Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MINERVA (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Politecnico di Milano — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : POLIMI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999194.0 €

What is the relation between the intestinal microflora and the brain in the development of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease? A functional relation between the intestinal microflora (microbiota) and the brain, referred to as the “microbiota-gut-brain axis”, was hypothesized more than 100 years ago but only recently has been re-evaluated becoming a new, exciting hypothesis in neuroscience. We have the proof that aging, bad alimentary habits, poor food quality and stress can affect our intestinal microbiota: the impact of this modification on brain functionality has been observed but the absence of suitable research tools does not allow verifying this research hypothesis. My aim is to overcome this limitation through a bioengineering approach: I will develop the first microbiota-gut-brain platform relying on three miniaturized microfluidic compartments, representing in vitro the most important features of microbiota-brain interaction. Once validated, my platform will be challenged in healthy and neurodegenerative scenarios by using human complete microbiota. MINERVA has a ground breaking potential: the proof of a causal link between intestinal microbiota and brain functionality would completely change the actual scenario, shifting the investigation of neurodegenerative disorders causes from the brain to the body periphery. MINERVA is a high gain project: if its vision succeeds, neurodegenerative disorders will benefit from new, cost effective, low invasive preventative and therapeutic strategies based on microbiota management by food ingredient and probiotics with an enormous beneficial impact worldwide. MINERVA will provide a versatile platform that will overcome the strong limitations arising from the current in vivo models and standard in vitro tools: by changing cell type or culturing conditions, it could address microbiota impact not only on neurodegenerative disorders, but also on other severe other-than-nervous pathologies.

Mots-clés : 3d cell culture,hydrogels,intestinal microflora,brain,multi organ platform,in vitro
Projet ERC : QGBoot (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CEA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1444174.0 €

What is the space of consistent conformal field theories (CFTs) and of theories of quantum gravity? What are the underlying physical and functional structures of AdS scattering amplitudes and large N CFT correlation functions? Can we construct string and M-theory from precision CFT computations? The conformal bootstrap program continues to generate remarkable insights into the foundational nature of quantum and conformal field theories. In the context of the AdS/CFT Correspondence, these are directly transmuted into bounds on, and properties of, the space of consistent theories of quantum gravity in anti-de Sitter spacetime (AdS). Guided by the core questions listed above and the need for new approaches to string and M-theory, I propose to develop new analytic methods within the conformal bootstrap, particularly in the context of the AdS/CFT Correspondence, with application to fundamental questions in quantum gravity including string/M-theory. The project will draw from cutting-edge techniques in CFT and in gravity, with special focus on the computation of correlation functions and their dual AdS scattering amplitudes. Specific goals include the extension and generalization of the traditional tenets of the conformal bootstrap; the explication of holographic methods for systematically computing loop-level scattering amplitudes in AdS; via AdS/CFT, a novel determination of perturbative scattering amplitudes in string and M-theory at both tree- and loop-level; and the discovery of rigorous constraints on the space of AdS vacua of string and M-theory and, by extension, on the emergence of bulk spacetime from conformal field theory microscopics.

Mots-clés : conformal field theory,cft correspondence,conformal bootstrap,string theory,m theory,scattering amplitudes,correlation functions,string perturbation theory
Projet ERC : Neurolive (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Siobhan davies dance company — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Siobhan davies dance
Type d'entité : Autres
Financement ERC de l'entité : 489071.25 €

What makes live experiences special? Liveness is not just central to the performing arts, but to political rallies, sporting events, virtual reality and distance learning in higher education. NEUROLIVE is an inherently interdisciplinary research project, that combines theoretical concepts from theatre and performance studies, artistic research in performance making, psychological experimentation and mobile neuroimaging to understand how liveness is generated and experienced. NEUROLIVE proposes that the live experience can be conceptualized and quantified as a form of sustained entrainment, in which the minds, brains and bodies of performers and spectators are linked. Across three research streams we will combine artistic research (I) and cognitive neuroscience (II) to delineate the contextual, experiential and neurocognitive components of liveness, resulting in four live performance experiments (III). These live performances will be co-developed by performing artists and cognitive scientists with a view to establish an empirically testable, ecologically valid, multidimensional measure of liveness. NEUROLIVE combines dynamic experience sampling with psychophysiology, and mobile EEG. Advanced modelling techniques from machine learning will be used to integrate information from the different experiential, physiological and neural signals. This new measure will be grounded in the aesthetic principles of contemporary live performance, yet should be applicable across artistic and non-artistic performance situations, and to digital liveness in augmented and mixed realities. In this way, NEUROLIVE implements a conceptually and methodologically novel approach to understanding what makes live experiences special.
Projet ERC : EUSOL (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : European University Institute — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : EUI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 410000.0 €

What principles of socioeconomic justice, if any, should apply to the European Union? Do European citizens have obligations of social justice that cross the borders of member states? If so, what are their grounds? I propose to answer these questions by providing a normative account of one of the fundamental values underpinning European integration, namely solidarity. The project has two main aims. The first is to develop a normative model of inter-, trans-, and supra-national solidarity that is responsive to the specific circumstances and history of the European Union (EUSOL1). The second aim is to apply this model to a number of central issues dividing the EU, including the free movement of persons, burden-sharing within the EU’s refugee policy, inter-state transfers, and enlargement and accession (EUSOL2). The project breaks new ground in normative debates on the nature and development of the EU, international/global justice, and the role of facts in normative political theory, and addresses some of the most pressing issues facing the EU today.

Mots-clés : european union,international,global justice,solidarity,social,distributive justice,practice dependence
Projet ERC : LITTLE TOOLS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Oslo — Pays : Norvège — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UiO
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1495079.0 €

What shall we live off in the future? Where will our food come from, and what will form the basis for our economies? A so-called “blue revolution”, where fish become farmed rather than caught, is increasingly presented as an answer to the above questions. This transformation of the economy exemplifies ongoing efforts to produce new forms of capital out of the ordering and reordering of life. These processes are intimately related to the expanding life sciences, the bioeconomy and what is sometimes called new forms of biocapital. But how do such large transformations take place in actual practice, and by which means? This project argues that if we are to understand such major transformations we need to study “little tools”, that is, material-semiotic entities that carefully modify and work upon bodies, markets and science. Emerging bioeconomies are expected not only to produce economic value but also to enact values in other ways that contribute to what this project refers to as “the good economy”. Such values include enabling sustainable fisheries, secure animal welfare or sustainable growth. The main hypothesis of the current project is that the enactment of the good economy can be studied by valuation practices performed by material-semiotic little tools. The project will explore this hypothesis at multiple sites for biocapitalization: science, the market, policy and funding institutions. This project will focus on how these interact and encounter one another. The aim is twofold: first, to provide new empirical insights about how biocapitalization processes are enacted in practice and at strategic sites, using cross-disciplinary methods from actor-network theory, the humanities and economic sociology; second to contribute analytically and methodologically to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) by drawing on resources from economic sociology and the humanities in order to provide an analytical framework for comprehending biocapitalization practices.

Mots-clés : valuation studies,bioeconomy,material semiotics,science studies
Projet ERC : STYDS (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Antwerp — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UAntwerp
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1966530.0 €

When I am looking at my coffee machine that makes funny noises, this is an instance of multisensory perception – I perceive this event by means of both vision and audition. But very often we only receive sensory stimulation from a multisensory event by means of one sense modality. If I hear the noisy coffee machine in the next room (without seeing it), then how do I represent the visual aspects of this multisensory event? The aim of this research project is to bring together empirical findings about multimodal perception and empirical findings about (visual, auditory, tactile) mental imagery and argue that on occasions like the one described in the last paragraph, we have multimodal mental imagery: perceptual processing in one sense modality (here: vision) that is triggered by sensory stimulation in another sense modality (here: audition). Multimodal mental imagery is rife. The vast majority of what we perceive are multisensory events: events that can be perceived in more than one sense modality – like the noisy coffee machine. And most of the time we are only acquainted with these multisensory events via a subset of the sense modalities involved – all the other aspects of these events are represented by means of multisensory mental imagery. This means that multisensory mental imagery is a crucial element of almost all instances of everyday perception, which has wider implications to philosophy of perception and beyond, to epistemological questions about whether we can trust our senses. Focusing on multimodal mental imagery can help us to understand a number of puzzling perceptual phenomena, like sensory substitution and synaesthesia. Further, manipulating mental imagery has recently become an important clinical procedure in various branches of psychiatry as well as in counteracting implicit bias – using multimodal mental imagery rather than voluntarily and consciously conjured up mental imagery can lead to real progress in these experimental paradigms.

Mots-clés : mental imagery,perception,multimodality
Projet ERC : MOLUSC (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Fondation Jean-Marie Lehn — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CIRFC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1112500.0 €

When molecules or molecular materials are placed in the confined field of an optical mode which is resonant with a molecular transition, new hybrid light-matter states can be formed through strong coupling. This can occur even in the dark due to strong coupling with the vacuum electromagnetic field. The hybrid light-matter states are collective states involving a large number of molecules and they strongly modify the energy levels of the system. While light-matter strong coupling has been extensively studied in optics and quantum physics, the consequences for chemistry and molecular material properties are just beginning to be investigated. The overall aim of this proposal is understand in greater detail the fundamental properties of the hybrid light-matter states and to investigate the implications for the properties of molecules and materials. More specific objectives are: 1) Deepen our understanding of the hybrid light-matter states from a physical chemistry perspective, including the dynamics and the thermodynamics. This is absolutely essential to develop this subject into a useful tool for chemists and materials scientists. 2) Demonstrate that the chemical reactions, including enzymatic ones, in the ground state can be modified by selectively coupling individual vibrational modes involved in the chemistry. This could have consequences for site selective chemistry, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis among others. 3) To further enhance molecular material properties, in particular functional solid state materials such as for organic electronics and photovoltaics. Here the key property is the extended nature of the hybrid light-matter state and the associated change in energy levels which modifies the absorption spectrum. 4) Explore the possibilities of modifying phase transitions of materials under strong coupling and of playing with the quantum features of the hybrid states such as their entanglement to study molecular processes with entangled molecules

Mots-clés : light matter interactions,strong coupling,molecules,material properties,chemical reactivity
Projet ERC : HoloVision (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Technion – Israel Institute of Technology — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2624517.0 €

When natural sensory input is disrupted, as in outer-retinal degenerative diseases, artificial stimulation of surviving nerve cells offers a potential strategy for bypassing compromised neural circuits and substituting sensory perception. Current neuro-stimulation interfaces that use electrical currents from micro-electrode arrays are already being clinically applied for retinal stimulation, but their performance is ultimately limited by current spread and the requirement for physical contact with an implanted device. Future minimally-invasive systems could use light patterns to photo-induce complex yet precise spatio-temporal activity patterns among surviving retinal neurons, with the ultimate potential of restoring vision to a nearly normal level. Here, we will advance, optimize and test in vivo a powerful new strategy for cellular-resolution controlled patterned optogenetic excitation, based on computer-generated holographic optical neural-stimulation (HONS). Regular (one-photon) HONS systems can dynamically address large populations of optogenetically-transduced retinal ganglion cells with single-cell resolution, while related multiphoton HONS systems can extend these capabilities to three-dimensional cortical tissue (relevant to many research applications). A series of in vivo experiments will resolve basic questions regarding the efficacy of these approaches by directly examining the retinal and cortical responses to structured holographic photo-stimulation, and test novel strategies for improving it. Finally, as a major step towards clinical translation of this technology, we will design and evaluate (in blind sheep and sighted individuals) a human-scale prototype. Overall, by combining both basic and translational research, this study will advance novel optical neuro-technologies with potential impact on multiple scientific and clinical applications. Specifically, it will tackle the major engineering requirements and constraints towards the development of a
Projet ERC : CO2CAP (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Polytechnic University of Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497500.0 €

When two solutions with different composition are mixed, free energy of mixing is released. This phenomenon was deeply investigated in the last decades in order to harvest the so-called salinity gradient power. One of the most incipient technology that allows to harvest this energy is the Capacitive Mixing (CapMix) and its working mechanism is based on a fluidic electrochemical cell, similar to a supercapacitor. Since this mixing phenomenon holds true for both liquids and gases, my idea is to harvest energy from anthropic CO2. The energy density stored in the CO2 emission is tremendously higher than that stored in salinity gradient and theoretically estimated as high as 1570 TWh/year. Since ions are needed in CapMix process, with CO2CAP I propose for the first time to exploit a green ionic liquid (IL), i.e. a bio-derived molten salt at room temperature, both as electrolyte and CO2 absorbing medium in a CapMix cell. The principle consists of flowing a concentrated CO2 gas stream, alternated to vacuum step, in the IL during the charging/discharging of two electrodes. The CO2 will induce an electric double layer (EDL) expansion of charges at the electrode/IL interface thereby converting the released mixing energy into electrical energy. To reach this goal, the objectives of CO2CAP are to develop novel cutting-edge carbon-based electrodes and amino acid-based IL designed to maximize the EDL of charges at the electrode/IL interface, enhancing at the same time the CO2 absorption capacity. This will be possible by using a multidisciplinary approach based on materials engineering, modelling, advanced characterization methods and novel architecture of the electrodes. The engineered materials and cell will allow to demonstrate the feasibility of this new electrochemical approach, enabling a deeper understanding of the physical and electrochemical phenomena occurring in such a complicated system, and paving the way to a new generation of CO2-free renewable energy source.

Mots-clés : capacitive mixing,co2 capture,renewable energy,2d materials,electric double layer,supercapacitors
Projet ERC : NEURO-PATTERNS (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : University of Chicago — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 336500.0 €

When we see an object, hear a sound or smell an odor, precise spatial and temporal patterns of electrical activity are generated within neuronal networks located in specialized brain areas. This electrical representation of the external stimulus mediates perception and sensory experience. However, this process is highly variable, and repetition of the very same sensory experience results in distinct network activity patterns. What does this variability mean for perception? Do distinct activity patterns carry different information about the stimulus? Or rather, does the brain code the same information coming from the outside world in multiple and equivalent ways? Answering these questions and determining how patterns of activity in neuronal populations are used for behavior has not been possible because of the inability to change the activity of neurons with single cell precision over large networks in an intact mammalian brain. In this ambitious proposal we will take a multidisciplinary approach to causally address these questions and decipher the computational principles of brain networks. To achieve this goal we will develop innovative optical technologies for manipulating and monitoring brain circuits with single cell resolution in the intact mouse brain. We will combine these new techniques with novel genetic manipulations and psychophysical behavioral methods that allow precise quantification of animals’ perceptual performance. Using this unique set of tools, we will unravel how the spatial (across neurons) and temporal (across time) aspects of neuronal electrical activity patterns encode information that guides behavior. In achieving our goals we will produce a new technology for stimulating and monitoring neurons in the brains of behaving animals with single-cell specificity that can be adapted to explore cellular dynamics in highly scattering biological media.

Mots-clés : neurophotonics,wavefront engineering,circuit neuroscience,systems neuroscience,cortical networks