Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MMPPF (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Nottingham — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

Contemporary antislavery campaigners invoke the history of Atlantic World slavery to highlight the plight of 48 million people today living in exceptionally harsh circumstances, described as ‘modern slavery’. Yet in a world where many are oppressed and exploited, the lines between ‘modern slavery’ and other forms of drudgery, exclusion, and domination, are not easily drawn. Critics argue that the dominant discourse of ‘modern slavery’ relies upon a highly selective vision of injustice and suffering, and fails to consider or challenge the structural inequalities and systems of domination (race, caste, class, gender, age, nationality) that routinely restrict rights and freedoms. The proposed project retains a concern with the continuing significance of Atlantic World history, but upturns conventional discourse by interrogating the problem of freedom – as opposed to slavery - in the contemporary world. Through fieldwork in Brazil, Ghana, Italy, Portugal and the UK with groups that appear in dominant discourse as at risk of ‘modern slavery’, its key aims are: i) to revisit histories of marronage and other strategies by which enslaved and newly emancipated people sought to move closer to freedom in the Atlantic World historically, and ask what light they can shed on the perception, pursuit and practice of freedom by marginalized and rightless people in the Atlantic World today; ii) to use insights from this dialogue between past and present to contribute to theoretical debates on freedom, and its relation to agency, honour, gender, age, race, mobility, property, and personhood; iii) to work with research participants to co-produce counter-narratives to conventional antislavery stories of ‘modern slavery’, and, by communicating them through performance as well as text, encourage more nuanced popular and political debate on the contemporary meaning and practice of freedom.

Mots-clés : mobility,agency,freedom
Projet ERC : TopATLAS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Cukurova University — Pays : Turquie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 25375.0 €

Contemporary borders operate in ways that are more complex than in the past. They have been variously conceptualised as porous, shifting and solidified. Where a border may be open for some, for others it is an impenetrable wall. Combined with the mobility of geopolitical territorial formations that operate beyond legal frameworks, such as the formation of ISIS and the situation in Europe where borders are being opened and closed against agreed treaties, the very concept of the border is being radically questioned. We need new ways to make sense of these increasingly complex spaces. This proposal aims to develop a transdisciplinary research programme for mapping, analysing and intervening in border areas in the form of a digital atlas. Topological Atlas is developed as a methodology for producing visual counter-geographies at border sites. It is ground breaking in its use of digital technologies combined with a participative approach that attends to those who are at the margins of traditional geopolitical inquiry. The project uses topology as conceptual framework and methodology to make maps that produce ‘seamless transitions’ from the space of the migrant to that of the security apparatus that creates barriers to her movement. In doing so it seeks to disrupt the cartographic norms that are being reinforced through the prevalence of GIS technology and mapping platforms such as Google Earth. It investigates forms of visual and co-produced research adapted to situations of crisis and proposes a new model for researching border areas beyond the current top-down international relations or security perspective. At the same time it acknowledges the intertwined relationship between the practice of academic inquiry, the knowledge it produces and what such knowledge can do. The project is organised around the following research question: How can mapping be used to represent borders as topological entities through the experience of those who encounter them?

Mots-clés : mapping,borders
Projet ERC : TopATLAS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 320283.04 €

Contemporary borders operate in ways that are more complex than in the past. They have been variously conceptualised as porous, shifting and solidified. Where a border may be open for some, for others it is an impenetrable wall. Combined with the mobility of geopolitical territorial formations that operate beyond legal frameworks, such as the formation of ISIS and the situation in Europe where borders are being opened and closed against agreed treaties, the very concept of the border is being radically questioned. We need new ways to make sense of these increasingly complex spaces. This proposal aims to develop a transdisciplinary research programme for mapping, analysing and intervening in border areas in the form of a digital atlas. Topological Atlas is developed as a methodology for producing visual counter-geographies at border sites. It is ground breaking in its use of digital technologies combined with a participative approach that attends to those who are at the margins of traditional geopolitical inquiry. The project uses topology as conceptual framework and methodology to make maps that produce ‘seamless transitions’ from the space of the migrant to that of the security apparatus that creates barriers to her movement. In doing so it seeks to disrupt the cartographic norms that are being reinforced through the prevalence of GIS technology and mapping platforms such as Google Earth. It investigates forms of visual and co-produced research adapted to situations of crisis and proposes a new model for researching border areas beyond the current top-down international relations or security perspective. At the same time it acknowledges the intertwined relationship between the practice of academic inquiry, the knowledge it produces and what such knowledge can do. The project is organised around the following research question: How can mapping be used to represent borders as topological entities through the experience of those who encounter them?

Mots-clés : mapping,borders
Projet ERC : BLINDSPOT (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Università della Svizzera italiana — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : USI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 33218.94 €

Contemporary organizations face three interrelated, but analytically distinguishable, challenges. First, they should be alert to mistakes that could be catastrophic. Second, they need to allocate attention, especially to correct past mistakes and to make accurate predictions about future developments. Third, they should be innovative, able to stand out from existing categories while being recognized as outstanding. This project investigates these cognitive challenges with the aim of developing a comprehensive sociological approach to study the social properties of cognition. Research on error detection, attention allocation, and recognizant innovation will be conducted in three distinct settings strategically chosen so the scale and complexity of the performance challenges increases across the cases. The research question that cuts across the socio-cognitive challenges asks whether and how diversity contributes to performance. 1) We first test whether social context, understood at the most basic level as the composition of a small collectivity, affects the cognitive activity of pricing. To do so, I use experimental market methods to test whether ethnic and gender diversity deflate price bubbles by disrupting herding behaviour. 2) The second study tests how the social structure of attention affects valuation. The activities involve error correction and accuracy of prediction in estimates by securities analysts; the method is two-mode network analysis; and the timing, intensity, and diversity of attention networks are the effects to be tested. 3) Whereas my first two tests examine relations among competitors, my third examines relations within and across collaborative teams. In studying the network properties of creativity, the challenge is recognizant innovation, the activity involves recording sessions in the field of music, the method is cultural network analysis, and the effects to be tested are the combined effects of stylistic diversity and social structure.

Mots-clés : network analysis,cognitive diversity,observation theory,attention networks,team assembly,innovation,organizations,economic sociology,sociology of finance
Projet ERC : EPAF (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
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 : 2311843.75 €

Contrary to previous beliefs, recent studies have suggested that apoptotic cells play an important dynamic role during morphogenesis. Nonetheless, the mechanisms whereby dying cells drive tissue shape modification remain elusive. Using the Drosophila developing leg as a model system to study apoptosis-dependent epithelium folding, we have recently shown that apoptotic cells produce a pulling force through the unexpected maintenance of their adherens junctions that serves as an anchor to an apico-basal Myosin II cable. The resulting apoptotic apico-basal force leads to a non-autonomous increase in tissue tension and apical constriction of surrounding cells, leading to epithelium folding. These results reveal that, far from being passively eliminated as generally thought, dying cells are very active until the end of the apoptotic process. The objective of the present proposal is to understand how apoptotic cells influence their surroundings from the micro-environment to the macro-scale level. Our first aim is to dissect the cellular mechanisms governing the generation of the apoptotic force and its transmission to the tissue, both apically through planar polarity and basally through the extra-cellular matrix (ECM), in parallel with the identification of the network of genes orchestrating apoptosis-dependent morphogenesis through a powerful genetic screen. Interesting preliminary results have already identified the epithelio-mesenchymal-transition gene Snail as essential for the progression of apoptosis, thus validating our approach. Therefore, the second aim of this project is to compare Snail function in the control of adhesion and ECM dynamics and in the generation of tissue tension in both EMT and apoptosis. This original comparative study should bring novel insight into these two fundamental processes. To perform this work, we will use elegant genetic tools combined to state-of-the-art live imaging techniques, together with robust biophysical modelling.

Mots-clés : cytoskeleton dynamics,cell adhesion dynamics,cell shape dynamics
Projet ERC : unLiMIt-2D (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 463954.66 €

Controlling light- and matter excitations down to the microscopic scale is one major challenge in modern optics. Applications arising from this field, such as novel coherent- and quantum light sources have the potential to affect our daily life. One particularly appealing material platform in quantum physics consists of monolayer crystals. The most prominent species, graphene, however remains rather unappealing for photonic applications due to the lack of an electronic bandgap in its pristine form. Monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides and group III-VI compounds comprise such a direct bandgap, and additionally feature intriguing spinor properties, making them almost ideal candidates to study optics and excitonic effects in two-dimensional systems. unLiMIt-2D aims to establish these materials as a new platform in solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics. The targeted experiments will be based on thin layers embedded in high quality photonic heterostructures providing optical confinement. Firstly, I will exploit the combination of ultra-large exciton binding energies, giant absorption and unique spin properties of such materials to form microcavity exciton polaritons. These composite bosons provide the unique possibility to study coherent quantum fluids up to room temperature. Due to the possibility of fabricating such structures by relatively simple means, establishing bosonic condensation effects in atomic monolayers can lead to a paradigm shift in polaritonics. Secondly, I will study exciton localization in layered materials, with the perspective to establish a new generation of microcavity-based quantum light sources. Light-matter coupling effects will greatly improve the performance of such sources. I will investigate possibilities of tuning the spectral properties of these localizations via external electric and strain-fields, to gain position control and make use of them as sources of single, indistinguishable photons.

Mots-clés : atomic monolayers,cavity quantum electrodynamics,bose einstein condensation,photonic,strong light matter coupling,single photon source
Projet ERC : PowAlgDO (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1437367.0 €

Convex relaxations, such as linear and semidefinite programming, constitute one of the most powerful techniques for designing efficient algorithms, and have been studied in theoretical computer science, operational research, and applied mathematics. We seek to establish the power convex relaxations through the lens of, and with the extensions of methods designed for, Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). Our goal is twofold. First, to provide precise characterisations of the applicability of convex relaxations such as which problems can be solved by linear programming relaxations. Secondly, to derive computational complexity consequences such as for which classes of problems the considered algorithms are optimal in that they solve optimally everything that can be solved in polynomial time. For optimisation problems, we aim to characterise the limits of linear and semidefinite programming relaxations for exact, approximate, and robust solvability. For decision problems, we aim to characterise the limits of local consistency methods, one of the fundamental techniques in artificial intelligence, which strongly relates to linear programming relaxations. Recent years have seen some remarkable progress on characterising the power of algorithms for a very important type of problems known as non-uniform constraint satisfaction problems and their optimisation variants. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop new techniques and establish novel results on the limits of convex relaxations and local consistency methods in a general setting going beyond the realm of non-uniform CSPs.

Mots-clés : discrete optimisation,linear programming,convex relaxations,constraint satisfaction problems
Projet ERC : EEC (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : University of California System — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 162500.0 €

Cooperation is essential for the functioning of the economy and society. Thus, with inappropriate mechanisms to harness self-interest by aligning it with the common good, the outcome of social and economic interaction can be bleak and even catastrophic. Recent advances in computer technology lead to radical innovation in market design and trading strategies. This creates both, new challenges and exciting opportunities for “engineering cooperation”. This project uses the economic engineering approach (as advocated by Alvin Roth) to address some of the most pressing cooperation problems of modern markets and societies. I propose three work packages, each using innovative experimental methods and (behavioral) game theory in order to address a specific challenge: The first one studies the design of electronic reputation mechanisms that promote cooperation in the digital world. Previous research has shown that mechanisms to promote trust on the Internet are flawed. Yet, there is little empirical and normative guidance on how to repair these systems, and engineer better ones. The second studies the design of mechanisms that avoid arms races for speed in real-time financial and electricity market trading. Traders use algorithmic sniping strategies, even when they are collectively wasteful and seriously threatening market liquidity and stability. Yet, little is known about the robust properties of alternative market designs to eliminate sniping. The third one studies how to design modern markets that align with ethical considerations. People sometimes have a distaste for certain kinds of modern transactions, such as reciprocal kidney exchange and buying pollution rights. Yet, little is known about the underlying nature and robustness of this distaste. My project will generate important knowledge to improve the functioning of modern markets, and at the same time open new horizons in the sciences of cooperation and of “behavioral economic engineering”.

Mots-clés : economic engineering,cooperation
Projet ERC : COOPERATIVE PARTNER (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Entité participante : Biopolis (Spain) — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1693337.82 €

Cooperation represents an evolutionary puzzle because natural sCooperation poses an evolutionary problem because natural selection is thought to favour cheaters over co-operators. However, theory and studies in humans show us that co-operators are preferred over cheaters as social and sexual partners. Partner choice may therefore provide a powerful explanation for the evolution and stability of cooperation, alongside kin selection and self-serving benefits, but we lack an understanding of its importance in natural systems. Recent studies showing that animals have a preference for associating with more cooperative individuals are promising but were mostly conducted in artificial captive conditions, making the evolutionary implications of partner choice hard to assess. Manipulating cooperation in the wild to test the fitness consequences of partner choice is the leap that is required to understand whether or not partner choice provides an evolutionary explanation for cooperation. I will pursue this goal using a long-term study that I established on a highly cooperative wild bird, the sociable weaver Philetairus socius. New methodological developments now allow us to conduct large-scale experiments in the wild, and detailed tracking of individual for several years will allow us to quantify the fitness consequences of choice. Specifically, here I will: i) use a new conceptual framework to test whether cooperation is repeatable (a pre-requirement for partner choice); ii) use state-of-the-art technology to manipulate cooperative behaviour and measure the resulting patterns of social and sexual partner choice; iii) use physiological measures and lifetime reproductive success to examine the fitness benefits arising from partner choice and the underlying mechanisms for both co-operators and the individuals that associate with them. Ultimately, the project will provide a novel and robust evaluation of the roles of social and sexual selection for the evolution of cooperation.

Mots-clés : cooperation,partner choice,sociality,sexual selection,social selection,signalling,individual fitness
Projet ERC : DECRESIM (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Valencia — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UV
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1827375.0 €

Coordination Chemistry and Molecular Magnetism are in an ideal position for the rational design of Single-Molecule Magnets which can be used as molecular spin qubits, the irreducible components of any quantum technology. Indeed, a major advantage of molecular spin qubits over other candidates stems from the power of Chemistry for a tailored and inexpensive synthesis of systems for their experimental study. In particular, the so-called Lanthanoid-based Single-Ion Magnets, which are currently the hottest topic in Molecular Magnetism, have the potential to be chemically designed, tuning both their single-molecule properties and their crystalline environment. This will allow the independent study of the different quantum processes that cause the loss of quantum information, collectively known as decoherence. The study of quantum decoherence processes in the solid state is necessary both to lay the foundations for next-generation quantum technologies and to answer some fundamental questions. The goals of this project are: #1 To unravel the mechanistic details of decoherence in molecular spin qubits based on mononuclear lanthanoid complexes. This study will stablish criteria for the rational design of single spin qubits. #2 To extend this study to the coupling between two or more spin qubits. This will allow us to explore the use of polynuclear lanthanoid complexes to achieve quantum gates or simple algorithms. #3 To extrapolate to infinite systems formed by the complex organization of spin qubits. This exploratory goal will permit us to move beyond zero-dimensional systems, thus facilitating the advance towards complex quantum functions.

Mots-clés : molecular magnetism