Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MOVIRNA (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Entité participante : Université de Copenhague — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996986.0 €

Viruses cause significant disease, exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most studies of virus-host interactions focused on proteins, however, RNA holds great promise for basic and therapeutic exploration. Viruses evolved elaborate strategies for RNA protection, including 5’ capping and internal modification. The goal of this proposal is to discover and characterize viral RNA modifications installed by viral enzymes, including their role in innate immune evasion. This could uncover novel RNA-based mechanisms of viral replication and host modulation and lead to therapeutic targets. Many viruses encode methyltransferases (MTases) for canonical RNA 5’ capping. Curiously, no cap was identified for hepatitis C virus (HCV), an important human pathogen. We recently found that the cellular metabolite, flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), is used as noncanonical initiating nucleotide by the HCV polymerase at high frequency resulting in a 5’FAD cap on HCV RNA. This is the first description of a virus using this cap type for protecting its RNA and, remarkably, the first robust description of FAD capping across any kingdom of life. In Aim 1, we will investigate the functional role of the HCV 5’FAD cap, including viral evasion of innate immune sensing and RNA stability. We will also explore the evolutionary conservation of metabolite capping across RNA viruses and explore its potential as antiviral target. Viral MTases further perform 2’-O-methylation (2’OMe) of internal RNA residues, a modification that also may protect from innate recognition. In Aim 2, the extent of 2’OMe on viral RNA will be mapped and the individual contribution of 5’ and internal modification to innate immune evasion will be dissected. In aggregate, these aims will uncover how viral enzymes modify the termini and internal viral RNA residues and associated evasion of innate immunity. The outcome could reshape understanding of viral RNA biology, open novel research directions and lead to antiviral targets.

Mots-clés : viral replication,rna modification,rna capping,evasion of immune sensing,
Projet ERC : PresentDead (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université de Graz — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1576653.41 €

The project aims to investigate the practical, mental and emotional dimensions of human interactions with the materials of the dead (graves, human remains and artefacts) in early medieval central and eastern Europe (5th to 8th centuries CE). Based on archaeological and textual evidence, diverse contexts of contact will be investigated through an innovative approach combining cutting-edge scientific methods, technical solutions and new theoretical approaches. The project’s working hypothesis is that perspectives on interaction with the materials of the dead will vary with the ritual stages of funerals.  Early medieval cemeteries comprise of up to hundreds of graves where corpses were generally inhumed in individual graves, frequently together with lavish objects. Many graves were interfered with soon after burial. While disturbed graves have elsewhere been seen as an inferior source of evidence, this project argues that these interventions are important sources for early medieval practices relating to the dead. Investigating cemeteries and out-of-cemetery contexts in four central- and eastern European regions it pursues the following objectives: 1. Investigating the range of practices and contexts in the archaeological records. 2. Analysing textual perspectives in diverse genres. 3. Synthesising material and textual perspectives via an innovative technical solution for semantic integration of data. The methodological objectives for achieving the archaeological goals are: 1. Consolidation of methods and development of research protocols. 2. Development of strategies to mitigate deficiencies of archaeological data. The development of digital tools, moving from high- to low resolution evidence, will be novel and key to the approach.  The project will significantly contribute to our understanding of the relationship between the living and the dead in early medieval Europe.

Mots-clés : mortuary archaeology,taphonomy,early medieval period,digital humanities,
Projet ERC : POSTNORM (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Queen Mary University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : QMUL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 54800.0 €

Why have once successful left-wing parties in Poland nearly died out by 2015 (Grzymala-Busse 2019)? Why has Portugal been one of the last countries in Western Europe to see a radical right party in the national parliament? Why are right-wing individuals more likely to protest in Eastern Europe than left-wing individuals (Kostelka and Rovny 2019)? POSTNORM proposes a theory postulating that these seemingly unrelated patterns are the product of a single process: the rejection of the ideological brand of the past authoritarian regime. Through novel survey experiments, POSTNORM will examine how in new democracies, the ideological associations with the old regime serve as a focal point for norms that govern what are appropriate political positions for voters and parties: in democracies following left(right-)wing dictatorship, voters and political elites avoid associating themselves with the left(right) respectively. POSTNORM further derives a set of testable expectations about how this bias shapes both the demand- and the supply side of party competition. The bias colors citizens’ ideological preferences; perceptions about parties’ stances in these issues; national identity; political discussions; the supply of new parties; post-transition party names and pro-grammatic stances; and party elite discourse. POSTNORM will deliver a parsimonious new theory that will help make sense of heterogeneity in political competition across new democracies

Mots-clés : norms,left right ideology,bias,parties voters identity communism military regimes
Projet ERC : GLOSSIT (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Graz — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1993598.09 €

Glosses are fingerprints of the society in which texts were composed, copied, and read. Most importantly, they play a much more significant role than previous research has acknowledged and offer insights about the multilingual and multi-ethnic environment of medieval manuscript and text production the principal texts cannot: they are first-hand testimonies of the close linguistic and cultural contacts between Insular Celtic (Old Breton, Old Irish, Old Welsh) and Latin speakers. GLOSSIT researches this largely neglected source for early medieval linguistic and intellectual exchange in Western Europe. This comparative study on the vernacular Insular Celtic and Latin glosses shows that the interlinear and marginal glosses (or paratext) of 9th–10th century manuscripts have a marginal character only at a first glance. A striking lack of editions has so far been a strong obstacle for in-depth investigations. GLOSSIT addresses this shortcoming and produces digital editions to research the interrelationships between the languages involved (i.e. Latin/vernacular and intra-vernacular contact) as well as the knowledge transfer observable in early medieval glossing traditions. It tackles this issue through combining methods of comparative philology and historical linguistics, digital humanities (handwritten text recognition, network analysis, natural language processing), (cultural) history, and – in a first-of-its-kind approach – biological computation (applying DNA-sequence alignment methods to glosses). The core sources are early medieval copies of the computistical works of Bede and Priscian’s Latin grammar with multiple manuscript witnesses transmitting Insular Celtic and Latin glosses. For the first time, GLOSSIT puts their glossing traditions at the centre of a large-scale investigation into language contact and knowledge exchange between the Celtic-speaking world and the Carolingian empire in an era that was foundational for Europe’s intellectual history until today

Mots-clés : early medieval celtic languages,early medieval latin,glossing traditions,manuscripts,historical linguistics,comparative linguistics and philology
Projet ERC : SAINTBARTH (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Académie d'Åbo — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Åbo Akademi University
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 285811.25 €

Surveys and datasets of the trans-Atlantic slave trade do not include Swedish slave trade and colonial history. Yet, when Sweden acquired the Antillean island Saint Barthélemy in 1784 it became a slaving nation that traded and smuggled captive Africans and punished the enslaved population using draconic slave laws until the abolition of Swedish slavery in 1847. The project is the first investigation of new sources and it situates Swedish colonialism in the Caribbean archipelago. By shifting the emphasis of the previous historiography from the European colonizers to building knowledge on the enslaved and free Afro-Caribbean majority population the project shows how the Swedish Caribbean society only can be understood in a larger setting where single-nation historical narratives have little explanatory power. Five subprojects creates new knowledge that will build a critical mass of data on hitherto unstudied facets of Swedish Caribbean history: slave law and justice, slave trade, abolition of slavery, colonial demography, and colonial governance. The project uses the Swedish governmental colonial archive held in France that for the first time has been made accessible in the PI’s preceding project. By scholarly publications and the creation of datasets covering legislation, biographies of the majority Black population, slave trade data etc. – and publishing them online in both project-owned databases and by contributing to major international datasets – it develops new methods within digital Caribbean and colonial history. The Caribbean intergovernmental organization CARICOM has included Sweden in its claims for reparations for “genocide, slavery, slave trading, and racial apartheid” and the project builds a firm basis to evaluate Swedish participation in Caribbean slavery and colonialism.

Mots-clés : caribbean history,slavery,abolition,legal history,colonial demography
Projet ERC : ANET (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Université de Copenhague — Pays : Danemark — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2027474.0 €

This project aims at solving one of the most urgent riddles in particle astrophysics: how neutrinos affect the physics of spectacular cosmic fireworks in the death of massive stars as core-collapse supernova explosions and in the merger of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole. Neutrinos are feebly interacting particles copiously produced in these dense sources. Neutrinos exist in three different kinds, or flavors, and have the fascinating property of changing their flavor while propagating (flavor conversion). Because of the high density of neutrinos in the core of supernovae or compact binary mergers, flavor conversion becomes a non-linear phenomenon, whose understanding is quite preliminary. In particular, a fully multi-dimensional solution of quantum transport of neutrinos is lacking, halting any assessment of the implications and phenomenology of flavor mixing. I propose the ambitious ANET (Advanced NEutrino Transport) project to: 1. develop an innovative approach to tackle neutrino transport in the presence of flavor conversion in multi-dimensions including all the relevant microphysics, for the first time; 2. pioneer a conclusive evaluation of the yet poorly explored impact of neutrinos in dense sources; 3. unravel the relevance of neutrino mixing with respect to other astrophysical unknowns. Numerical simulations buttressed by analytic diagnostic methods will be employed to radically advance our understanding. ANET promises to have profound implications on fundamental physics, the origin of the heavy elements, as well as our comprehension of the behavior of matter at extreme densities and the physics of neutrino-dense sources.

Mots-clés : neutrino flavor conversions,neutrino self interactions,core collapse supernovae,compact binary mergers,supernova mechanism,nucleosynthesis of the heavy elements
Projet ERC : FOX (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Consolidator grants)
Entité participante : Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inrae
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999130.0 €

The fungal cell wall (FCW) is the primary interface between the fungal cell and its surrounding. This statement applies to all types of fungi, regardless of whether they live in symbiosis, cause disease, or decompose organic matter. As smart architects, fungi have found ways to evolve the chemical composition of this wall (made mostly of carbohydrates) to thrive and constantly adapt to various environmental factors. To date, to which extent, how and what for the FCW is modified remains largely unknown. I hypothesize that fungi use “carbohydrate oxidases” (CarbOx) to cleave and/or functionalize their FCW carbohydrates, thereby altering their physico-chemical properties to fulfil diverse putative functions. In the FOX project, I will aim at unravelling the diversity and biological functions of FCW-active CarbOx. Here, using approaches at the interface between enzymology and microbiology, I propose to decipher the biological functions of pre-identified FCW-active CarbOx in a model filamentous fungus. Then, using an ad hoc methodology integrating in muro detection of oxidized carbohydrates, proteomics and computational modelling, we will draw a comprehensive portrait of FCW carbohydrate oxidation events and pinpoint responsible CarbOx. Building on these insights and methods, we will build experimentally-supported models to probe and test the occurence of these oxidative mechanisms across the fungal kingdom. By unravelling and providing a comprehensive understanding of the oxidative chemistry and function of CarbOx during FCW remodelling, my research will lay the conceptual and practical foundations of FCW oxidative enzymology. Given the involvement of fungi in a myriad of life-sustaining and threatening processes, as well as in industrial bioprocesses, I anticipate that FOX will have wide-ranging implications for the health, agriculture and biotechnology sectors.

Mots-clés : fungi,enzymes,cazymes,cell wall,carbohydrates
Projet ERC : Intimate Touch (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Research Institutes of Sweden — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : RI.SE
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 81810.0 €

Intimate Touch will re-conceptualise how technologies use touch to interact with us. Bringing intimacy as a lens on touch inspires us to think about the felt experience of touch, the diversity of places on the body where we will be touched by technology, and the sense that touch can be transformative of our view of ourselves. This project will develop the theory, methods and technologies of Intimate Touch. It will bring together research in Human-Computer Interaction on intimate technologies with new interaction techniques, alongside psychological theories on intimacy and neuroscience perspectives on touch. Technologies that touch us will constitute a new paradigm of interactive devices, most strongly exemplified by care robots. Designing technologies for Intimate Touch will be foundational in creating dignified and acceptable interactions between humans and technologies.  The first objective is to develop a model of ‘intimate technology’. No researcher has done this before. This model will be developed through a large-scale interview study alongside in-situ, long-term studies of our own demonstrators of Intimate Touch. By identifying which interactions lead to intimacy, this project will have empirically identified a new class of technology, ‘intimate technology’. Autonomous systems will touch many areas of our bodies. Yet, there has been no serious study of touch experiences other than on the hands and shoulders. My second objective will counter this by innovating on a design approach that centres the felt experience of touch from technology, and by creating a dataset that describes people’s experience of touch from technology across the body. My final objective is to develop two demonstrators of Intimate Touch. This risky challenge will evidence how touch with technology transforms us. Practically this will provide a roadmap to good touch from technology. Empirically this will lay the groundwork for a re-conceptualization of our relationship with technology

Mots-clés : research through design,intimacy,touch,body,soma design,interdisciplinary research
Projet ERC : POLTRUSTLAB (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Center for Monetary and Financial Studies — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CEMFI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1836250.0 €

In the last years, the world has experienced an unprecedented increase in the fraction of people that have lost their confidence in political institutions and have started supporting populist candidates. While a rapidly growing literature in social sciences has investigated this phenomenon, current research methodologies face important limitations. Existing studies have limited measures of political attitudes and provide little evidence on the mechanisms behind the increase in distrust. In this project, I propose a radically different approach to tackle this question. I plan to conduct extensive data collection through online surveys in multiple countries and periods. I will combine this novel data with extensive use of survey experiments and quasi-experimental approaches. This methodology has the potential to significantly expand the research frontier in the study of political discontent. First, I plan to collect the most detailed individual-level panel dataset on perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. Second, the use of survey experiments provides a unique toolkit uncover the ?mental model? of individuals (i.e., their modes of reasoning that generate a link between a shock and ultimate political discontent). This novel methodology will be applied to answer two main questions: (1) What are the fundamental drivers of political discontent? I will examine the effects of a number of different economic and cultural shocks on discontent and distrust. In the uncovering of the mechanisms, I will pay special attention two key mediating factors: the policy response to shocks of traditional parties and the exposure to populist and nativist narratives. The second research question is: (2) How can trust in the political system be regained? Using a number of experimental and quasi-experimental designs, I will investigate whether exposure to safety-net policies can help individuals to regain trust in the political system.

Mots-clés : trust,populism,mental model,political attitudes
Projet ERC : DISACT (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université de Glasgow — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 30955.0 €

DISACT will investigate the logic of the crime of disappearances in repressive and (post)conflict settings. Even though combatants have always gone missing on the battlefield, the purposeful disappearance of people is a relatively recent phenomenon. Around 1,000 people now disappear daily, with high levels of public attention to the phenomenon, yet we know relatively little about the historical origins of the crime, the rationale for violent (state and non-state) actors to deploy it, or the processes underpinning its international diffusion. In answering these questions, the project will draw on in-depth analysis of six carefully selected cases, each geared towards documenting a different stage or thematic manifestation in the historical evolution of disappearances. First, DISACT will use archival sources to examine how disappearances emerged in the context of the French colonial counterinsurgency in Algeria (1954-1962). It will then draw on rich ethnographic evidence of violence in Cyprus (1955-1974) to shed light on the logic of the crime in conflict settings. Next, DISACT will investigate the hitherto unexplored role of illiberal intergovernmental organizations in facilitating regional diffusion by analysing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Eurasia (2005-2020). Finally, the project will innovate methodologically by using forensic evidence to uncover the strategic logic of selective removal of remains of victims from original grave sites, comparing the experiences of Cyprus, Chile, and Bosnia. This comparative, interdisciplinary, and multimethod project will blend ethnographic, forensic, legal, and archival evidence to enrich the understanding of one of the most complex human rights violations of our time. Understanding the motives driving disappearances could identify the unexamined and interlinked dynamics of state repression, colonialism, violent conflict, and post-conflict accountability.