Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : IceFloods (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1396723.0 €

Mars is a hyperarid, global cryosphere, and likely has been for over 3 Gyr. However, during the so-called early Mars period 4-3.5 Gyr go, water flowed within thousands of valleys, in crater lakes, producing ancient deltas, building ice sheets, and possibly ponding in oceans. Surface liquid water was stable on Mars coinciding with the origin of life on Earth. However, this early benign climate collapsed with the continued loss of Mars’ atmosphere in the Hesperian period, ~3.5-3 Gyr ago. Outflow channels, megacanyons among the largest erosive landforms in the Solar System, date from this time. The largest one, Kasei valles, is so vast that the volumes of water involved in its formation were an important fraction of Mars’ total water inventory, and its outflow could have filled an ocean on the martian lowlands. In the current view, Kasei Valles was formed by a megaflood sourced from the catastrophic release of a near-surface aquifer, building on the basis of terrestrial analogue comparisons. This work aims to challenge this view. In this project I will explore the hypothesis that Kasei Valles was eroded by an ice stream, a region of channelized, fast-flowing ice within an ice sheet, based on its scale, location, and geomorphology, and reinvestigate the origin of other outflow channels under this perspective. Drawing from novel fluid dynamic simulations, analogue field work, geological mapping, and climate modelling, I will test the ‘Ice flood’ hypothesis, which if correct would radically change our understanding of Mars’ transitional Hesperian climate, the nature of its hydrological cycle, and the possibility of a Hesperian ocean. Outflow channels hold a key for understanding the collapse of Mars’ early climate and hydrological system, the end of global conditions able to support life, and the rise of the global cryosphere that would come to dominate Mars’ climate.

Mots-clés : mars,astrobiology,ice streams,floods
Projet ERC : Micro-Cog (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499849.0 €

The animal gut microbiota is diverse, hosting multiple bacterial species whose presence and abundance differ between individuals. Over the past decade, evidence that the gut microbiota influences its host cognitive functions has accumulated but mostly relied on correlative studies in humans and laboratory research involving microbiota-free rodents. It is therefore unclear whether inter-individual variation in gut microbiota composition supports cognitive variability in natural populations of non-human animals. This project will leverage the honey bee model to bring ecological perspectives on the study of the microbiota-gut-brain axis while elucidating the neurobiological mechanisms by which gut microbiota diversity drives cognitive variability. Honey bees offer a unique opportunity to finely manipulate gut microbiota composition using reconstituted gut bacterial communities. Their social life fosters cognitive variability among individuals and provides an ideal system for assessing the ecological relevance of the microbiota-gut-brain axis in a real-world context. The keystone of our naturalistic approach will be the implementation of mini hives allowing honey bees with reconstituted gut bacterial communities to forage in their natural environment. We will search for bacterial species and their metabolic products affecting the neural processes supporting cognitive functions and foraging efficiency. We will investigate the impact of gut microbiota composition and its associated cognitive variability on bees’ foraging behaviour and the fitness of the hive. This multidisciplinary project will provide groundbreaking insights into the fields of cognitive ecology, neuroscience, gut microbiology, host-microbe symbiosis, and honey bee health. Through this holistic approach, I aim to provide fresh perspectives on the interplay between gut bacteria, cognitive abilities, and ecological adaptation.
Projet ERC : SpiCE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1465438.0 €

Enumerative geometry aims at counting geometric objects that satisfy specific algebraic conditions. The modern treatment of enumerative problems of curves has revealed deep connections between geometry, representation theory, and theoretical physics. These connections are established through the cohomology of moduli spaces of curves. The description of the structure of these cohomology groups is crucial in this modern perspective, and I will use spin curves to address this issue. Spin curves are refinements of curves carrying an extra sign, + or -, that enables the construction of new cohomology classes called spin classes. Spin classes carry rich algebraic structures that can be used to investigate enumerative problems. In the SpiCE project, I will study 2 open problems with this approach: Problem 1. Dubrovin defined Frobenius manifolds to study deformations of enumerative problems at a cohomological level. How can we describe singular Frobenius manifolds? Problem 2. How to enumerate curves in surfaces of general type?  Spin curves have been extensively studied through techniques from several branches of mathematics. Yet, a general framework is missing. In SpiCE, I will combine my expertise in these fields to consider spin classes from a unified perspective. This novel approach will provide the means to prove structural results and enable significant progress on Problems 1&2. Problems 1&2 revolve around 3 fundamental families of spin classes and their interplay, which frame the 3 work packages (WP) of SpiCE and their respective goals: WP A. Witten’s class: prove a spin reconstruction theorem. WP B. Gromov-Witten theory: establish Virasoro constraints for spin curves. WP C. Strata of differentials: express spin Witten’s class via moduli spaces of differentials. The outcome is a framework that provides new methods to compute spin classes. These effective techniques pave the way for long-term research on the deep algebraic structures associated with Problems 1&2.

Mots-clés : moduli spaces,enumerative geometry,intersection theory
Projet ERC : COLIBRI (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499806.0 €

Cosmology is entering a new era with revolutionary surveys aimed notably at mapping dark matter and constraining the nature of dark energy. However, the observables are always related to "visible" matter (baryons) which is a biased tracer of dark matter. Baryons do not passively follow the assembly of dark matter structures, but they also feedback on the distribution of dark matter, and therefore impact significatively the estimators probing cosmology. If these effects are not precisely taken into account, they induce biases and could potentially engender apparent tensions, some of which are already observed, between the various cosmological surveys and probes. The COLIBRI project proposes to robustly keep under control the effect of baryons on the joint analysis of galaxy lensing and clustering data through i) new theoretical frameworks to capture efficiently the cosmological information content on mildly non-linear scales affected by baryons and ii) novel hydrodynamical simulations accurately resolving baryonic physics inside unprecedentedly large volumes, enabled by innovative simulation techniques and the evolution of computing resources in Europe in the exascale era. These simulations and theoretical schemes will then allow for a robust characterisation of baryons on cosmological scales, in order to interpret current and future large galaxy surveys with enough precision and accuracy. This effort is crucial to make the most out of the rich datasets that will be observed, with in particular the upcoming Euclid’s data releases.

Mots-clés : theory,simulations,weak lensing,galaxy clustering
Projet ERC : MIRACLE-AD (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1696768.0 €

Neurovascular coupling (NVC) regulates blood flow to meet the metabolic demands of neural activity by delivering oxygen and nutrients. Its dysfunction is a hallmark of several neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where early NVC impairment contributes to disease progression. As the retina is the only optically accessible part of the central nervous system, it provides a unique opportunity to investigate NVC at the cellular level. A precise understanding of retinal NVC could uncover key biomarkers for the evaluation of AD progression and the development of new targeted therapies. However, current imaging tools lack the spatial and temporal resolution necessary to capture neural and vascular functions simultaneously.  In recent research, I have pioneered two novel imaging modalities for cellular-level retinal imaging: full-field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT) and adaptive optics rolling slit ophthalmoscopy (AO-RSO). FF-OCT, with its interferometric properties, has the potential to visualize individual neurons involved in NVC. Meanwhile, AO-RSO, the only system capable of high-speed phase contrast imaging across a wide field of view, reveals critical vascular features, such as vessel walls and red blood cells, which are essential for probing vascular responses during NVC.  The MIRACLE-AD project aims to combine the strengths of these modalities to develop an innovative tool capable of characterizing neural and vascular activity at micrometer and sub-millisecond scales in both health and early-AD patients. This approach will map neuronal pathways from photoreceptors to ganglion cells following light stimulation and measure vascular responses linked to individual ganglion cell activation. By elucidating the spatiotemporal relationship between neuronal activation and hemodynamic changes, MIRACLE-AD will deepen our understanding of NVC dysfunction in AD and its role in disease pathophysiology.
Projet ERC : RESIST (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems E ngineering
Entité participante : Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : StMELF
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 286368.75 €

Providing food security in the face of climate change and increasingly frequent extreme heat and drought events is one of the greatest global challenges. Drought is the most influential environmental factor limiting crop yields for a growing world population and leading to significant economic losses. To safeguard agricultural production, it is crucial to develop high-yielding crops with improved water use efficiency. Oat (Avena sativa L.) is an emerging crop that offers significant benefits for human health and provides a nutrient-rich plant-based protein source with a low carbon footprint. However, oats are sensitive to drought and progress in breeding drought-resistant varieties, while urgently needed, is limited. The oat genome is characterised by its enormous size, high repeat content, and complex polyploid structure. Therefore, efforts to investigate complex agricultural traits such as drought stress resistance have long been hampered by the lack of genomics resources. Recently, a fully annotated reference genome sequence of Avena sativa became available, to which I contributed significantly, representing a fundamental breakthrough. RESIST will take on the challenging high-priority task of deciphering the molecular basis of drought stress resistance in oat, providing substantial solutions to secure yields of this emerging, healthy and versatile crop. To this end, RESIST will exploit innovations in plant genomics and in particular oat genetics, employ cutting-edge high-throughput phenotyping methods and establish gene editing protocols that provide an innovative basis for accelerated and targeted breeding of oats. RESIST provides the indispensable foundation for the development of better-performing oat varieties under drought conditions to secure oat yields as a sustainable source of a highly nutritious, healthy, protein-rich plant-based diet for billions of people.

Mots-clés : drought,oat,cereals,health,breeding barriers,gwas,phenotyping,genomics,comparative genomics,pangenomics,computational biology,transcriptomics,gene editing
Projet ERC : REACT (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Wageningen University & Research — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499694.0 €

The challenge. With 65% of agricultural land in Africa degraded, the need to effectively scale up restoration is evident. Natural regeneration (NR) is a promising restoration solution that depends on vegetation regrowing from seed or tree stumps, without the need to plant trees. However, we do not know what regenerates where and what benefits it may bring. What we do know comes from ecological studies on secondary succession that exclude human influences. This informs restoration poorly since people continuously use, manage and control NR. Aims. This study aims to 1) evaluate how NR develops over time and what benefits it brings, to 2) explore the optimal social-ecological conditions for NR-based restoration, and 3) predict the current and future NR restoration potential across Sub-Saharan Africa. Approach. Recent scientific breakthroughs in succession ecology and on-the-ground restoration developments offer exiting opportunities to gain new mechanistic insights into NR dynamics. I will: 1) Monitor woody vegetation in 150 unmanaged and managed agricultural fields across three ecoclimatic zones in Kenya. 2) Measure plot-level environmental and social variables that affect species performance. 3) Employ a trait-based approach to evaluate the relative importance of different regeneration mechanisms and consequences for multiple ecosystem functions. 4) Scale up mechanistic insights using large datasets and identify regional drivers of NR abundance, functional composition and diversity. 5) Predict climate change effects on NR and map current and future NR restoration potential across Sub-Saharan Africa. Impact. I will develop a mechanistic social-ecological framework for NR by integrating social dimensions into ecological theory, which allows to predict how NR contributes to restoration and where it may need to be complemented with tree planting. This is vital for effectively scaling up restoration during the current UN decade on ecosystem restoration.

Mots-clés : secondary succession,agroforestry,functional traits,farmers,social ecological systems,restoration
Projet ERC : INTERSPEC (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Wageningen University & Research — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 524966.25 €

Multiple species of fungi co-exist in soils and play an important role in biogeochemical cycles. To survive in a resource limited environment, they have developed the means for interspecific communication and warfare via an arsenal of secreted secondary metabolites. Specific ecological role of those metabolites and the extent to which they affect biogeochemical cycling during fungal interactions remains unknown. Because they are secreted and act at a single-cell scale, tracing them ‘then and there’ can aid in identifying potential triggers for their production and clarifying their function. Currently used methods have either insufficient resolution or are destructive, and are not suitable for such analyses. Here, I will use my expertise in spectroscopy techniques to (1) establish experimental protocols for the single-cell scale fungal secondary metabolite identification and characterization using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) microspectroscopy - a method that employs optical properties of gold nanoparticles for molecule specific sensing and that has been shown in biomedical research to have an extraordinary potential for studying microbial metabolic processes. I will combine it with microfluidics based soil chips, that provide visual access to and mimic real ecosystems via control over biotic and abiotic environment of soil microbes. Ultimately, my aim is to offer the community of soil fungal ecologists with a game-changing new tool to study ecosystem functions of secondary metabolites in more realistic settings. I will then use the approach to (2) determine how interspecific fungal interactions under varying nutrient conditions affect the composition of their secondary metabolome and its functions live and at single-cell scale. Additional transcriptome analysis will (3) reveal fungal genes involved in up- or downregulation of the metabolite biosynthesis, but also extracellular enzyme production for organic matter degradation and nutrient acquisition.

Mots-clés : surface enhanced raman scattering spectroscopy sers soil fungal interactions secondary metabolites microfluidic soil chips fungal warfare
Projet ERC : GreenFrontier (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Wageningen University & Research — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WUR
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499976.0 €

GreenFrontier will radically transform understandings of how strict protection of nature remakes human-environment relations in Europe’s marginal areas by developing a novel field of inquiry - political ecology of conservation frontiers. It breaks new grounds from research on frontier commodities by showing that uneven power relations within the EU’s conservation vision create a new resource – wilderness, essential for future green growth. The project’s pioneering and high-risk research design combines approaches from three disciplines –anthropology, history and politics. Its main research question is: How does a green growth vision based on strict protection of biodiversity affect human-environment relations in Europe’s marginal areas?  GreenFrontier is urgently required because the EU's visions of green growth, which includes earmarking 10% of the EU’s land area for strict protection by 2030, raise serious issues of social and environmental injustice: involuntary changes to livelihoods, forced displacement, marginalisation and decline of traditional ecological knowledge. The project will investigate how strict protection of nature reshapes socio-environmental relations in the following mountain regions often overlooked by academic debates: the Southern Carpathians in Romania, the Central Apennines in Italy, the Central Cantabrians in Spain, and the Bieszczady in Poland. The project moves beyond the state of the art and explores new analytical frameworks to understand European conservation frontiers within their specific genealogies of land use change and as part of the current political momentum of green growth imperatives within the EU. GreenFrontier challenges the mainstream understanding of commodity frontiers as happening in the global South. Instead, it focuses on how the EU's green growth vision produces in Europe non-intervention zones where strictly protected carbon- and biodiversity-rich areas become essential fixes for multiple planetary crises.

Mots-clés : political ecology,conservation,environmental justice,land abandonment,rewilding,protected areas
Projet ERC : CoSpiN (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université de Technologie de Kaiserslautern — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUK
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499072.5 €

Neuromorphic computing uses networks of artificial neurons highly interconnected by artificial synapses to perform vast data processing tasks with unmatched efficiency, as needed, for instance, for pattern recognition or autonomous driving tasks. The synaptic connections play a paramount role to create better hardware realizations of these networks. However, it is very complex to realize large interconnectivity by electronic circuitry. COSPIN overcomes this connectivity constraint by using the eigen-excitations of the magnetic system - the spin waves - to connect state-of-the-art artificial neurons based on spintronic auto-oscillators. COSPIN’S main goal is to create and experimentally validate innovative physical building blocks for a novel nano-scaled, all-spintronic network structure which incorporates all necessary properties for neuromorphic computing including high nonlinearity, interconnectivity and reprogrammability. By design, COSPIN works at the boundary between oscillator-based computing and wave-based computing. It uses interference, frequency-multiplexing, and time-modulation techniques as well as spin-wave amplification to significantly increase the connectivity between neurons. Reprogramming of the network is implemented by a direct physical link to magnetic memory solutions as well as by reconfiguring spin-wave circuits. By using coherent wave interference and nonlinear wave interaction, COSPIN paves the way for novel coupling phenomena for complex artificial neural networks far beyond the state-of-the-art of current hardware realizations. Using cutting-edge micromagnetic simulations enhanced by inverse design methods, the artificial networks will be designed and tested prior to their nano-fabrication. Experimental investigations will be mainly carried out using micro-focus Brillouin light scattering. This allows for local investigation of the individual neurons and synapses, and significantly simplifies the interpretation of the network dynamics.

Mots-clés : magnonics,neuromorphic computing,oscillator and wave based computing