital Humanities methods through which the origins of the texts and artifacts can be traced, mapped, and be made available, linking them to other editions in online databases as well as to local Tibetan archives. The main aim is to get an understanding of the proliferation, usage, and presence of religious and ritual literature and artifacts in the greater Darjeeling area in the first half of the 20th century and, by extension, their religious milieus 1). Many of the texts are unica in Tibetan literature - and as they are mostly unstudied, they merit a thorough examination 2). The broader question is how to 'read', and engage with, a multi- media collection curated by one single collector, and how to understand the 'collection formation' process 3). The project results will contribute to the analysis of multi-media collections of non-Western literature and material culture 4).

Mots-clés : tibetan and himalayan studies,buddhist studies,autobiographies,himalayan archives
Projet ERC : EMERGENCE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Leyde — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499713.0 €

This project adds an essential decentralizing dynamic to the historiography of Old English studies, by studying the reception of early medieval English in 19th-century continental Europe and going beyond an Anglo-American focus.  Many current linguistic theories, modes of literary criticism and editorial and pedagogical practices have their roots in the 19th century; investigating this legacy helps to better understand paradigms and institutions that still influence the field today. Recent researchers typically link 19th-century engagements with Old English to a desire to historically underpin a patriotic sense of Englishness or the perceived racial superiority of white Americans. Problematically, this Anglo-American lens overlooks an important transnational dimension: the reception of Old English in continental Europe.  In the 19th century, Old English poems were claimed as cultural heritage by various non-Anglophone nations, including the Danes, the Germans and the Dutch. These competing nationalistic, cultural appropriations happened against the backdrop of a growing interest in Old English language and literature across the European continent. Exploring this transnational reception of Old English offers a new perspective on the 19th-century foundations of Old English studies and thus contributes to ongoing discussions about the field’s past, present and future in terms of diversity and visibility.  This project will identify and analyse interactions with Old English across Europe to explore how a more geographically diverse genealogy of the field affects our perception of the 19th century as a foundational period for the study of Old English. The project, situated on the intersection of history of humanities and medievalism studies, is powered by a bibliographical and relational database and a multi-disciplinary, multilingual approach. It will reveal new, insightful materials, uncover intellectual networks and put forgotten protagonists in the limelight.

Mots-clés : medievalism old english language and literature beowulf history of medieval studies
Projet ERC : ARTIVES (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Leyde — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1142178.0 €

This project will study imaginaries of diversity portrayed by Afro-European artists in Lisbon and Rotterdam in their films, performances and (oral) stories. These stories are not sufficiently related to in the mainstream discourses and the hypothesis is that the arts offer a particularly vibrant textual weft for exploring competing imaginaries of postcolonial urbanity. The two European ports are chosen since they position themselves as ‘open-to-the-world’ in light of their maritime history and ensuing migration dynamic. Yet they significantly differ in the ways that their municipalities frame their multiculturalism. I will build the framework of ‘urban artives’ – archives of situated stories – to explore non-essentializing conceptualizations of migration-related diversity. By close reading creative forms of storytelling; interviewing and following artists in their city wanderings; digitally mapping spaces of inspiration, production, and performance; and producing two creative outputs, ARTIVES will 1) trace transnational networks of belonging embodied in the local cultural scene and 2) test the possibilities and limitations in relating to these stories in ways that break away with ‘migrantising’ (Wiest 2020) conceptions of society. This research will transpose recent developments in the field of Critical Archival Studies, namely attempts to account for the transitory nature of identity formation in records’ preservation, to the fields of qualitative culture-oriented Urban Studies and Migration and Transnationalism Studies. In this way, ARTIVES will bridge the symbolic, material and affective aspects of how urban communities realize their sense of belonging and claim agency within highly diverse cities. Furthermore, the project will offer a best practice for working with community-driven knowledge contributing to the ongoing debate in Cultural Anthropology and Cultural Studies on how power relations are implicated in participatory research.