Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MeerTRAP (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Manchester — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3488955.91 €

Short duration bursts of cosmic radio emission provide us with a potent tool for studying the extremes of physics. In the form of periodic pulses from pulsars they can be used as precision instruments to test theories of gravity, understand the emission processes and the equation of state of ultra-dense matter. In the form of transient bursts we can use them to study the physics governing explosive events such as gamma-ray bursts, merging neutron stars, annihilating black holes or hitherto unknown phenomena. Observing how these bursts are affected by their passage through the distant Universe allows us to probe its physical state. To harness the combined power of periodic and bursting radio sources to explore physics beyond that possible in a terrestrial laboratory I propose MeerTRAP: Meer (more) TRAnsients and Pulsars, a project to continuously use the MeerKAT telescope to search the radio sky for pulsars and fast transients and to rapidly and accurately locate them. Utilising the excellent sensitivity and sky coverage of MeerTRAP my team will discover many rare and scientifically important pulsar types: relativistic binaries, intermittent emitters, transitioning systems. Current radio telescopes have only explored the tip of the transients "iceberg" and MeerTRAP will transform our knowledge of these manifestations of extreme physics. It will detect hundreds of new bursts, which will all be well localised, allowing us to identify hosts and distances, greatly enhancing their use as cosmological probes. Localisation also enables measurement of their true fluxes, polarisation and spectral indices which are all crucial to identify their origin. To achieve this we will design, implement and exploit state-of-the-art hardware and software. We will also use the MeerLICHT optical telescope, which will track MeerKAT, to give us a crucial glimpse of the optical sky immediately before and after any radio transient to further constrain their origin and the associated physics.

Mots-clés : pulsars,fast radio bursts,high performance computing,radio astronomy
Projet ERC : SEAL (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : University of Bristol — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 180191.05 €

Side channel attacks use, alongside information such as plaintexts or ciphertexts, leakage about the (secret) key-dependent intermediate state(s), and deliver a `key ranking' as a result. Kocher's attacks [15] [16] showed that for many practical implementations, observing a few encryptions made complete key recovery possible in practice. The academic research into combating these attacks so far has largely focused on approaches and tools to equip specialised cryptographic engineers with access to a specialist lab and tools. The research hypothesis of this CoG is that one can make meaningful statements about the leakage behaviour of arbitrary implementations on small devices by utilising a-priori derived (instruction level) leakage models. Our vision is to enable developers with limited domain-specific knowledge to perform side channel evaluations at design time without access to a fully equipped lab, by creating tools and methodologies that integrate a priori derived instruction-level leakage models into a standard compiler. This vision is articulated in three overarching research objectives: 1. Designing novel profiling strategies (WP1) including novel leakage acquisition techniques to generate leakage models for a specific target device. 2. Developing fast and comprehensive methods to support rapid evaluations (WP2). 3. Integration (WP3) of semantics, syntax and tools capable of using profiling information into a standard compiler with the aim to evaluate and improve the side channel resilience of the target code. Addressing these goals simultaneously is required to make substantial progress towards the overall vision of this project. As a final result, we will make demonstrators available (WP4): using a off-the shelf components, we supply the necessary tools and compiler enhancements including samples of cryptographic implementations to conduct analyses and demonstrate improvements regarding side channel resilience.

Mots-clés : side channel analysis,leakage resilient,physical security
Projet ERC : QBusSi (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Jyväskylä — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1645000.0 €

Silicon has been the material underpinning the modern information technology revolution. I would argue that it might be the most important material of the coming quantum technology age as well. This will be of tremendous advantage to the diffusion of quantum technologies as they can then leverage the existing infrastructure of silicon electronics and photonics. My project is aimed at unlocking the quantum potential of silicon technologies. It is aimed at enabling a not too distant future where silicon chips encompassing quantum enabled sensors and/or quantum computing processors are widely available and only require push-of-a-button coolers and laser light to operate. Qubits are of fundamental interest not only for the tantalizing prospect of building a quantum computer but also because they can work as powerful quantum sensors. In this project, I will advance a novel emerging physical implementation of qubits: donor spin states in silicon. These states are now known to be excellent qubits with the longest single qubit coherence times demonstrated in solid state. This is a significant advantage for both quantum sensing and quantum information applications. However, at the moment the application potential of silicon donor qubits is hindered by two related obstacles: current readout techniques require nanoelectric connections, millikelvin temperatures and high magnetic fields, and - most importantly - there are no scalable methods to couple multiple qubits. This project will realize an optomechanical quantum bus for spins in silicon in order to enable optical and mechanical coupling and readout mechanisms for the donor spins and hence overcome all these obstacles. The created quantum bus will not only allow integrating the spin qubits with existing silicon photonics and NEMS platforms for integrated quantum circuits and optically readable practical quantum sensors but will also provide a solid-state on-chip testbed for creating and studying macroscopic quantum states.

Mots-clés : quantum technologies,quantum sensing,donor spins,spins in silicon,optomechanics,nanophotonics,silicon photonics,spin qubits,quantum information
Projet ERC : SILVER (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : École normale supérieure de Lyon — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ENS de Lyon
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1987608.75 €

Silver was the primary metal of economic exchange and military finances in ancient Mediterranean and Near-Eastern societies. Silver isotopes will help quantify monetization of these societies by identifying Ag mineral sources, monetary sinks, and its major transfer routes. High-precision stable Ag isotope analysis initiated in Lyon has shed new light on the provenance of silver coinage. This is because Ag isotopes are distinctive of coinage’s intrinsic value in contrast to traditionally-used Pb and Cu isotopes, which may characterize impurities or additives. The common belief that PbS (galena) ores accounted most of the silver mined in the antique world will be tested. We will extract Ag from ores around the Mediterranean and test PbS prevalence over As and Sb sulfosalts and low-temperature ores with Ag, Cu, and Pb isotopes and trace elements. Our work will address major questions: (i) understand the sources of unminted silver as a precursor to coinage; (ii) use Ag isotope fingerprinting of the earliest coinages of Athens to identify the contributions of Greek mines to the development of the world’s first democracy; (iii) map the Greek and Persian mines which sourced the treasure captured by Alexander the Great, and investigate the spread of its silver; (iv) study the causes of the monetary reform of the Roman Republic in 211 BC; and (v) model the silver cycle from mines to coinage and artefacts in its economic context. In the short term this project represents radical scientific innovation, which will pave the way for a global and quantitative understanding of the history of monetary development in the ancient Mediterranean. In the long term, it will contribute to the emergence of a community of analysts, numismatists and economic historians with shared expertise about the monetization of ancient societies and their management of precious metal resources.

Mots-clés : museum collections,ore deposits
Projet ERC : INITIATOR (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Radboud University Nijmegen — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Simultaneous ammonium and methane oxidation coupled to nitrogen removal provides a great opportunity for sustainable and economical feasible wastewater treatment solutions. The key processes performed are anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) and nitrate-dependent anaerobic oxidation of methane. Combining these two processes results in a system that simultaneously removes ammonium, nitrate (via nitrite), and methane without the need for extra aeration and the addition of electron donors. Such a system would offer many advantages compared to conventional wastewater treatment plants including lower costs, lower energy consumption, lower greenhouse gas emissions and a much smaller resource foot-print. These unique selling points greatly enhance the potential for market introduction.

Mots-clés : waste water,ammonium,methane,oxygen,microbiology,sustainable
Projet ERC : UrbTerr (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : University of Birmingham — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1424724.0 €

Since 2004, public spaces in European cities have been hit by more than ten major terrorist attacks, killing hundreds of people and injuring thousands. Whilst trying to come to terms with recent acts of urban terrorism, governments, security agencies, and local communities are bracing themselves for further attacks. UrbTerr will offer the first in-depth comparative analysis of memory discourses and responses to recent acts of urban terrorism in four European countries that have suffered particularly as a result of this wave of violence: Spain, the UK, France, and Germany. Drawing on concepts and methods from memory studies, cultural studies, feminist theory and anthropology, UrbTerr will document and analyse a range of voices in contemporary debates on urban terrorism in Europe and problematise the narrow concept of imagination and creativity underpinning recent counter-terrorism measures and a great part of the academic literature on this subject. It will: (1) analyse the collective forms of forgetting, remembering, and imagining that have shaped urban spaces in the four countries after recent terrorist attacks; (2) develop a new materialist approach to terrorism and use this framework to critically assess policies and material security infrastructures that were created in response to these attacks at a local and European level; (3) use performance art as a creative tool to develop and experiment with alternative forms of remembering and different visions of the future. Outputs of the project will include a website with footage of interviews with city residents, politicians, architects, political activists, and other key actors, as well as other resources for terrorism research, two academic monographs, articles in peer-reviewed journals, a co-edited volume, two PhD theses, and a series of thought-provoking public art performances that will spark critical debates about securitization processes in contemporary Europe.
Projet ERC : STICK2SEE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Leibniz Association — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Since Adam and Eve’s infamous apple, gripping, handling and releasing objects has been a thoroughly human activity: the hand and fingers combine muscular action with sensing, complemented by feedback from visual monitoring. Modern automation technology, e.g. in production and micro assembly lines, is now facing the challenge of manipulating of extremely small objects, with dimensions typically smaller than the width of a human hair. Existing gripping technologies are running out of steam in this range: controlled handling is either impossible by conventional processes such as suction grippers, or decreased reliability leads to low yields and productivity. Industry is urgently looking for new handling concepts and this trend is predicted to intensify after the CORONA crisis when automation will gain in importance for ensuring reliable production. The technology developed in the researcher’s original ERC Grant SWITCH2STICK turned out to be ideally suited for this purpose. Eduard Arzt’s team successfully created the fundamentals and first prototypes of gecko-inspired surfaces with switchable adhesive functions. As the technology is bioinspired it is highly energy-conserving and sustainable. Now, increased reliability during the handling process has become possible. Using novel materials for the surface structures, the research group has demonstrated in their lab the gripping of objects down to dimensions below the thickness of human hair. This function of micropatterns to handle microobjects reliably is the groundbreaking new idea which will be validated for market readiness in this proposal. Considering that the relevant industrial sector of automated micro assembly is already a multi-billion Euro market with a strong growth rate, a new solution is expected to have a large economic impact, especially in Europe where many market leading automation companies are based.

Mots-clés : bioinspired technology,materials engineering,micro assembly,handling,sensing,optics,sustainability
Projet ERC : CHILDMOVE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : Ghent University — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGent
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1432500.0 €

Since early 2015, the media continuously confront us with images of refugee children drowning in the Mediterranean, surviving in appalling conditions in camps or walking across Europe. Within this group of fleeing children, a considerable number is travelling without parents, the unaccompanied refugee minors. While the media images testify to these flight experiences and their possible huge impact on unaccompanied minors’ wellbeing, there has been no systematic research to fully capture these experiences, nor their mental health impact. Equally, no evidence exists on whether the emotional impact of these flight experiences should be differentiated from the impact of the traumatic events these minors endured in their home country or from the daily stressors in the country of settlement. This project aims to fundamentally increase our knowledge of the impact of experiences during the flight in relation to past trauma and current stressors. To achieve this aim, it is essential to set up a longitudinal follow-up of a large group of unaccompanied refugee minors, whereby our study starts from different transit countries, crosses several European countries, and uses innovative methodological and mixed-methods approaches. I will hereby not only document the psychological impact these flight experiences may have, but also the way in which care and reception structures for unaccompanied minors in both transit and settlement countries can contribute to reducing this mental health impact. This proposal will fundamentally change the field of migration studies, by introducing a whole new area of study and novel methodological approaches to study these themes. Moreover, other fields, such as trauma studies, will be directly informed by the project, as also clinical, educational and social work interventions for victims of multiple trauma. Last, the findings on the impact of reception and care structures will be highly informative for policy makers and practitioners.

Mots-clés : unaccompanied refugee children,psychological wellbeing,flight experiences
Projet ERC : LoopMechRegFun (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
Entité participante : Research Institute of Molecular Pathology — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : IMP
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1679465.0 €

Since its discovery 150 years ago, DNA has been intensely studied. As a result, it is understood in some detail how genomic DNA is replicated, repaired and segregated, and entire genomes can be sequenced. However, how DNA is folded in chromosomes has remained a mystery. It has been proposed that this is achieved by a process called loop extrusion. This hypothesis proposes that SMC complexes, multi-subunit ATPases present in all kingdoms of life, reel genomic DNA into loops, thus bringing distant loci into proximity. This process is thought to have important structural and regulatory functions, such as the separation of bacterial genomes and the folding of eukaryotic DNA into loops and topologically associating domains (TADs), facilitating sister chromatid resolution, gene regulation and immunoglobulin gene recombination. We discovered recently that in vitro single molecules of the SMC complex cohesin bound to NIPBL (cohesin-NIPBL) indeed rapidly extrude DNA into loops at up to 2.1 kb/s. These results provided the first direct evidence for the hypothesis that cohesin generates chromatin loops and TADs by extrusion. However, the most fundamental questions relating to this process remain unanswered: What is the mechanism of loop extrusion? How is this process controlled? How does cohesin extrude chromatin fibers in cells, and how does this contribute to the processes mentioned above and to other functions? We are proposing to use our single-molecule loop extrusion assay and other techniques to address these questions. Answering these will be essential for understanding genome architecture and regulation, will provide insights into mechanisms of gene regulation and recombination, will reveal how SMC complexes function as molecular ‘motors’, and may provide insight into the etiology of human disorders caused by malfunctioning of cohesin and NIPBL, such as several widespread cancers, rare congenital ‘cohesinopathies’, and trisomies and spontaneous human abortions.

Mots-clés : cohesin,genome architecure,loop extrusion,molecular motors,single molecule imaging,smc complexes
Projet ERC : PHOSMED (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : National Research Council — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Since its discovery in 2014, bidimensional black phosphorus has raised a great scientific attention due to its unique structure and several exceptional attributes, such as peculiar optical and mechanical properties, excellent biocompatibility and biodegradation, which make it particularly attractive for biomedical applications. Our studies performed during ERC-Advanced Grant (2015-2019) “Phosphorene functionalization: a new platform for advanced multifunctional materials - PHOSFUN” demonstrated the possibility to produce at large scale 2D BP with high purity grade at low cost by liquid exfoliation of bulk crystalline BP. In addition to its low toxicity, we have proved that SMART BP treatment, obtained using our proprietary production process, has anti-proliferative effects as well as anti-inflammatory and regenerative properties in prostate tumours that can disrupt the treatment approach. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide with about 1.3 million cases in 2018 and about 379,000 new deaths are expected by 2040. This makes prostate cancer a major public health concern. As also stated by the European Urology Association, there is a need for more effective and cheaper early treatment options (alternative to radiotherapy or radical prostatectomy) that can bring a substantial decrease of healthcare costs. Given the positive outcomes of lab tests performed by the PoC team while investigating the application in the health domain, we propose a patented prostate cancer treatment based on few-layer black phosphorus, SMART BP, that is a non-radioactive smart nanomaterial with no side effects (no irradiation, no toxicity, self-regeneration), improving patient’s quality of life and provide considerable economic benefits. Within PHOSMED we intend to validate the effects of 2D BP on in vivo animal model, moving from TRL 3 to TRL 5 and paving the way to future scalability for new generation of no irradiation/no-toxic nanomedicine solutions.

Mots-clés : nanomaterials,regenerative medicine,cancer treatment,advanced multifunctional material