Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : DeepCoMechTome (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Université Eberhard Karl de Tübingen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1997321.0 €

Advances in experimental techniques yield detailed wiring diagrams of neural circuits in model-systems such as the Drosophila melanogaster. How can we leverage these complex connectomes, together with targeted recordings and perturbations of neural activity, to understand how neuronal populations perform computations underlying behavior? Achieving a mechanistic understanding will require models that are consistent with connectomes and biophysical mechanisms, while also being capable of performing behaviorally relevant computations. Current models fail to address this need: Mechanistic models satisfy anatomical and biophysical constraints by design, but we lack methods for optimizing them to perform tasks. Conversely, deep learning models can be optimized to perform challenging tasks, but fall short on mechanistic interpretability.  To address this challenge, we will provide a machine learning framework that unifies mechanistic modeling and deep learning, and will make it possible to algorithmically identify models that link biophysical mechanisms, neural data, and behavior. We will use our approach to study two key neural computations in D. melanogaster. We will build large-scale mechanistic models of the optic lobe and motor control circuits which are constrained by connectomes and physiological measurements, and optimize them to solve specific computational tasks: Extracting behaviorally relevant information from the visual input, and coordinating leg movements to achieve robust locomotion. Our methodology for building, interpreting and updating these `deep mechanistic models' will be applicable to a wide range of neural circuits and behaviors. It will serve as a powerful hypothesis generator for predicting neural tuning and optimizing experimental perturbations, and will yield unprecedented insights into how connectivity shapes efficient neural computations in biological and artificial networks.

Mots-clés : computational neuroscience,probabilistic machine learning,model identification,fruit fly,drosophila melanogaster,visual system,motor control,deep learning,simulation based inference,bayesian inference,mechanistic models,connectomics,big data,animal behavior
Projet ERC : EMUNITI (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : St. Anne's University Hospital Brno — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FNUSA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996925.0 €

Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized by sporadic debilitating seizures and declines in mental health. Available therapies suffer from drawbacks and are not suitable for all patients. The medical needs in epilepsy encapsulate those for clinically managing brain health in general, i.e., the need for precision, personalized, non-systemic and safer therapies. Potential innovative solutions are available from advances in technology but will require multidisciplinary teams which bridge between engineering and clinical neurology. The main objective of the EMUNITI project is to develop a breakthrough, non-invasive, personalized brain stimulation device for epilepsy patients, (i) as a diagnostic for seizure localization which can guide subsequent surgical resection; and (ii) as a therapy, akin to immunizing the patient against seizures. The device is based on temporal interference (TI) of electrical signals delivered from positions around the scalp. The project will be led by Adam Williamson, who is a former recipient of ERC Starting and Proof-of-Concept grants and has IP for the technology. His lab is at the interface between state-of-the art engineering and neurology, and is based in a major European centre for clinical research on epilepsy in Marseille, France. His lab has already demonstrated in a pilot study of epilepsy patients, that TI can block seizure-provoking brain activity. The project includes three work packages (WPs). WP1 focuses on optimizing TI stimulation at the engineering level and establishing a novel form of TI in multipolar TI (mTI). WP2 will evaluate mTI in epilepsy patients, for seizure localization and for therapeutic intervention with the potential to create brain seizure immunity through repeated mTI. WP3 administers the project and delivers the main outcome: a clinical prototype with closed-loop stimulation combining mTI and intelligent software. The successful outcome is anticipated to lead to other applications for TI in brain health.

Mots-clés : non invasive temporal interference,epilepsy,brain stimulation,neuromodulation
Projet ERC : SoftQuanta (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Institut Jožef Stefan — Pays : Slovénie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IJS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1799713.0 €

Quantum optics is an exciting and rapidly growing research field with a huge potential in different applications such as quantum communications, computing, sensing, and imaging. One of the most crucial components of any quantum optical device is a source of non-classical light, called a quantum light source. Currently, these sources are almost exclusively based on solid-state inorganic materials, which limits their properties, such as lack of complex geometries and limited tunability.  In the past, I have pioneered the use of liquid crystals and biomaterials to make various photonic devices. Notably, I made a laser inside a live human cell. Since then, this pioneering work has been employed in a large number of applications, including tunable light sources, biological sensing, cell barcoding, and imaging. Soft photonic devices have unparalleled properties compared to their solid-state counterparts, such as extremely large tunability, self-assembly of complex structures that are impossible to make by lithography, biocompatibility and even self-healing.  Similarly as with microlasers, I propose to make quantum light sources from soft and biological matter. The unique properties of soft materials have the potential to give an unprecedented twist to the field of quantum optics but have been unexplored until now. I propose to develop sources of photon pairs out of liquid crystals. By selecting the appropriate liquid crystal structure, these sources will generate almost arbitrary polarization quantum states of the photon pairs, including entangled photons. Moreover, the quantum states will also be tunable by an electric field. Further, I propose to use single-photon sources in biological materials for novel applications such as cell barcoding and to make a purely biological single-photon source.  The novel quantum light sources developed in the SoftQuanta project could have a significant impact on quantum sensing, imaging, communications, and maybe even quantum computing.

Mots-clés : liquid crystals,ferroelectric nematics,color centers,entangled photons,photon pairs,single photon sources,quantum optics,microscopy,bioimaging,cellular barcoding
Projet ERC : DECRYPSYS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Université d'Aarhus — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1998351.0 €

Much of our digital infrastructure still relies on centralized systems, which are prone to failure and, more importantly, present appealing targets for criminals and other ill-intentioned parties. A successful attack on a centralized system can have huge repercussions in terms of loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and services: alas, once private data leaks, it is impossible to “put it back” into the confidential domain.  The fragility of centralized systems is one of the reasons that the interest in decentralized cryptographic systems (such as Secure Multiparty Computation, Blockchains, and Threshold Cryptography) has surged in recent years. Decentralized systems are more resilient against external and internal threats: even if some fractions of the parties are corrupt and misbehave, it is still possible to guarantee crucial security properties such as data privacy and correctness of outcomes. However, as these systems get deployed and used by citizens and institutions, it becomes evident that many of the assumptions made in the scientific literature do not match the reality in which such systems are used: as security proofs might no longer hold, this opens the door for potentially catastrophic security consequences.  With this project I intend to take a step back and design cryptographic systems with solid theoretical foundations, with focus on ensuring that the abstract models in which cryptographic systems are designed and proven secure are a close match to the everchanging reality in which they get deployed, addressing e.g., the peculiar nature of decentralized systems and the challenges presented by advances in quantum computing. A successful outcome of the project will lead to novel, more efficient, and more secure cryptographic protocols for complex tasks. All the results of the projects will be made publicly available to help companies and society secure the critical infrastructures underlying their digital interactions.

Mots-clés : cryptographic protocols,secure multiparty computation,zero knowledge proofs,threshold cryptography
Projet ERC : WEB CHILD (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université d'Aarhus — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999419.0 €

Online connectivity permeates the lives of contemporary children. Nonetheless, the history of childhood and the World Wide Web (the Web) has not been studied—a lacuna which mirrors the wider absence of the Web in contemporary history despite its invention more than 30 years ago. WEB CHILD combines the history of childhood and the Web to investigate how the emergence of the Web as a new interactive and connected medium with little adult oversight impacted childhood at the turn of the millennium (c. 1995-2005). To study the Web’s wide-ranging influence, three countries have been selected for comparison: the United States, Denmark, and South Korea. These were all digital pioneers, but had very different cultures of childhood. WEB CHILD has four work packages (WPs). The first three cut across all three countries and investigate the Web’s relation to childhood on three analytical levels: conceptually, socially, and materially. WP1 asks how the Web’s relationship to childhood was conceptualised in the public sphere. WP2 asks how children used the Web. WP3 asks what kinds of Web content were built for children. Using the findings from the first three work packages, WP4 explores similarities and differences in the influences of the Web on childhood across the three countries.  The analysis uses sources ranging from the Internet Archive’s archived webpages to news items, interviews, surveys, contemporary research, and internet guidebooks. It combines computational analyses of archived webpages, e.g. text-mining, link analysis, and analysis of encoded interactive features, with methods and sources more traditionally used in history. Using archived web material, the project ventures into what has until now been uncharted territory in historical research, even if such sources and related digital methods are indispensable when historicising the recent past.

Mots-clés : childhood history web history media history new cultural history south korea the united states denmark web archives 1990s 2000s computational methods
Projet ERC : Boundary (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Institut Jožef Stefan — Pays : Slovénie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IJS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1659457.5 €

Physical systems are both universal and special, depending on the physical property under consideration and the corresponding scale, such as the energy, time, or length scale. From the perspective of quantum dynamics, it has been recently established that the ability of isolated quantum systems to thermalize after being driven away from equilibrium is related to the emergence of universal properties that comply with random matrix theory. Specific indicators for the onset of ergodicity and quantum chaos are related to the statistical properties of energy spectrum, Hamiltonian eigenfunction properties, and the expectation values of observables in these states. At the same time, however, these indicators also carry fingerprints of nonuniversal properties of a given system. Remarkable examples of the latter include, e.g., information on the nature of energy and charge transport, and the scaling of characteristic relaxation times. One of the main conjectures of this ERC project is that these indicators, despite complying with the universal predictions of the random matrix theory, also carry information about proximity of phase transitions. Here we focus on ergodicity breaking phase transitions, which represent a novel type of phase transitions at the boundaries of quantum chaos. We then extend the scope of the project to the critical properties at the ergodicity breaking transitions. We conjecture that they also exhibit certain universal properties, yet likely different from those described by the conventional random matrix theory. The outcome of the project is to establish a phenomenological theory of ergodicity breaking transitions that applies to a broad class of quantum systems, and to clarify the impact of dimensionality, symmetries, the nature of interactions, and other mechanisms on universal properties of ergodicity breaking transitions.

Mots-clés : eigenstate thermalization hypothesis
Projet ERC : MUCPLUG (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Université de Göteborg — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999461.0 €

During pregnancy, the cervix undergoes dramatic remodelling characterised by the emergence of mucus secreting goblet cells (GCs) that generate a cervical mucus plug (CMP) in the cervical canal. The CMP is thought to act as a barrier that is crucial for maintaining uterine sterility, thereby protecting the foetus from ascending bacterial infections. However, this view is based on relatively little experimental evidence and our knowledge of specific endogenous or exogenous factors that may regulate cervical GC functions and CMP properties is virtually non-existent. This knowledge gap has significant clinical implications, as preterm birth is a common consequence of intrauterine bacterial infections and is associated with up to 0.6 million annual infant deaths.  Over the previous decade, significant research efforts have been made to dissect GC and mucus protective functions in the gut and lungs, while the female reproductive tract has been largely neglected. Fortuitously, much of the knowledge and tools developed by this research can be repurposed to study cervical GCs and the CMP. These include transgenic mice with tagged cervical GCs, null mutant mouse models, targeted mucus biochemical and barrier property analytics, ex vivo mucosal methodologies and large-scale mutagenesis libraries of bacteria that can cause intrauterine infection.  In this proposal we will repurpose these tools to: 1) Define GC and CMP gestational dynamics in pre-clinal mouse models; 2) Identify causal links between endogenous and exogenous factors that regulate GC and CMP functions; 3) Screen for bacterial virulence factors associated with breach of the CMP during pregnancy; 4) Isolate CMP alterations associated with human preterm birth. Addressing these aims will provide new insights into GC and mucus biology, host-pathogen interactions and develop a deeper understanding of female reproductive biology that can applied to the development of precision interventions to reduce infant mortality

Mots-clés : pregnancy,preterm birth,goblet cell,mucus,intrauterine infection
Projet ERC : MACROGROWTH (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : CERCA Institution — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CERCA;I-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1457750.0 €

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and renewable energy technologies may boost productivity growth over the coming years, but also cause a disruptive reallocation of economic activity among workers, firms, sectors and countries. How should monetary and fiscal policies be designed to ensure that these new technologies deliver productivity improvements and widespread welfare gains? In this proposal, I will address this fundamental question by developing a Keynesian growth framework – i.e. a unified theory of business cycles and growth – in which macroeconomic policies traditionally associated with aggregate demand management, such as monetary and cyclical fiscal policies, affect firms’ investment in new technologies and productivity. In part I, I will develop a novel Keynesian growth model with multiple alternative technologies (e.g. human labor vs. artificial intelligence, dirty vs. clean energy), and realistic heterogeneity among households, firms and sectors. The framework will shed light on the trade-offs faced by central banks during the energy transition, on the macroeconomic policies needed to prevent the spread of artificial intelligence from causing technological unemployment, and on the macroeconomic management of the sectoral reallocation process driven by accelerations in technological change.  In part II, I will provide an open economy Keynesian growth model to study the interactions between capital flows, productivity growth and macroeconomic policies. I will use the framework to explain why the inception of the euro has fostered capital mobility, but not yet productivity convergence among member countries, to explore the impact of US monetary and fiscal policies on international value chains and global productivity, and to investigate the dual role played by the United States as center of the international monetary and technological systems.

Mots-clés : international macroeconomics,monetary and fiscal policy,endogenous technical change,energy transition,capital flows,productivity growth,artificial intelligence
Projet ERC : DiMoBecTe (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
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 : 1999868.75 €

DiMoBecTe will explore the rich phase diagram of a degenerate Fermi gas of polar molecules near a field-linked scattering resonance, including the long-sought dipolar p-wave superfluid of fermionic diatomic molecules, the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of tetermer molecules, and the crossover/transition in between. For this purpose, we will first create a new species of 6Li87Rb polar molecules in the quantum degenerate regime. This new kind of bialkali molecules is promising for its highly tunable interaction and its potential to reach unprecedentedly cold temperature. Both are essential to realize the dipolar superfluid and the BEC of tetramers. Specifically, we will  • Realize a deeply degenerate Fermi gas of new species of 6Li87Rb molecules with flexible control of dipolar interactions via field-linked resonances that was recently demonstrated in my group. • Realize and explore dipolar p-wave superfluids featuring anisotropic pairing with non-zero angular momentum in polar molecule systems. • Realize and explore the Bose-Einstein condensate of tetramers which exhibits both strong dipolar and quadrupolar interactions, including the crossover/transition from a dipolar superfluid to a tetramer BEC.  We propose DiMoBecTe at an exciting time when degenerate Fermi gases of polar molecules have finally become available in experiments, including degenerate NaK molecules attained in my group. It will provide a brand new platform to understand and design unconventional p-wave superfluidity with highly controllable interactions, and to realize Majorana modes in polar molecule systems and therefore pave the way towards topologically protected quantum computation. Furthermore, it will, for the first time bring polyatomic molecules into the quantum degenerate regime by creating a BEC of tetramer molecules.

Mots-clés : ultracold molecules,dipolar superfluids,p wave pairing,polyatomic molecules,bose einstein condensate
Projet ERC : J-NAT (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Consolidator grants)
Entité participante : Université autonome de Barcelone — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1997212.0 €

The central hypothesis of Consuming Nature is that a new mode of interacting with the natural world developed among non-elites during the social and economic upheavals of Japan’s Tokugawa period (1600–1868), with consequences for our understanding of “early modernity” in the Japanese case and beyond. Previous studies, both of Japan and of other regions, have examined early modern nature from the perspective of environmental degradation and resource management or elite philosophy and natural science. In contrast, the focus of this cultural historical study will be on a largely untapped corpus of objects and texts from 17th to 19th century Japan attesting to a new kind of (purchasing) power over nature, one which saw the commercialized enjoyment of plants, animals, and natural phenomena as consumer products and leisure activities among commoners. The project will collate this corpus and analyse it in light of the characteristics associated with Japanese early modernity: rapid urbanization, increasing literacy, a commercial print industry, and a consumer culture concentrated in large urban centres connected to rural areas by improved communication and transport networks. How was the commercialization of nature as a leisure product linked to these so-called “early modern” developments? Did it also draw upon older traditions and institutions? How did this consumption of nature vary by urban versus rural locations, by social status or sex? Did it vary over time or by type of product? The final stage will connect the project’s findings to the history of global early modernity/ies, and to research on nature and Japanese modernity, which usually takes the Meiji Period (1868–1912) as its starting point. It will interrogate the supposed rupture between the early modern Tokugawa period and the modern Meiji period when it comes to the consumption and commodification of nature, and will provide a scholarly framework for challenging Eurocentric teleologies of nature and modernity.

Mots-clés : japanese history,tokugawa period,popular culture,early modernity,global trade