Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : REINCARNATION (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Ljubljana — Pays : Slovénie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Cardiovascular diseases are the No. 1 healthcare challenge in the world, among which ischemic heart disease and atrial fibrillation are the most prevalent. Better treatment strategies are greatly needed to reduce the medical, economic, and social burden of these conditions.  Electroporation (application of intense pulsed electric field) is showing tremendous potential for treatment of atrial fibrillation, enabling a safer and shorter treatment procedure compared with existing thermal ablation approaches. Moreover, recent pioneering studies provide evidence that electroporation can also be used as a nonviral vector for intracellular delivery of therapeutic nucleic acids that promote cardiac regeneration, potentially offering a way to cure the so-far incurable ischemic heart disease.  For treatment of atrial fibrillation, electroporation must be irreversible, resulting in the death of cardiac muscle cells, to locally destroy (ablate) the arrhythmogenic cardiac tissue. Conversely, for treatment of ischemic heart disease electroporation must be reversible, meaning that the pulsed electric field transiently enhances cellular uptake of nucleic acids while the cells are able to survive and express the delivered transgene(s). Due to a lack of fundamental understanding of cardiac electroporation, there are currently no reliable methods able to ensure electroporation (ir)reversibility and the desired treatment outcome.  This project is designed to decipher the biophysical mechanisms of cardiac electroporation at the molecular, cellular and tissue level as to develop methodologies that will enable optimal implementation of both irreversible and reversible electroporation. By combining bottom-up experiments in primary cardiac cells and tissue slices with computational modeling and advanced data analysis I will create the foundations needed to streamline further (pre)clinical research and realize the potential of electroporation to advance cardiac treatments.

Mots-clés : pulsed electric field,microrna,plasmid dna,cardiomyocytes,cardiac fibroblasts,cardiac tissue slices,excitable cells,action potentials,calcium transients,voltage gated ion channels,electrophysiology,numerical modeling,finite elements,machine learning,molecular dynamics
Projet ERC : CET-3PO (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : Université de Barcelone — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1489225.0 €

Common envelope evolution (CEE) is a crucial phase in binary evolution, as it is responsible for the formation of many of the most exciting systems in astrophysics, including sources of gravitational waves. Despite its importance, there are several unanswered questions that hamper the urgently needed progress in this field: What systems enter CEE? What happens during CEE? How the CEE remnants evolve? Recently, a new type of astrophysical transients called luminous red novae (LRNe) has emerged as direct observational evidence of the dynamical ejection of the CE in binaries. My work on their progenitor systems and their late time evolution has shown their potential to study the initial and final state of binary systems entering CEE. The imminent start of operations of the large transient surveys BlackGEM and LSST provides a unique opportunity to bring CEE observational studies to the next level with LRNe population studies. The aim of this project is to study the different stages of CEE in massive binaries using observations of extragalactic LRNe. The sample will contain ~30 transients within 15 Mpc from massive binary progenitors with HST archival data. My team will use a novel transient selection strategy to identify a fraction of these LRNe years before their main outburst, and study the extensive mass loss leading to coalescense. Novel observational and modelling techniques in optical and infrared wavelengths will allow me to derive the energetics, chemistry, dust content, and the geometry of the outbursts. My study will provide the so needed evidence of the physical processes that occur before, during, and after the ejection of the CE in massive binary systems, the characteristics of their progenitors, and their rate in our Local Universe. This will in turn have fundamental impact on several fields of astrophysics such as binary population synthesis, simulations of CEE, and understanding of mass transfer in the progenitor systems.

Mots-clés : astrophysical transients,binary stellar evolution,common envelope evolution,synoptic surveys
Projet ERC : LEAD (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université de Barcelone — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1306070.0 €

Early adolescence is a key window for human development. Strategic timing of interventions during this life stage may seize opportunities and prevent risks; bolster the impact of earlier investments; and ease damages from previous adversity. Yet evidence on whether such programs can fulfil this potential, for which children, and through which channels, is scant, especially in low-resource settings, where 90% of the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents live. I will tackle these gaps by relying on a cohort of ~2,500 children approaching early adolescence. In 2015, this sample participated in a trial evaluating quality preschool education in Ghana and has been followed-up since: the program improved child development through middle childhood. I will re-randomise this sample at 12 years to test a parenting skills program to enhance early adolescent development through improved parenting support and parent-adolescent interactions. Children and parents will be re-interviewed when children are 13, 15, and 17 years through mixed-method data collection. Outcomes include adolescent social-emotional and academic skills, health (including stress biomarkers), and adult-life transitions. This data will allow testing dynamic complementarities between interventions during early childhood and early adolescence, or whether interventions in adolescence might compensate for earlier adversity in the short- and longer-term. Methodologically, these questions can be convincingly studied only if data are available for the same individuals over time, and if variations in exposure to early childhood and early adolescence programs are exogenously driven. This is the first study that addresses both requirements, providing a breakthrough. Heterogeneity by child gender and socioeconomic status, and mechanisms are further research foci. LEAD’s high-risk components are well-balanced by my in-depth knowledge of the field, methods, and study context, with high potential for scientific and societal impact.

Mots-clés : human development early adolescence early childhood intervention research child development child poverty inequality learning social emotional skills health health behaviour low and middle income countries gender social policy for children and adolescents in developing countries child development in context risk and resilience for children in situation of adversity lifecourse
Projet ERC : TRACES (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : PoliMi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499750.0 €

We are now living exciting times for asteroid exploration. The increasing availability of in-situ observation data, providing unprecedented level of detail, makes the study of asteroids an exciting and living frontier. Asteroids are rubble piles, i.e., gravitational aggregates of loosely consolidated material. However, no direct measurements of asteroids’ interior exist and little is known about the mechanisms governing their formation and evolution. Not only limited by a lack of data, the understanding of asteroids’ properties is challenged at a fundamental level by their rubble-pile nature. This makes their dynamics subject to the laws of granular mechanics, one of the major unsolved problems in physics. TRACES enables a new paradigm for the characterization of granular systems in asteroid-related scenarios. The ambition is to demonstrate that the macroscopic behaviour of granular media in asteroid environment can be inferred from local properties of the grain. The methodology lays its foundation on a cutting-edge simulation tool, able to resolve the dynamics of grains to particle-scale precision, and a theoretical framework, able to decode the chaotic nature of particle-scale dynamics. TRACES’ hypothesis is validated through theoretical, numerical and experimental work. The ability of the methodology to characterize and identify transitions between dynamical regimes of granular media, is tested gradually, for increasing levels of realism, ranging between proof-of-concept, laboratory scenarios involving experiments in vacuum/low-g, and full-scale scenarios involving asteroid mission data. If successful, TRACES will enable the characterization of surface and internal properties of asteroids with limited observation data. This will play a crucial role to enable the next breakthrough in asteroid science, as well as efficient/cost-effective design of the next generation of space missions to explore and exploit asteroids, including planetary defence applications.

Mots-clés : asteroids rubble pile dynamics asteroid surfaces and interiors n body granular simulations nonlinear dynamical systems
Projet ERC : HERESSEE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université de Vienne — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Uni Wien
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1494129.0 €

This project will produce the first comprehensive and multi-disciplinary history of feminist political thought and women’s rights discourses in East Central Europe in a broad chronological perspective. The project builds on a solid base of existing scholarship, but does more than weave the stories of individual women or fragmented national case studies in the existing scholarship into a coherent narrative. Instead, it reinterprets the story of feminism in the region in relation to state socialism and the history of state socialism through the lens of feminism. It treats the interwar pre-history of debates between socialism and feminism, as well as the post-1989 struggles to deal with the state socialist past as integral parts of the history of state socialism. Intellectual historians have paid relatively little attention to this region, to women, and to feminism. Yet it is precisely the issues traditionally at the heart of their field – such as the origins and transformations of ideas in their social and cultural contexts – that are required to understand feminism in East Central Europe. Recent advances in the field have often been driven by methodological innovations, and particularly the use of sources beyond political essays and academic publications. This project also draws upon sources like popular women’s magazines, literary and art works, samizdat publications, party documents, and oral history interviews. The research team reflects the diversity of the European continent, mobilising linguistic and methodological skills to match the project’s broad source base, inclusive geography, and extended chronology and to produce a body of research that is both comprehensive in scope and sensitive to local particularities. By situating them in their local, regional and transnational contexts, this project integrates feminist political thought, women’s rights discourses, and their authors in East Central Europe into the broader European intellectual tradition.

Mots-clés : social history,oral history,biographies,women s history,eastern,east central and southeast europe
Projet ERC : ULYSSES (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Milan — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : PoliMi
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497100.0 €

Photochemistry deals with the light-assisted transformation of molecules into useful products. These processes are routinely manipulated by chemical modification and external laser driving. Femtosecond coherent control uses ultrashort pulses to initiate and actively modulate a chemical reaction. However successful control of efficiency and specificity of a chemical process is still awaited. ULYSSES proposes a radical departure from the way chemical processes are currently controlled by light. I will introduce an innovative “transient polaritonic control” for manipulation of photoinduced processes, using polaritons (hybrid light-matter states in strong coupling regime) activated on demand in optical nanocavities. I will exploit tunable resonances in metasurfaces (nanostructure arrays) excited by ultrashort pulses for controlling the energy landscape of molecules. Reconfigurable molecular/metasurface “metacavities” will switch on/off strong coupling for real-time selective reshaping of transition states, that I will apply to the proof-of-principle control of a photoisomerization reaction. The project proposes a paradigm-shift in coherent control through three objectives, combining physical chemistry with ultrafast nanophotonics, which perfectly suit my scientific profile. 1) Develop a novel multidimensional “kD Spectroscopy” for characterizing fundamental processes in strongly coupled systems with the unprecedented combination of temporal and momentum resolutions. 2) Design and characterize reconfigurable metasurfaces with ultrafast all-optical tuning of resonances to enable transient strong coupling. 3) Demonstrate the manipulation of the energy landscape of a photoisomerization by reshaping the transition states via transient strong coupling in a metacavity. I foresee my unique approach will transform chemical control by enabling real-time manipulation of the desired reaction pathways with potential for quantum chemistry, remote control, site-selectivity, catalysis.

Mots-clés : ultrafast spectroscopy strong coupling optical nanostructures
Projet ERC : BT (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université de Vienne — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Uni Wien
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499743.0 €

Beyond Thalidomide will trace the historical rise of patient engagement with drug related disability through the second half of the twentieth century to understand how a novel empowered group transformed conceptions of (reproductive) health and disease in science and society. The project will map the conditions in which patient became engaged with antenatal drug use, and reconstruct how their action has created political and scientific urgency since 1960. This multifaceted engagement resulted in clashes of expertise that connected actors in the ‘Global South’ and ‘North’, from Latin American countries through Central Africa, India, and Europe, and the enforcement and stabilization of the development of approaches in reproductive health in the light of the democratic and civil societal challenges they pose, beyond traditional accounts of expert-led, iatrogenic risk management.  BT will address these aims trough analysis of four interlinked fields of patient engagement: 1. Monitoring, and the surveillance of exogenous factors for birth defects 2. Prevention, and the management of risks of antenatal drug use in health care systems 3. Marketing, and the making of pharmaceutical products 4. Legal Action, and court intervention Mapping these fields of acting, BT will create an ambitious digital collection of patient life stories and a comprehensive integrated record of how patients engage. BT will, or the first time, deliver a global history of drug related disability ‘from below’, which examines the shifting contours of ‘patients’ as actors. This project takes a ground-breaking approach to the historiography of reproductive health, combining high-impact global case studies with innovative research tools to explore the political, ethical and social challenges of this alternative perspective.

Mots-clés : pharmaceuticals drugs disability patients health activists global health teratogen,teratology,reproductive health,environmental health,birth defects
Projet ERC : CLIMASAT (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université autonome de Barcelone — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1484844.0 €

Answers to how to manage the urgent climate crisis depend on perceptions of global climate. Knowing how they came to be is necessary to open up new possibilities about ways to face it. CLIMASAT aims at establishing a truly comprehensive narrative that integrates various spheres of knowledge to understand how global climate discourses, policies and practices came into being in the approximate 1980s-2000s Europe. To do so, CLIMASAT substantially places the production, circulation and use of data generated with Earth-orbiting satellites at the centre of historical analysis. Indeed, since the 1980s, much of our scientific, practical and political knowledge about global climate has been increasingly compiled with satellite data, in a process of constitutive co-production. Then processes of data production, circulation and use may have played a role in knowledge-making. CLIMASAT identifies 5 interrelated spheres of knowledge involved in satellite data production, circulation and use: science and technology, economy, regulation, communication, and diplomacy. It sets out the hypothesis that it was through their mutual intersections, as they materialised in processes of data production, circulation and use, that certain perceptions and actions about global climate were collectively negotiated, shared, maintained and used. It focuses the empirical analysis on 3 European satellite programs (Meteosat, Topex/Poseidon, ERS) that provided data on extreme weather events, sea level, and ozone. It demands an interdisciplinary methodology grounded on material and transnational history. In times of growing public concern regarding our actions on the climate crisis, CLIMASAT delivers unparalleled information and critical analysis about how satellite data-informed perceptions of global climate were made, which is relevant not only for researchers in academia but also for policy-makers and engaged citizens.

Mots-clés : satellite data,europe,1980s 2000s,history of climate,data history,history of space technology
Projet ERC : ATRAPA (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Université autonome de Barcelone — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499873.0 €

Transport policy is a contentious issue. In recent years, ambitious proposals aiming at reducing car use and creating a more sustainable, equitable, and healthy transportation system have been met with strong opposition movements. However, little is known about the factors and nature of these opposition movements. At the same time, mayors, and elected leaders worldwide, who have pushed for ambitious built environment-based travel demand policies, have later been vindicated by major re-election wins. This would suggest the existence of an “active travel backlash paradox”, one where loud opposition movements might be concealing substantial silent support towards measures that aim to transform the built environment, in order to make it more walkable and cyclable. Validating the existence of this paradox, and expanding our understanding of opposition and acceptability factors towards built environment-based sustainable travel interventions, has major implications both locally and globally. To this end, the ATRAPA project sets out to (1) test the existence of the paradox and (2) to further our understanding of opposition and acceptability towards built environment travel demand interventions. To do so I will use a multi-scale, multi-method design to be applied in eight leading European cities. Thanks to highly disaggregated spatial election data and geolocated information on land-use transformations, I will be able to assess the associations between voting behaviour and built environment-based sustainable travel interventions. In parallel, I will use an international public opinion survey and interviews with experts to understand, the socioeconomic, individual, and contextual factors behind acceptability/opposition levels. This will assist in understanding their causes, and their spatial and social distribution, and permit exploration of much-needed future least-opposition pathways towards efficient and widely-accepted sustainable transport policies.

Mots-clés : active transport policy acceptability built environment minute city superblocks walkability