Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : PlankDiv (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
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 : 2495782.0 €

Oceanic plankton constitute a diverse array of organisms crucial to Earth’s carbon cycle, climate regulation, and the functioning of the ecosystems. A key biological challenge lies in understanding the build-up of planktonic diversity in the global oceans. Two primary limitations are the scarcity of robust (phylo)genetic data for most plankton groups, and the lack of computational tools designed to explore diversification in the ocean, continually shaped by currents. Here, I propose to characterize the patterns and drivers of diversification across present-day eukaryote plankton groups by harnessing three main resources: i) recent global-scale surveys of oceanic samples, ii) emerging long-read metabarcoding technologies, and iii) my team’s expertise in developing innovative modeling tools.  First, we will generate long-read metabarcoding data for over 800 plankton samples worldwide. We will characterize the diversity and distribution of major eukaryotic plankton groups above and below the species level. Second, we will develop an evolutionary model in the global open ocean, providing predictions on the mode and tempo of diversification. We will evaluate the role of current-mediated dispersal constraints and environmental selection in driving genetic differentiation and speciation. Third, we will construct taxonomically rich phylogenetic trees for the major eukaryotic plankton groups and analyze variations in diversification rates through time and across oceans. Fourth, we will reconstruct paleo-oceans throughout the Cenozoic era and elucidate how past environmental changes have influenced diversification dynamics. This proposal represents the first endeavor to conduct a comparative analysis of diversification across eukaryote plankton groups, from microevolutionary to macroevolutionary scales. The results will provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underpinning diversity patterns in the global oceans.

Mots-clés : speciation,population genetics,microevolution,macroevolution,earth systems
Projet ERC : PROMISES (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 331452.5 €

There is growing evidence that heavy organic molecules are a major component of the outer solar system bodies such as icy moons, comets, and Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Density profiles inferred from measurements of space missions require a low-density component in the core of the largest objects such as Ganymede and Titan. These observations suggest that a previously overlooked low-density component, identified as carbonaceous organic matter (COM), is one of the three main components, in addition to ice and rocks, building planetary bodies that formed beyond the ice line. However, there is a dearth of laboratory experiments and numerical simulations exploring the interaction of the heavy organic molecules constituting the COM with both the ice component (mainly H2O ices) and the rocky component (hydrated silicates, oxides and sulphides) at pressures relevant to icy moons. Observations from space missions also demonstrated that most icy moons are differentiated into a refractory core and an outer hydrosphere that includes a liquid layer (deep ocean), thus the name of ocean worlds. This raises the questions of the emergence of life at the ocean/core interface and of the habitability of ocean worlds. How does the presence of COM affect the thermal and chemical evolution of ocean worlds? The interaction between COM, ice and rocks is therefore essential for understanding the evolution of ocean worlds and for assessing their habitability potential. First, this project conducts laboratory experiments using diamond anvil cells (DAC) coupled with in situ Raman spectroscopy, a combination that is best suited for this kind of investigation. Second, it develops a thermochemical evolution model that can handle the chemical reactions and the thermo-chemical properties of the three components. Third, it applies the results to the evolution of ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond.

Mots-clés : planetary geophysics
Projet ERC : ROC (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Société Max Planck
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2491836.0 €

With 1.8 billion tons produced per year, steel is the dominant metallic material. It can be recycled by melting scrap, a resource satisfying at most 30% of the demand. Hence, fresh steel must be produced in huge amounts, from oxide minerals reduced by CO in blast furnaces, followed by partial removal of C by O2 in converters. These two processes create ~2.1 tons CO2 per ton of steel, qualifying steelmaking as the largest single greenhouse gas emitter on earth (~8% of all emissions). ROC tackles the fundamental science needed to drastically cut these staggering CO2 numbers, by up to 80% and beyond. This is the biggest single leverage we have to fight global warming. The disruptive approach of ROC lies in (1) using H instead of C as reductant and (2) merging the multiple steps explained above into a single melting plus reduction process which can run with green electricity, namely, an electric arc furnace operated with a H-containing reducing plasma. ROC’s approach is feasible as it can be upscaled by modifying existing furnace technology. The motivation is that solid Fe from other synthesis methods such as direct reduction must anyway be melted after reduction. Project ROC also addresses hybrid processes, where partially reduced oxides from direct reduction are fed into a reducing plasma, for high energy and H2 efficiency at fast kinetics and high metallization. Project ROC explores the physical and chemical foundations of these processes, down to atomistic scales, with a blend of instrumented laboratory furnaces, characterization, simulation and machine learning. Specific topics are the elementary nucleation, transport and transformation mechanisms, mixed scrap and ore charging, influence of contaminants from feedstock, plasma parameters, C-free electrodes, slag metallurgy and the role of nanostructure. Drastic reduction of CO2 is the biggest challenge of our time and project ROC explores how steelmaking can contribute to it by cutting its emissions by 80% and more.

Mots-clés : sustainable ironmaking,green metallurgy,green steel,metallurgy,reduction,co2,sustainable metals,recycling,metallurgical processing,plasma reduction,metal physics,phase transformation
Projet ERC : FreeQCC (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced 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 : 3495436.0 €

Quantum coherence, a cornerstone of modern physics, encompasses phenomena like quantum entanglement and Rabi oscillations, which lack classical analogs. FreeQCC seeks to expand the frontiers of quantum mechanics by leveraging advances in free electron beam nanophysics and quantum nano-optics. Key questions include whether a free electron can be entangled with an atom or photon, and if a solid qubit's quantum coherence can be imprinted onto a free electron beam. By exploiting the quantum properties of free electron beams and their interactions with matter and radiation, FreeQCC aims to reveal atomic-scale dynamics and quantum coherence effects previously inaccessible. The project will develop cutting-edge experiments using advanced electron and optical microscopy technologies, enabling precise control and measurement of free electrons and photons' quantum states. This includes measuring at the nanoscale optical polarization of nanophotonic devices via free electrons linear and orbital angular momentum transfer and photon polarization, and characterizing nanometric artificial atoms with ultra-high spatial and spectral resolution. These efforts will demonstrate entanglement between free electrons and photons mediated by plasmons, and the measurement of Rabi oscillations in individual artificial atoms with free electron beams. FreeQCC addresses the challenge of balancing temporal, energetic, and spatial resolutions while maintaining the sensitivity and cryogenic conditions needed to preserve quantum coherence. Ultimately, FreeQCC aims to provide new insights into quantum mechanics and open unprecedented opportunities for manipulating and measuring quantum coherence at the nanoscale, potentially pioneering a new field in free electron physics and introducing a groundbreaking tool for quantum information technologies.

Mots-clés : quantum nano optics quantum coherence plasmonics photonics quantum dots cathodoluminescence electron energy loss and gain spectroscopy scanning transmission electron microscope
Projet ERC : DISORDERED-SPEECH (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 213250.0 €

Language problems are common in children, with ~7% incidence of significant spoken language problems (Developmental Language Disorder, DLD) and a further ~7% for written language problems (Developmental Dyslexia, DD). While there can be overlap in behavioural indices of DLD and DD (eg prosodic difficulties), no accepted causal theories satisfactorily explain such overlaps, and early identification remains difficult: only half of “late talkers”, toddlers who are not speaking by age 2, go on to develop DLD. Here we combine our innovative neural theory of child language acquisition (temporal sampling [TS] theory) with a novel speech production task to open a new research front in developmental language disorders, based on speech rhythm and the accurate production of prosodic patterns. We test both pre-school children aged 2.5 – 6 years and children with DD and DLD in 4 languages varying in rhythm type, English, French, Spanish and Basque. We apply our in-house state-of-the-art methods for measuring the similarity between the child’s speech amplitude envelope (AE) and pitch contour (PC) of multisyllabic items to oral targets. Prior English data show impaired AE and intact PC for DD, impaired AE and impaired PC for DLD, and consistent links between AE/PC production in typically-developing (TD) children and phonology/vocabulary. We test whether similar patterns characterise TD, DD and DLD across languages. Our focus on the accurate production of the AE/PC is entirely novel, exploits an automatic aspect of linguistic processing, applies to all languages, and may suggest new avenues for remediation. The speech production data acquired from >1000 children will further enable a machine learning approach to early diagnosis based on AE/PC. Our goal is to develop new tools for identifying DD and DLD which can apply across European languages. The frontier vision is that as AEs and PCs describe words in all languages, our approach may reveal new universals in language disorders.

Mots-clés : speech production,developmental dyslexia,developmental language disorder,machine learning
Projet ERC : Off-Bench (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université d'Exeter — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 154160.0 €

Off-Bench adopts an innovative approach to the study of judges and judicial politics. Rather than focusing on judicial rulings (the mainstay of academic study) it undertakes the first systematic study of what judges do outside of their courtrooms as part of their official duties and public engagements (hereon off-bench activities), why, and with what impact. This politics project adopts this approach for five reasons: off-bench activities are inherently political; judges engage in a wider range of off-bench activities than has hitherto been recognised; what judges do off-bench is highly revealing of their role understandings; what judges do off-bench matters for the roles that they play both on and off the bench; and judges are critical political actors who can help to promote or undermine the rule of law, accountability, and human rights. The project focuses on contemporary Africa as a most likely case for such off-bench significance and to build theory from the Global South. To facilitate the complex mix of qualitative and quantitative research required to map and then analyse off-bench activities the project will undertake extensive research in two countries. Kenya and Zambia are selected as most similar cases that display different levels of off-bench activism and judicial independence. To test theory developed and evaluate the broader applicability of findings the project will conduct additional research in five ancillary cases – Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda – selected for differences in levels of authoritarianism, conflict, and off-bench activities, and common and civil law traditions. This ambitious project will transform how we study and understand the political role, strategies, and significance of this critical democratic actor and make ground-breaking contributions to our understanding of African politics, institutional theory, and role of performance in politics and inform and enhance judicial reform and democracy support efforts.

Mots-clés : judges judicial politics african politics democratisation hybrid regimes
Projet ERC : EYAWKAJKOS (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 166250.0 €

The project deals with the so-called Jordan-Kinderlehrer-Otto scheme, a time-discretization procedure consisting in a sequence of iterated optimization problems involving the Wasserstein distance W_2 between probability measures. This scheme allows to approximate the solutions of a wide class of PDEs (including many diffusion equations with possible aggregation effects) which have a variational structure w.r.t. the distance W_2 but not w.r.t. Hilbertian distances. It has been used both for theoretical purposes (proving existence of solutions for new equations and studying their properties) and for numerical applications. Indeed, it naturally provides a time-discretization and, if coupled with efficient computational techniques for optimal transport problems, can be used for numerics. This project will cover both equations which are well-studied (Fokker-Planck, for instance) and less classical ones (higher-order equations, crowd motion, cross-diffusion, sliced Wasserstein flow...). For the most classical ones, we will systematically consider estimates and properties which are known for solutions of the continuous-in-time PDEs and try to prove sharp and equivalent analogues in the discrete setting: some of these results (L^p, Sobolev, BV...) have already been proven in the simplest cases ; the results in the classical case will provide techniques to be applied to the other equations, allowing to prove existence of solutions and to study their qualitative properties. Moreover, some estimates proven on each step of the JKO scheme can provide useful information for the numerical schemes, reducing the computational complexity or improving the quality of the convergence. During the project, the study of the JKO scheme will be of course coupled with a deep study of the corresponding continuous-in-time PDEs, with the effort to produce efficient numerical strategies, and with the attention to the modeling of other phenomena which could take advantage of this techniques.

Mots-clés : optimal transport,gradient flows,functional inequalities,network simplex,diffusion
Projet ERC : ReverT (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Antoni van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : AVL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499375.0 €

T cell dysfunction is a key problem in cancer, enabling not only tumorigenesis but also causing resistance to immunotherapy. Induction of immune checkpoints is a hallmark of T cell dysfunction, but clinical blockade by PD-1 and CTLA-4 antibodies solves this problem for few patients only. Dysfunction is driven also by additional mechanisms, including chronic stimulation and metabolic insufficiency. A better mechanistic understanding will be imperative for improving immunotherapy. My laboratory recently launched “ReverT”, a genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screening program to identify genes, ablation of which reverses dysfunction in primary T cells. To de-risk this application, we have already successfully completed three such screens in vitro, for chronic antigen stimulation, metabolic stress and PD-1 induction, validating and characterizing several dysfunction genes not previously reported. Furthermore, an independent follow-up re-screen with a Dysfunction Reversion Candidate (DRC) mini-library containing the top 100 hits of each of these screens validated >100 genes that reversed T cell dysfunction in vitro. Here, we will carry out the most challenging and important step: to systematically validate and mechanistically characterize this collection of T cell dysfunction genes in vivo. This will be done in a pooled and multimodal fashion, analyzing multiple dysfunction phenotypes in parallel, specifically immune checkpoints, exhaustion, metabolism, recruitment and proliferation. Our proof-of-concept results indicate that the DRC library contains “nodal” factors, operating in several seemingly different dysfunction settings, which may thus in fact be linked. We will use a collection of adoptive cell transfer mouse and human tumor models for validation and mechanistic characterization, as well as primary human T cells in patient-derived tumor fragments. Lastly, we will translate our findings to a preclinical setting, aiming to achieve more durable clinical responses.

Mots-clés : t cell dysfunction,immunotherapy resistance,crispr cas9 screens
Projet ERC : BM3L-2 (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Société Max Planck
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

Ball milling mechanochemistry is receiving tremendous attention over the last years. The applicant has pioneered the use of it for effecting catalytic reactions, culminating in catalytic ammonia synthesis from H2 and N2 at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. In spite of the success in driving reactions mechanically, the molecular level understanding of the key processes under mechanical activation is still in its infancy. The proposed program will change this, using methods giving insight at the atomic scale. By a multi-pronged approach, the applicant – partly in collaborations - will experimentally probe at the atomic scale hypotheses, which have been put forward to explain the special effects of mechanochemical reactions, to provide key elements for a conceptual understanding. Three topical areas will be covered, in addition, one general purpose tool for the study of mechanochemical reactions will be developed. (1) Temperature dependent luminescence will be used to monitor temperatures during model impacts in order to probe the hot spot and magma/plasma hypotheses. (2) The role of hypothetical, short-lived, mechanically induced defects in catalysis will be analyzed locally at the atomic scale in scanning probe microscopes. (3) In order to understand mechanically induced phase transitions, mechanical forces will be applied in-situ to precursor crystals in a transmission electron microscope (TEM), and phase transitions, for instance from boehmite to corundum, will be followed at the atomic scale by TEM imaging. (4) As a general tool to study the influence of mechanical forces, a hammer/anvil system will be developed in which directly after applying mechanical force the system can be studied by various analytical methods. Overall, the program is expected to provide deep mechanistic understanding of different aspects of mechanochemistry to advance it to a next level.

Mots-clés : mechanochemistry,mechanocatalysis,in situ analysis
Projet ERC : ESO (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Société Max-Planck pour le développement des sciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Société Max Planck
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

Organocatalysis has drastically advanced stereoselective chemical synthesis. From an underdeveloped niche area, it has become the most frequently applied approach to asymmetric synthesis. Organocatalysis is also developing into a technology, which can be used to make pharmaceuticals, scents, and other fine chemicals. However, the early stages of industrial chemistry, the upgrading of hydrocarbon-based alkenes, arenes, and alkanes, are still largely dominated by heterogeneous and transition metal catalysts. Here we will address the question if a selective, Early-Stage Organocatalysis (ESO) can be developed that directly delivers high-value substances from abundantly available hydrocarbon feedstock chemicals, while significantly saving energy and other resources. During the last few years, we have developed confined organic acids as a new catalyst class that features enzyme and zeolite-inspired active sites with well-defined pockets for selective substrate recognition and catalysis. These catalysts offer a widely tunable reactivity range, reaching extreme levels with turnover numbers exceeding 106 in challenging asymmetric carbon-carbon bond forming reactions, and approaching “magic acid” reactivity toward the activation of olefins. We now aim to take confined acid catalysis to another level by designing new, even more reactive acids that enable the utilization and valorization of steam-cracker-based hydrocarbons in selective organocatalysis. Specifically, we propose three aims: (1) Developing asymmetric olefin hydrofunctionalizations including hydrations and hydroarylations; (2) An early stage functionalization of simple arenes such as benzene and toluene via highly stereoselective and regioselective electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions; and, as the ultimate test of extreme reactivity, (3) we propose organocatalytic, asymmetric reactions of alkanes. The all-underlying goal will be the design and development of organocatalysts of the next generation.

Mots-clés : organocatalysis,selective catalysis,hydrocarbon chemistry