Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CALCEAM (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Utrecht University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Homogeneous catalysis is of prime importance for the selective synthesis of high added value chemicals. Many of the currently available catalysts rely on noble metals (Ru, Os, Rh, Ir, Pd, Pt), which suffer from a high toxicity and environmental impact in addition to their high cost, calling for the development of new systems based on first-row transition metals (Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu). The historical paradigm for catalyst design, i.e. one or more donor ligands giving electron density to stabilize a metal center and tune its reactivity, is currently being challenged by the development of acceptor ligands that mostly withdraw electron density from the metal center upon binding. In the last decade, such ligands – mostly based on boron and heavier main-group elements – have evolved from a structural curiosity to a powerful tool in designing new reactive units for homogeneous catalysis. I will develop a novel class of ligands that use C=E (E=O, S, NR) multiple bonds anchored in close proximity to the metal by phosphine tethers. The electrophilic C=E multiple bond is designed to act as an acceptor moiety that adapts its binding mode to the electronic structure of reactive intermediates with the unique additional possibility of involving the lone pairs on heteroelement E in cooperative reactivity. Building on preliminary results showing that a C=O bond can function as a hemilabile ligand in a catalytic cycle, I will undertake a systematic, experimental and theoretical investigation of the structure and reactivity of M–C–E three membered rings formed by side-on coordination of C=E bonds to a first-row metal. Their ability to facilitate multi-electron transformations (oxidative addition, atom/group transfer reactions) will be investigated. In particular, hemilability of the C=E bond is expected to facilitate challenging C–C bond forming reactions mediated by Fe and Ni. This approach will demonstrate a new conceptual tool for the design of efficient base-metal catalysts.

Mots-clés : organometallic chemistry,cooperative ligands,base metal catalysis
Projet ERC : ShuttleCat (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 50750.0 €

Homogeneous catalysis is one of the pillars of modern chemical synthesis because it enables the sustainable preparation of molecules that find applications in medicinal chemistry, agrochemistry, and materials science. However, many catalytic reactions use hazardous reagents, are unpractical on laboratory-scale or limited in scope. Moreover, while a relatively broad set of catalytic reactions are available to construct chemical bonds, methods to cleave those, which could find applications in biomass and waste valorization, are rare. Inspired by the synthetic power of other metal-catalyzed reversible reactions, such as transfer hydrogenation and alkene metathesis, I herein describe a groundbreaking approach to homogeneous catalysis that makes use of a novel paradigm called “shuttle catalysis”, defined as the catalytic reversible transfer of chemical moieties between two molecules, to construct and deconstruct organic compounds. The first part of the proposal describes the invention of reversible catalytic functionalization reactions of alkenes following this principle. The second part addresses the challenge of developing safer catalytic carbonylation and decarbonylation reactions that do not use nor release toxic carbon monoxide gas. Finally, the last part proposes to apply the shuttle catalysis concept to the invention of unprecedented C–X (X = P, O, S, N) bond metathesis reactions. This new approach to catalysis has the potential to revolutionize the preparation, and streamline the discovery, of numerous important molecules with applications across the molecular sciences. Importantly, in order to mitigate the high risks inherent to such a groundbreaking approach, we have collected preliminary results to demonstrate the feasibility of each of the proposed subprojects.
Projet ERC : HRMECH (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
Entité participante : Università della Svizzera italiana — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : USI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999014.0 €

Homologous recombination plays a crucial role to repair DNA strand breaks that may occur spontaneously upon replication fork collapse, during the course of radio- or chemotherapy or in a programmed manner during meiosis. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of re-combinational repair is thus very important not only from a basic research viewpoint, but it is also highly relevant for human health. Here, we will define the function of nucleases in homol-ogous recombination. First, we will study the initial steps in this pathway. We could show previously that the S. cerevisiae Sae2 protein promotes the endonuclease activity of the Mre11-Rad50-Xrs2 (MRX) complex near protein blocked DNA ends. This initiates nucleolytic resection of DNA breaks and activates homologous recombination. Our biochemical setup will be instrumental to define how is the activity of Sae2 regulated by phosphorylation on a mech-anistic level and how physiological protein blocks direct the Mre11 endonuclease. We will ex-tend the study to the human system, and attempt to apply the gained knowledge to improve the efficiency of genome editing by activating recombination in conjunction with the CRISPR-Cas9 nuclease system. Second, we will study how homologous recombination promotes gen-eration of genetic diversity during sexual reproduction. DNA strand breaks are introduced in-tentionally during the prophase of the first meiotic division. They are then processed by the recombination machinery into Holliday junction intermediates. These joint molecules are preferentially converted into crossovers in meiosis, resulting in exchange of genetic infor-mation between the maternal and paternal DNA molecules. This is dependent on the Mlh1-Mlh3 nuclease through a yet unknown mechanism. We will study how Mlh1-Mlh3 in complex with other proteins guarantee crossover outcome to promote diversity of the progeny.

Mots-clés : recombination,nucleases,dna end resection,meiosis,genome editing
Projet ERC : DisCont (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Bocconi University — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1977500.0 €

Household, family and fertility changes are key drivers of population dynamics. Discovering and explaining the velocity of these changes is essential to understand the current situation and to provide scientific evidence on our demographic future. DisCont will provide seminal contributions by studying the impact of macro-level discontinuities on household and family formation (including fertility) in post-industrial contemporary societies. In the past decade, two macro-level discontinuities have radically transformed lives: the Great Recession and the digitalization of life and of the life course. Although their short-term and long-term impacts are likely to be fundamental, they have not yet been systematically analysed. Through a coordinated series of theoretically-founded empirical studies based on linked macro- and micro-level data, and using a comparative perspective, DisCont will argue that macro-level discontinuities are crucial in explaining broad changes in household and family formation, and that their effects can be persistent either for the population as a whole, or for specific cohorts. DisCont will contribute to five areas: 1) it will make theoretical advances by showing the importance of macro-level discontinuities in the explanation of changes in household and family formation in particular, and in population dynamics in general; 2) it will substantially advance our knowledge of household and family formation in post-industrial contemporary societies; 3) it will contribute in a systematic and path-breaking way to research on the broader societal impact of digitalization and of the Great Recession; 4) it will bring a paradigm shift in Age-Period-Cohort modelling; 5) it will make ground-breaking contributions on the demographic use of “big data” and on the use of agent-based models for the population-level implications of household and family change.

Mots-clés : life course,great recession,digitalisation of life,transition to adulthood
Projet ERC : DisCont (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 423055.0 €

Household, family and fertility changes are key drivers of population dynamics. Discovering and explaining the velocity of these changes is essential to understand the current situation and to provide scientific evidence on our demographic future. DisCont will provide seminal contributions by studying the impact of macro-level discontinuities on household and family formation (including fertility) in post-industrial contemporary societies. In the past decade, two macro-level discontinuities have radically transformed lives: the Great Recession and the digitalization of life and of the life course. Although their short-term and long-term impacts are likely to be fundamental, they have not yet been systematically analysed. Through a coordinated series of theoretically-founded empirical studies based on linked macro- and micro-level data, and using a comparative perspective, DisCont will argue that macro-level discontinuities are crucial in explaining broad changes in household and family formation, and that their effects can be persistent either for the population as a whole, or for specific cohorts. DisCont will contribute to five areas: 1) it will make theoretical advances by showing the importance of macro-level discontinuities in the explanation of changes in household and family formation in particular, and in population dynamics in general; 2) it will substantially advance our knowledge of household and family formation in post-industrial contemporary societies; 3) it will contribute in a systematic and path-breaking way to research on the broader societal impact of digitalization and of the Great Recession; 4) it will bring a paradigm shift in Age-Period-Cohort modelling; 5) it will make ground-breaking contributions on the demographic use of “big data” and on the use of agent-based models for the population-level implications of household and family change.

Mots-clés : life course,great recession,digitalisation of life,transition to adulthood
Projet ERC : QUANTPATTERN (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cellular, Developmental and Regenerative Biology
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499750.0 €

How an initially homogenous population of cells self-organizes to form patterned embryos and tissues is a long-standing mystery in the field of developmental biology. Understanding such self-organizing processes is of central importance for regenerative medicine and would inform approaches to transform embryonic stem cells into complex multicellular structures for human tissue replacement. The influential reaction-diffusion model postulates that patterns emerge during development under the influence of poorly diffusive activators and highly diffusive inhibitors, and we have recently found biophysical evidence supporting the differential diffusivity of the activator Nodal and its inhibitor Lefty in zebrafish embryos. While we have begun to define the Nodal/Lefty activator-inhibitor pair as a reaction-diffusion system that can transform a uniform field of cells into an embryo, three important questions remain: First, how is the differential diffusivity of activators and inhibitors achieved in living embryos? The molecular weights of activator and inhibitor proteins are too similar to explain the difference in diffusivities. Second, how do reaction-diffusion systems adapt to tissue size? Embryos can vary considerably in size, but the proportions of their body plans are remarkably constant. How reaction-diffusion systems mediate this scale-invariant patterning in vivo is unknown. Third, how do reaction-diffusion systems self-organize? Embryos are often born with maternally provided prepatterns, and it is unknown whether reaction-diffusion systems also form relevant patterns in the absence of such prepatterns. We will address these questions in zebrafish and mouse embryonic stem cells by combining innovative quantitative experimentation and mathematical modeling. This high-risk/high-gain approach will allow us to unravel general principles underlying self-organizing processes and will inform new strategies for human tissue engineering from embryonic stem cells.
Projet ERC : OTTOCONFESSION (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Central European University — Pays : Hongrie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CEU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1487942.71 €

How and why did the Ottoman Empire evolve from a fourteenth-century polity where "confessional ambiguity" between Sunnism and Shiism prevailed into an Islamic state concerned with defining and enforcing a "Sunni orthodoxy" by the early sixteenth century? Recent historiography attributes this new concern with "orthodoxy" in the Ottoman Empire to the rise of the rival Shii Safavid Empire at the turn of the sixteenth century. However, the OTTOCONFESSION project is based on the premise that the evolution of Ottoman discourse on Sunni orthodoxy can be understood only in a longer perspective that spans the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that it was shaped by religio-political dynamics not only in the Safavid Empire but also within the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire and in Europe as well. The project sets out to demonstrate that although the polarization between Sunni and Shii Islam on the one hand, and Catholic and Protestant Christianity on the other, resulted from the dynamics specific to the Turco-Iranian world and Europe, respectively, the subsequent processes of confession- (and in come cases state-) building were related and constitute an entangled history of confessionalization that spanned Europe and the Middle East. This entanglement resulted in particular from: the Ottomans' concomitant competition with the Safavids, Habsburgs, and Venetians, and the shared political theologies this entailed; the spread of various Muslim and Christian communities across imperial borders; and the Ottomans' permissiveness towards Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist missionary activities among the Empire's (mostly Orthodox) Christians. The project will investigate the evolution of the confessional discourses in the Ottoman Empire in both community-specific and entangled, cross-communal perspectives between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries by focusing on a) agents and strategies; b) textual genres; and c) sites of confessionalization.

Mots-clés : ottoman empire,confessionalization,social disciplining,sunnism,orthodoxy
Projet ERC : ResilienceBuilding (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Oslo — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UiO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499982.0 €

How can ‘resilient communities’ remain resilient in protracted conflicts and contribute to sustainable peace rather than to increased vulnerability to renewed conflict? How do local conflicts link to national conflicts and what are the implications for peacebuilding? What are the gender dimensions of social resilience? Is resilience always ‘a good thing’ or may it impede conflict resolution? This project pioneers an interdisciplinary research agenda into resilience building. The need for a greater analytical focus on the causes and consequences of social resilience is evident in the modest international record of peacebuilding and civilian protection. Scholarship increasingly invokes resilience terminology but lacks mature conceptual and empirical work. Building on the PI’s expertise in social resilience, communal conflict, and gender and peacebuilding, this project will establish an empirically-grounded research agenda on social resilience and sustainable peace. By providing a comparative analysis of resilience building and barriers to peace in Nigeria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Kenya, the project will create a new agenda for resilience research that rests on novel conceptual development and interdisciplinary approaches to resilience combined with the systematic study of social resilience and local peace produced by an integrated team of specialist researchers. The project will involve a fieldwork-based multi-method research design that combines advanced quantitative techniques for assessing the consequences of international peacebuilding with regard to local peace and women’s empowerment with context-sensitive qualitative analysis of the often unintended consequences of social resilience and hidden barriers to local peace and changing gender relations. The project will result in a new scholarly community with a shared intellectual focus on social resilience and sustainable peace in protracted conflicts.

Mots-clés : social resilience,communal conflicts,peacebuilding,gendered civilian agency,adaptation,vulnerability,coping strategies,un peacebuilding,civilian protection,local peace agreements,women s empowerment,masculinities
Projet ERC : CLASS (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Stirling — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 22467.11 €

How children acquire their native language remains one of the key unsolved problems in Cognitive Science. This project will answer a question that lies at the heart of this problem: How do children acquire the abstract generalizations that allow them to produce novel sentences, while avoiding the ungrammatical utterances that result from across-the-board application of these generalizations (e.g., *The clown laughed the man)? Previous single-process theories (the entrenchment, preemption and verb semantics hypotheses) fail to explain all of the current English data, and do not begin to address the issue of how learners of other languages solve this learnability problem. The aim of the present project is to solve this problem by developing and testing a new unified cross-linguistic account of the development of sentence structure. In addition to the overarching theoretical question set out above, the research will address four key questions: (1) What do learners bring to the task in terms of cognitive-semantic universals?; (2) How do children form linguistic generalizations in the first place?; (3) Why are languages the way they are; would other types of systems be difficult or impossible to learn?; (4) What is the nature of development?. These questions will be addressed by means of four Work Packages (WPs). WP1 uses grammaticality judgment and elicited production paradigms developed by the PI to investigate the acquisition of basic transitive and intransitive sentence structure (e.g., The man broke the window/The window broke) across six typologically different languages: English, K’iche’ Mayan, Japanese, Hindi, Hebrew and Turkish (at ages 3-4, 5-6, 9-10 and 18+ years). WP2 uses the same paradigms to investigate idiosyncratic language-specific generalizations within three of these languages. WP3 uses Artificial Grammar Learning to focus on the issue of language evolution. WP4 uses computational modeling to investigate and simulate development.

Mots-clés : child language acquisition,language development
Projet ERC : CLASS (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Liverpool — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1329337.6 €

How children acquire their native language remains one of the key unsolved problems in Cognitive Science. This project will answer a question that lies at the heart of this problem: How do children acquire the abstract generalizations that allow them to produce novel sentences, while avoiding the ungrammatical utterances that result from across-the-board application of these generalizations (e.g., *The clown laughed the man)? Previous single-process theories (the entrenchment, preemption and verb semantics hypotheses) fail to explain all of the current English data, and do not begin to address the issue of how learners of other languages solve this learnability problem. The aim of the present project is to solve this problem by developing and testing a new unified cross-linguistic account of the development of sentence structure. In addition to the overarching theoretical question set out above, the research will address four key questions: (1) What do learners bring to the task in terms of cognitive-semantic universals?; (2) How do children form linguistic generalizations in the first place?; (3) Why are languages the way they are; would other types of systems be difficult or impossible to learn?; (4) What is the nature of development?. These questions will be addressed by means of four Work Packages (WPs). WP1 uses grammaticality judgment and elicited production paradigms developed by the PI to investigate the acquisition of basic transitive and intransitive sentence structure (e.g., The man broke the window/The window broke) across six typologically different languages: English, K’iche’ Mayan, Japanese, Hindi, Hebrew and Turkish (at ages 3-4, 5-6, 9-10 and 18+ years). WP2 uses the same paradigms to investigate idiosyncratic language-specific generalizations within three of these languages. WP3 uses Artificial Grammar Learning to focus on the issue of language evolution. WP4 uses computational modeling to investigate and simulate development.

Mots-clés : child language acquisition,language development