Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MightyMirrors (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
Entité participante : Université technique Carolo-Wilhelmina de Brunswick — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Braunschweig
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1972500.0 €

Ultra-stable laser cavities (USLCs) lie at the heart of humankind’s most precise measurement instruments. Developing compact, multi-wavelength, USLCs will greatly benefit applications such as quantum sensing, spectroscopy, metrology, and quantum computing. In this research program, I propose to explore novel versatile cavity mirrors by integrating low-noise meta-devices with multi-layer photonic integrated circuits into complex laser resonator geometries. I envisage a fully integrated USLC by incorporating all necessary sensors, modulators, and input-output optics within the mirror substrate. Innovative laser resonator topologies will allow for pushing the stability limits into new regimes and gaining access to novel application fields of optical cavities. We have recently demonstrated an optical cavity incorporating an ultra-low-noise meta-mirror with an unprecedented cavity finesse of >11,500. These developments are possible thanks to our theoretical framework to model thermal noise processes in arbitrary optical systems. High-refractive index materials, like silicon, diamond, silicon nitride, and aluminum oxide, are ideal for realizing low-noise meta-devices and integrated photonic circuits. The enormous conceptual and technological challenges lie in simultaneously controlling many properties (optical, optomechanical, thermal) in complex photonic configurations incorporating different materials and addressing various temperature ranges and multiple wavelengths within a single miniaturized cavity. Through its research program, the MightyMirror project will enable a symbiosis of integrated photonics and free-space cavities, opening many new possibilities with a large impact on fundamental and applied science as well as on society.

Mots-clés : high precision optical metrology,ultra stable laser cavities,precision spectroscopy,quantum technologies
Projet ERC : FORTIFy (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : INL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999186.0 €

It’s becoming increasingly clear that a deeper understanding of tendon mechanobiology is required for the development of effective therapies for tendon injuries and diseases. The involvement of specialized cell force sensors, such as PIEZO channels, on the mechanosensory processes through which tendons sense and adapt to mechanical loading have just started to be unveiled. Decoding the underlying mechanisms governing these processes would promote the development of innovative therapies to restore tendon function. However, a remaining barrier to unlock the therapeutic potential of PIEZOs is how to effectively target and gate these complex mechanoreceptors in different tendon cell populations (both in vitro and in vivo) and what are the actual biological feedbacks of its activation. FORTFy ground-breaking concept will merge molecularly imprinting technologies and magnetic systems to establish a versatile wireless platform of tailor-made abiotic nanoswitches for the programmed manipulation of PIEZO receptors. Combined with a new generation of advanced tools, including humanized 3D microphysiological systems enabling to study the multicellular crosstalk occurring in tendon microenvironments and to obtain improved bioengineered tendon grafts, it will enable to explore the full potential of PIEZOs as targets for treatment of tendinopathy. The challenging ambition of FORTFy will be accomplished by implementing a thorough in silico, in vitro and in vivo research plan aimed at probing the role of PIEZO-mediated mechanosignaling on tendon homeostasis, degeneration and aging, focusing the neurotendinous crosstalk and its immunomodulatory signatures. The success of FORTFy will not only lead to unprecedented nanomedicine tools for treatment of tendinopathy, but its fundamental concepts will certainly impact the therapeutic options of a wide range of other PIEZO-regulated diseases related with musculoskeletal dysfunctions, immunological responses and proprioception.
Projet ERC : NERVADAPT (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Université de Leipzig — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999995.0 €

The peripheral nervous system constitutes a prime example of a tissue with a strong regenerative potential. Full recovery upon nerve trauma, however, is rare and usually fails in peripheral neuropathies - common, yet largely untreatable neurological disorders. Nerve repair strictly depends on the orchestration of both nerve de- and regeneration by peripheral nerve glial cells, which need to overcome a substantial metabolic challenge in injury. NervAdapt is based on the fundamental premise that Schwann cells, in the course of evolution, developed an exceptional metabolic adaptability to ensure repair. Capitalizing on acute nerve injury as a prototypic model system to explore conserved repair mechanisms, we aim to unveil glial metabolic adaptation to increased energetic demands and distinct substrate availabilities. A central goal of NervAdapt is to elucidate how glial homeostasis is integrated in a fine-tuned cellular network that extends to interactions with neighbouring tissue compartments. Employing elaborated genetic mouse models, 3D electron microscopy, and leading-edge spatial and single cell to organ level profiling approaches, NervAdapt will pioneer to generate a comprehensive multi-level framework of the nerve injury response. Chronic metabolic stressors, such as in diabetes and obesity, in turn, may lead to a constant glial overstimulation and compromise glial metabolic homeostasis. Metabolically induced neuropathies indeed underscore the specific vulnerability of the peripheral nervous system to a systemic metabolic burden. Within NervAdapt we follow the hypothesis that a persistently perturbed metabolic homeostasis causes molecular and cellular glial metabolic inflexibility, ultimately driving metabolic neuropathy. Together, NervAdapt seeks to identify key checkpoints of glial metabolic (mal-)adaptation under energy demand and metabolic load, revealing a new dimension of metabolic adjustment at the nerve organ level.

Mots-clés : schwann cell,myelin,neuropathy
Projet ERC : FLEXBRAIN (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université de Leipzig — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 590312.5 €

The human brain is flexible. Neural networks adapt to cognitive demands by flexibly recruiting different regions and connections. Flexible network adaptation enables cognitive functions such as semantic cognition: the ability to use, manipulate, and generalize knowledge. When key nodes suffer damage, networks can adapt to recover function. Yet, brain lesions often severely impair semantic cognition. How the semantic network adapts to lesions is poorly understood. My hypothesis is that disruption of the semantic network can be compensated for by recruitment of domain-general networks. This notion is based on findings that disruption of semantic nodes inhibits semantic activity but increases activity in domain-general nodes. Yet, the behavioral relevance of domain-general recruitment is unclear. Compensation means that behavior can be preserved as other nodes work harder. Can domain-general networks effectively compensate for disruption of specialized nodes? Is this a common principle of flexible adaptation in the healthy young, aging, and lesioned brain? Unprecedented inhibitory and facilitatory neurostimulation will be used to unbalance and rebalance network adaptation in semantic cognition. Importantly, a novel network stimulation approach will target multiple nodes simultaneously. I ask three questions. (i) Can domain-general networks compensate for semantic network disruption? (ii) Is domain-general recruitment in the aging brain adaptive? (iii) Do domain-general networks drive flexible adaptation to lesions? Perturbing young brains will elucidate the relevance of network adaptation. Perturbing aging brains will probe compensatory reorganization. Facilitating lesioned brains will reshape flexible adaptation. Benefitting from my strong neurostimulation experience, we will elucidate the way the brain compensates for disruption. The potential impact of the project on current conceptions of brain plasticity, and for rehabilitative medicine in particular, is immense.

Mots-clés : semantic cognition,neurostimulation,functional neuroimaging,compensation
Projet ERC : VerNisQDevS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 175500.0 €

Quantum computing is undergoing a phase transition, as the field shifts from asking “what if” (quantum computers existed) to ``how do'' (we leverage the power of emerging quantum devices). Progress in the design of experimental quantum systems raises a unique challenge: given that their size already precludes direct classical simulation, and given that quantum states are perturbed by observation, how does one test and certify the new devices? This difficulty is starkly evidenced by the ongoing race for demonstrating a quantum computational advantage. Given that the task cannot be replicated classically, can it be verified? The main goals of this project are to develop effective means to characterize, certify and harness complex quantum states and devices. To achieve this we employ the framework of interactive proofs from classical complexity theory. We use this to model interactions as varied as demonstrations of quantumness, the delegation of a quantum computation, or cryptographic tasks such as quantum key distribution. The major challenges that we address are scalability, noise tolerance, and security. To achieve scalability we build on complexity-theoretic techniques such as the notion of probabilistically checkable proofs. We focus on the design of protocols that successfully complete even when the quantum device is slightly noisy. The security notions that we seek encompass device independence (no a priori trust is placed on the quantum equipment) and side information (privacy should be guaranteed with respect to any external party). Large-scale experimental demonstrations of quantum networks are currently being planned in many countries, including a leading European effort (EuroQCI). Our work lays the theoretical groundwork for scalable, secure and trustworthy interactions in such networks. It paves the way to making the power of quantum devices for computation and communication available to a wider public remotely and through classical means.

Mots-clés : quantum interactive proofs,verification,self testing,device independence
Projet ERC : OCEANID (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 37500.0 €

The Martian missions have gradually revealed that Mars abounds with evidence of a full ancient hydrological system favourable to life emergence. If so, there is every reasons to believe that Mars has hosted a hemispheric ocean covering the northern lowlands. This hypothesis is as old as Mars exploration, but has been repeatedly challenged over the past two decades. The case of primitive Martian ocean remains one of the planet’s most controversial and unsolved issue. Recent discoveries are re-opening this question mainly highlighting that the main oceanic activity may be older than we thought with related deposits partly exhumed and two rovers (Mars2020/NASA arrived in 2021 and ExoMars/ESA-Roskosmos to be launched in 2022) have landing sites in the oldest terrains never explored on Mars, displaying sediments possibly linked with an ocean system. To wind up the debate, the identification of ancient deposits of the same age, same composition with a global distribution in agreement with a possible ocean level is required. But such clues are small scale exposures solved only by high-resolution orbital data set (>10 To of data) or by in situ exploration preventing a forward link to the global context. Oceanid proposes to face this challenge by investigating at different scale: global, mesoscale and microscale using complementary dataset (orbital, in situ and experimental data). Oceanid will also lie on innovative methodology of orbital data mining: geological object recognition by artificial intelligence, erosion/deposition evolution models, clustering from multi-type of data… Oceanid objectives are to describe the early Martian sedimentary record accumulated below possible global ocean levels, to establish a fine-scale chronology of primitive events, to contextualize Mars2020 and ExoMars missions within the global ancient hydrological system and to correlate the oceanic context, the transient water cycle, and the mineralogy observed both from orbit and in situ.

Mots-clés : remote sensing,martian geology,landing sites
Projet ERC : FusionTRACE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HGF
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999863.0 €

Sarcomas are an extremely heterogeneous group of mesenchymal cancers, many of which remain lethal despite decades of clinical trials. A unifying characteristic in pediatric sarcomas is their low mutational burden. Instead, they frequently harbor an entity-specific chromosomal rearrangement giving rise to an oncofusion protein that acts as the disease driver. This genetic simplicity underlying a complex group of tumors implies a synergy between oncofusions and the cellular context in which they occur. However, the cell-of-origin for the vast majority of sarcomas is unknown. We have developed a flexible method for somatic engineering of the mouse muscle to model more than 10 genetically distinct pediatric sarcoma subtypes. Here we will take advantage of this unique tool to understand key questions so far unanswered due to the lack of suitable sarcoma models and flexible genetic approaches:  1.What is the identity of the cell(s) of origin and why are they permissive to transformation? 2.Are gene fusions required for tumor maintenance? And if they are, to what extent is transformation reversible? Do tumor cells retain memory of their previous normal states? Or there is a point of no return when they forget what they used to be? By combining our models with transgenic mouse lines that allow in vivo cell barcoding, we will trace, isolate and characterize different population of cells in normal muscle and in primary tumors to identify and study sarcoma cells-of-origin. To understand the role of gene fusions in tumor maintenance we will apply the degradation system (dTAG) for in vivo acute degradation of oncofusion proteins. Temporal and spatial analysis will allow to dissect complex biological responses to oncogene withdrawal. These approaches will combine cutting-edge technologies to provide fundamental knowledge on the mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis, their intertwining with existing cellular states and the potential of oncofusion withdrawal for sarcoma treatment.

Mots-clés : pediatric solid tumors,sarcoma,in vivo cell barcoding,lineage tracing,targeted protein degradation
Projet ERC : DeepLearning 2.0 (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Université de Fribourg-en-Brisgau — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Deep learning has revolutionized many fields, such as computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning. This success is based on replacing domain-specific hand-crafted features with features that are learned for the particular task at hand. The logical step to take deep learning to the next level is to also (meta-)learn other hand-crafted elements of the deep learning pipeline. We therefore propose to develop meta-level learning methods for the creation of novel customized deep learning pipelines, by means of: 1. Hierarchical neural architecture searchfor learning qualitatively new architectures and architectural building blocks from scratch; 2. Learning of optimizers and hyperparameter adaptation policies that adapt totheir context in order to converge faster and more robustly; 3. Learning the data to train on, to remove the need for large sets of labelled data; and 4. Bootstrapping from prior design efforts to increase efficiency and make an integrative design of architectures, optimizers, hyperparameter adaptation policies, and pretraining tasks feasible in practice. These advances will allow the next generation of deep learning pipelines to achieve higher accuracy, lower training time, and improved ease-of-use (democratization of deeplearning). They will also allow a customization to particular design contexts, including additional objectives next to accuracy (such as robustness, memory requirements, energy consumption, latency, interpretability, training cost, uncertainty estimation, and algorithmic fairness) in order to facilitate trustworthy AI. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods, we plan to develop: 5. New state-of-the-art customized deep learning pipelines for various applications, including EEG decoding, RNA folding, and improving the reinforcement learning pipeline and deep learning on tabular data.

Mots-clés : meta learning,learning to learn,automl,neural architecture search,hyperparameter optimization,data augmentation,reinforcement learning,eeg decoding,rna folding
Projet ERC : CRITICALTRUST (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999995.0 €

Paradoxically, representative democracy requires not only citizens’ trust in the institutions of democracy, but also a healthy dose of political scepticism towards these institutions. Scholars have warned against the detrimental effects of blind trust and blind distrust. The former would make citizens susceptible to manipulation, the latter to alienation. By contrast, (dis)trust that is not blind but evaluative stimulates vigilant civic engagement. While blind (dis)trust would lead to an anomic democracy, evaluative (dis)trust would stimulate democratic reinvigoration and accountability. We should therefore not merely distinguish between political trust and distrust, but also between dispositional/blind and evaluative (dis)trust. However, empirical studies of political trust focus almost exclusively on the level of trust. The standard political trust survey items cannot distinguish blind (dis)trust from evaluative (dis)trust. This vast lacuna at the heart of political trust research left the major questions in the field unanswered: on the trends, causes, and consequences of political trust.  CRITICALTRUST addresses this fundamental problem. It first develops a novel, two-dimensional model of political (dis)trust, and creates new measures that distinguish blind from evaluative (dis)trust. This model and these measures will be the foundation for primary data collection (large-N survey + experiments). The survey is designed as a three-wave, cross-national panel survey in 8 European countries: Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Both the survey’s panel element and the experiments allow us to systematically test causal effects that have long been proposed in the literature.  CRITICALTRUST thereby answers questions that plagued political trust research for decades. It will offer diagnoses of the risks of low and declining trust, and advice to democratic actors whether and how to stimulate political trust.

Mots-clés : political trust political distrust scepticism political support trust crisis trust in government the democratic relevance of trust political cynicism democratic support institutional trust democratic erosion legitimacy
Projet ERC : China Fashion Power (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université d'Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996206.0 €

The project investigates how, in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global power is manifested, negotiated and resisted in people’s daily life in a South-South setting using fashion as an exemplary case. Fashion is recognised as a significant economic force globally and one of the most poignant indicators of cross-cultural exchange. By critically examining China-Africa networks of fashion production, trade and consumption, this project will theorise how fashion is created, circulated, valuated, and consumed in and through Global Souths Value Chains (Guangdong-Nairobi-Maputo), dissecting complex dynamics and expressions of power. Using a multi-disciplinary, multi-method, multi-sited, and multi scalar approach, the following questions frame this project and its four subprojects: 1) How are everyday fashion products designed and produced in China for African markets; 2) How do Chinese and Africans interact to valuate and trade fashion products for Kenyan and Mozambican markets; 3) How and by whom are cultural differences negotiated and mediated in the marketplace; and 4) What values, meanings and “power” do African consumers derive from consumption, and what ideas and constraints are imposed on them? This project’s major contribution is threefold. Theoretically, it will move beyond a Western-centric epistemology to map the chains, restraints and materialities of China’s power expansion through fashion. Methodologically, this project will synergistically collect and triangulate empirical information along complete South-South commodity chains through multi-sited ethnography, semiotic and visual analysis, individual and focus group interviews, and wardrobe archival studies. Empirically, it will provide evidence of how Chinese-African fashion industries impact upon the social, cultural, economic and affective lives of African consumers in the context of increasing globalisation, digitalisation, consumerism, and China’s ambition abroad.

Mots-clés : africa,china,consumption,creativity,fashion,global south