Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Fem-LEAD (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université de Göteborg — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499568.0 €

Fem-LEAD challenges present scholarship by proposing a new link between climate change and gender: What if weather-related disasters, such as droughts, risk hurting recent advances of women as political leaders in African countries? Focusing on droughts, public opinion and political representation, its objective is to gain theoretical and empirical insights of links between weather-related disasters and women’s political standing. I pose two major questions; Q1. How and why do droughts affect the citizen demand for female politicians? Q2. How and why do droughts affect the supply of female candidates and the presence of elected women? I develop and test theoretical expectations in two directions; First, on citizens’ demand for female leaders (Q1). This vein is investigated through three rigorous methods: I analyze observational data where geocoded information on droughts is connected to survey respondents across Africa and over time. Exploring mechanisms, I focus on South African drought-affected communities, using in-depth interviews. To test causal mechanisms, I implement creative survey experiments with information treatments on droughts and candidate preferences. Second, I study the electoral arena (Q2). I focus on droughts and local elections across African countries and especially on South Africa, with a unique complete register of candidates and representatives across wards for two decades. I also interview party gatekeepers and, finally, look at aggregated trends across countries. I build on my long publication record and local network in the field. Having conducted pilot-studies, the inquiry of Q1 is feasible yet novel. Having access to high-quality data – that no one has analyzed – the study of Q2 promises groundbreaking findings. Fem-LEAD will result in a new theoretical framework and rich empirical insights. By investigating this link, I contribute with a new perspective to the literatures on gender, climate changes and electoral effects of disasters.

Mots-clés : gender climate change political representation
Projet ERC : SEMPATHY (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Université de Bayreuth — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

SEMPATHY aims to develop and apply a multi-material, mass balance-consistent, composition-aware, and process simulation-based method called Material Pathway Analysis to provide the basis for modelling, simulating, and optimising sustainable global material cycles for technology metals. SEMPATHY addresses the urgent challenge of global metal cycles not being closed and the environmental impacts of metal production and processing becoming more relevant globally. At the same time, global demand for technology metals rises due to the shift to renewable energy, electromobility, clean energy-intensive industry, digitalisation, and aerospace. The SEMPATHY project promises a revolutionary better understanding of global anthropogenic metal cycles and, for that purpose, develops a better modelling framework for examining metals' pathways in the anthroposphere. SEMPATHY leverages new information on the first and final use of metals and metalloids in materials, components, and products. It creates a database for the elemental composition of these materials, components, and products. The project uses process simulation to identify composition-dependent processes and recycling yields for technology metals. By providing access to these yields to sociometabolic research, it identifies optimisation potentials in the circular economy. SEMPATHY creates a new revolutionary modelling framework that allows the development of a new Material Pathway Analysis methodology that provides a systemic view of global metal cycles and allows tracing metals even within their use as alloying elements, contaminants, or waste streams. These metal pathways will be visualised through interactive maps generated using the data and computational methods developed throughout the project. SEMPATHY creates the basis for next-level modelling, simulation, and evaluation of material flows, essential for a sustainable, resilient, and secure supply of technology metals, many of which are Critical Raw Materials.

Mots-clés : material flow analysis,process simulation,metals,
Projet ERC : genPI (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Bayreuth — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498891.0 €

Embarking on a transformative journey, this groundbreaking research proposal unveils generative polymer informatics (genPI)-a revolutionary paradigm that leverages the unprecedented capabilities of transformer-based artificial intelligence to catapult polymer discovery, design, and development into a new era. In a time when sustainable and advanced materials are more crucial than ever, genPI aims to overcome key challenges in polymer science by exploring vast chemical spaces, accurately predicting properties, generating novel structures with targeted functionalities, and forecasting synthesis feasibility. The project is strategically organized into three interconnected work packages: rapid exploration of polymer chemical spaces (WP1), creation of customized polymer structures (WP2), and prediction of synthesis routes (WP3). These are supported by transversal activities that ensure data extraction, workflow integration, and democratization of tools and knowledge. By harnessing machine learning techniques, genPI endeavors to invert the traditional polymer design paradigm, empowering the creation of polymers with precisely engineered properties. This pioneering approach holds the promise of unveiling entirely new classes of polymers with unprecedented characteristics, directly addressing pivotal issues such as environmental sustainability, advanced functionality, and innovative synthesis methods. The project's inherently interdisciplinary nature-melding materials engineering, polymer science, and artificial intelligence-positions it at the vanguard of materials science innovation. Its successful implementation could revolutionize industries from sustainable manufacturing to healthcare, paving the way for a new era in polymer science aligned with global sustainable initiatives. This research not only promises to accelerate polymer discovery but also democratizes access to the advanced built tools, fostering collaboration and innovation across academia and industry.

Mots-clés : polymers,data driven,polymer informatics,generative large language models,polymer property prediction,polymer space exploration,polymer synthesis predictors
Projet ERC : MULTIPHAGE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université suédoise des sciences agricoles — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : SLU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499401.0 €

Phage genomes represent an impressive mosaicism with different genomic regions having distinct evolutionary histories resulting from horizontal gene transfer. By initiating an estimated 10^25 bacterial infections globally every second, phages encounter and recombine with DNA of the host or of prophage origin, further adding to their genome mosaicism. Accumulating evidence, including from my work, suggest that the simultaneous infection of bacterial host by multiple phages (co-infection) could also be an important driver of phage genome evolution. However, methodological limitations have so far prevented rigorous testing of this hypothesis due to failure of studying phage co-infection in natural settings. MULTIPHAGE will overcome these limitations by developing a novel approach for precisely deciphering how phage co-infection governs the co-evolutionary dynamics of phage genomes by pursuing three objectives. First, my team will quantify the prevalence of phage co-infection by constructing phage-host infection networks. Then, we will decipher the co-evolutionary relations of phage genes with no detectable sequence homology, using the novel concept of clusters of orthologous structures (COSs) and reconstructing structural phylogeny. Finally, we will unearth phage-phage interaction and co-infection strategies in high resolution by taking advantage of cultured model systems containing multiple phages co-infecting a single bacterial host population. To achieve these objectives, we will combine integrated omics methods (metaHiC proximity ligation, long-read metagenomic sequencing, and single-cell amplified genomics), COSs and structural phylogeny with high-resolution experimental confirmation of co-infection strategies. With its ground-breaking approach, MULTIPHAGE will transform our view of phage-host co-evolution by uncovering how phage co-infection and broad host range modulate the complexity of the infection network, clarifying its enigmatic co-evolutionary dynamics.

Mots-clés : phage evolution,phage phage interactions,phage co infection,phage genome mosaicism,phage host interactions,phage infection strategies,proximity ligation,long read metagenomics,single cell genomics,structure prediction,structure phylogeny,bioinformatics
Projet ERC : HABITAT (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université de Gênes — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497340.0 €

HABITAT is based on a groundbreaking research hypothesis (GbRH): socioeconomic inequality in major European cities is largely due to a history of regulatory failures of urban legal systems. Urban legal systems have played a central causal role in concentrating wealth and, conversely, they have failed as much as the economic system in protecting vulnerable residents from growing socioeconomic inequality in major EU cities. To test this GbRH, the Principal Investigator (PI) and his team address the main forms of urban inequality from a law and economics perspective. HABITAT measures the impact of laws and judicial decisions that, by hypothesis, have triggered urban inequalities. European urban legal systems made middle and bottom deciles, underprivileged minorities, migrants, and women worse. HABITAT tests this GbRH through a case study approach, considering Berlin, London, Milan, and Paris. The PI proposes unprecedented and unique legal research, grounded on rigorous data analysis and a robust, cutting-edge methodology that combines: a) the evolutionary analysis of legal orders, with a focus on the legal determinants of the built environment; b) the comparative analysis of the common core of urban legal systems; c) a regulatory impact assessment through econometrics, statistics, and data analysis; d) an evidence- and process- based normative model, for the design of just cities from a legal and conceptual perspective, tested through scenario analysis.

Mots-clés : urban inequality socioeconomic inequality legal systems law and economics
Projet ERC : DIMENSION (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Université Aalto — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Towards the new frontier of self-regulated, autonomous, and adaptive synthetic materials, DIMENSION aims to bring a breakthrough by introducing coupled physical feedback loops in multidimensional hydrogels. Physical feedback mechanisms allow remote powering and interplay with the environmental stimuli and have proven to be instrumental in achieving groundbreaking material functionalities. However, the state-of-the-art physical feedback systems are all limited to single negative feedback loops within a predefined dimensionality. Inspired by the complex responses regulated by multi-component coupled feedbacks in biological systems, I envisage unprecedented functionalities enabled by the new concept in DIMENSION. The grand challenges to construct physical feedback coupling lie in implementing new feedback mechanisms in responsive materials and interfacing different feedback mechanisms to form coupling. Herein, I propose to develop new positive feedback mechanisms based on scattering enhanced absorption in hydrogels, supported by my recent discovery, which will be interfaced with a negative feedback loop to construct coupled feedback loops. DIMENSION will create hydrogel systems fuelled by a constant laser beam, and synergy of optical excitation and gels' response will result in steady states or robust oscillations of temperature, allowing sensing of external stimuli and local enhancement of response. The feedback coupling will enable 3 new model systems with multidimensional geometries: (1) 1D adaptive motility in soft devices, (2) 2D mechano-training in bilayer films, and (3) 3D multidirectional adaptive sensors.  DIMENSION will provide new design routes for coupled feedback loops in soft materials across multidimensional geometries. The impact of DIMENSION will be far-reaching beyond self-regulated and adaptive materials, providing implications for embodied intelligence, artificial skin, human-machine interfaces, and bio-inspired actuators.

Mots-clés : hydrogels,feedback,life inspired,light responsive,soft matter,adaptive
Projet ERC : IslandLives (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université Pompeu Fabra — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPF
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1978332.0 €

ISLANDLIVES will be the first interdisciplinary historical archaeological project to deploy a broad array of cutting-edge archaeological science techniques to study everyday life at multiple sites across multiple islands during a span of 229 years. The Dutch islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire (ABC islands) were unconventional colonies that did not fit the typical European model of plantation-driven modernity incepted in the Caribbean. Rather, they occupied a grey area, thriving on illicit trade with the Spanish mainland. Truly little, however, is known archaeologically about everyday life on the islands. By mobilizing terrestrial and maritime archaeological investigations, archival research, and archaeometric, proteomic, archaeobotanical, collagen fingerprinting, and zooarchaeological analyses within a sophisticated conceptual framework, the project aims to reveal the inner workings of alternative modernities in the 17th- through 19th-century Southern Caribbean. The bulk of evidence will be obtained through archaeological excavations at six sites, the careful interpretation of which will generate the first comprehensive cross-section of everyday lives across the ABC islands. Archaeometric analyses will, moreover, provide unprecedented clarity on the provenance and dating of poorly identified European and regional ceramics ubiquitous on the islands and in the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean regions. This project is therefore geared to advance research on how different island peoples including free and enslaved blacks, indigenous people, Sephardim, and Dutch navigated modernity in their own contested and contingent ways. Finally, these new understandings will be productively engaged with the present. In this way ISLANDLIVES also aims to reveal how insights from past alternative modernities can help us better understand contemporary ABC-island societies and, ultimately, critically challenge deep-rooted Eurocentric narratives about the past in the present

Mots-clés : interdisciplinary historical archaeology,archaeometry,proteomics,zooarchaeology,archaeobotany,maritime archaeology,history,foodways,consumerism,maritime trade,european and regional ceramics,assemblages of practice,households,island societies,everyday life,present day relevance,challenging eurocentric narratives,decolonialisation,aruba,curacao,bonaire
Projet ERC : Replicate (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Université de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : USC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499496.0 €

This project aims to address the urgent need for new antimicrobial agents by developing a conceptually new strategy to damage bacterial membranes with supramolecular fibres.  Dormant (non-assembling) precursors will accumulate in the membrane of bacteria for in situ switch-on of self-assembly and membrane lysis. Specific metabolic routes of bacteria, absent in mammalian cells, will be used to transport supramolecular precursors into the membrane of bacteria with full cell specificity. Once in the membrane, precursors will combine to generate self-assembling peptide amphiphiles (PAs). Importantly, once formed, the supramolecular assemblies can catalyse their own synthesis in bacterial membranes, causing a dramatic acceleration in PA production and antimicrobial fibrillation. This unprecedented antimicrobial design borrows concepts from cooperative self-assembly, supramolecular autocatalysis and rational peptide design, leading to a self-amplified therapeutic action.  This will be the first self-replicating antimicrobial that can make copies of itself to boost membrane damage once activated in target pathogens. Co-assembly of PAs and their precursors will create catalytic microenvironments by templation of reactive building blocks.  Overall, this project will lay down structural and mechanistic determinants for biological membrane interfacing with targeted and self-replicating supramolecular nanomaterials.  In a broader picture, the REPLICATE technology aims to spark a re-conceptualisation of drug design by drawing the attention to supramolecular therapeutics, which may open new exciting opportunities in biomedicine not accessible from traditional single-molecule drugs.

Mots-clés : self assembly,peptide amphiphiles,supramolecular autocatalysis,self replication,nanofibres,antimicrobials
Projet ERC : RECONNECT (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Forestry Commission England — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 35660.0 €

In order to maximise the potential for habitat restoration initiatives to mitigate our grandest environmental challenges, we urgently need to understand how differing approaches to forest creation affect the recovery of belowground foodwebs and the carbon cycling processes they underpin. This is a formidable challenge: we know startlingly little about how natural climate solutions, such as large-scale reforestation, influence biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the soil, the place where most species on the planet live and where 75% of terrestrial carbon stocks are found. Meeting this challenge not only requires a step change in our understanding of the form and function of complex soil biotic networks and the factors that mediate their reassembly with reforestation, but it also requires new knowledge of the mechanisms that underpin the formation of stable soil carbon stocks. The overarching aim of the RECONNECT project is to address these gaps by building the first complete picture of how contrasting reforestation approaches mediate the whole ecosystem movement of carbon from assimilation to stabilisation in the soil via differences in the reassembly of belowground biotic networks. To achieve this, I will use a unique and powerful combination of landscape scale field experiments, state-of-the-art molecular tools, isotopic tracing and cutting-edge biogeochemistry, to: (i) develop our mechanistic understanding of how contrasting woodland creation approaches (planting versus natural colonisation of trees) impact the flow, stabilisation and storage of carbon in forest soils, and (ii) determine how differing routes to forest creation influence the reassembly and functioning of interconnected mycorrhizal networks. In doing so, I will make major breakthroughs in our understanding of the functioning of terrestrial systems and provide a much-needed evidence-base to inform he way we reforest millions of hectares of the Earth’s surface.

Mots-clés : soil biodiversity,forest ecology,mycorrhizal fungi,carbon cycling,ecosystem restoration
Projet ERC : WHEP (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Université suédoise des sciences agricoles — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : SLU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 73389.75 €

Food production covers the most basic human need, and simultaneously is the main driver of anthropogenic environmental impacts. These impacts have resulted in the transgression, during the brief period since the industrial revolution, of the planetary boundaries defining the safe operating space of humanity. A rich research literature quantifies the last 60 years’ fast, heterogeneous, and often unfair development in food supply and related environmental impacts, and how these depend on agro-climatic factors, technology, and trade flows, all of which have greatly changed but with different trajectories around the world. However, these developments lack an integrated approach, and are very poorly quantified before 1961. WHEP will bridge these knowledge gaps, assessing “who has eaten the planet” by answering the questions: “What are the environmental impacts of food production since 1850?”, “What is the role of trade in food supply and in displacing the responsibilities for these impacts?” “How are impacts related to planetary boundaries, food supply and inequality?” These highly ambitious goals are addressed by four objectives: 1) Constructing a consolidated global country-level annual database on agricultural production and management, using massive data collation in combination with modelling; 2) Estimating the environmental impacts: greenhouse gas emissions and carbon, land, water, nitrogen, and phosphorus through spatially explicit, integrated, dynamic modelling; 3) Calculating product footprints and tracing them along international trade chains; and 4) Analyzing the observed trajectories in the safe and just operating space, by assessing the drivers, and how impacts at the production and consumption levels are related to fair and healthy supply. This ground-breaking research will shed new light on the environmental history of food, opening up many new research frontiers, and providing necessary information to design fair and sustainable policies.

Mots-clés : planetary boundaries,diets,agro food system,land use change,greenhouse gas emissions,soil organic carbon,nitrogen,phosphorus,water,long term,life cycle assessment,environmental footprints,integrated modelling