Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ILUMIS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : KU Leuven — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497000.0 €

Actuation, energy storage, sensing, and logic are four functionalities of both natural and artificial organisms, giving them the ability to thrive in their environment. The blueprint of conventional robots localizes these functionalities in discrete components supported by rigid materials. However, in soft robots that consist of compliant materials, localization of functionality severely limits autonomous operation and intelligent behaviour. This limitation is the result of the functional architecture, not of the used materials. Alternatively and as demonstrated in nature by the common octopus, the distribution of these four functionalities throughout the body allows to overcome these limitations. This concept of ‘functional embodiment’ is currently non-existing in soft robotics. ILUMIS will create soft robots with embodied functionality by transitioning from a conventional robotic architecture to a fluidic network architecture. Further, by incorporating nonlinearities in all the network elements, the global system acts as a state machine, meaning that the output not only depends on the input, but also on its internal state. How to navigate this state space will be encoded within the nonlinearities, creating embodied logic. Energy and actuation are embodied and intricately linked to the elastic deformations of the components in the network, powering the actions of the soft robot. By creating network components that are sensitive to triggers from the environment, embodied sensing emerges, leading to truly interactive fluidic state machines. ILUMIS will overcome the main challenges of inverse design, where a desired behaviour requires the optimization of a network of nonlinear structures. Thereby ILUMIS will create a new blueprint for soft robotic design with embodied functionality that closes the gap with nature’s soft organisms. This knowledge will impact applications ranging from surgical micro-robots and exploration robots to haptic interfaces for virtual reality.

Mots-clés : soft robotics,embodied intelligence,inflatable actuators
Projet ERC : AI-PIONEER (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Université technique de Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1832292.0 €

Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, with radiotherapy (RT) being a cornerstone treatment for nearly half of all patients. A key element of RT is the accurate definition of target volumes, a task traditionally performed manually by physicians. The quality of target volumes differs significantly between treatment centers and healthcare systems, directly impacting patients’ outcomes. While advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have simplified and standardized the segmentation of healthy organs, creating personalized target volumes that incorporate individual patient-specific data remains an unsolved challenge.  AI-PIONEER aims to revolutionize the RT treatment planning process by combining the vast potential of multimodal large language models with 3D image segmentation. For the first time, AI-PIONEER will provide a language-based interface for target volume definition, offering a dynamic and adaptable solution for treatment planning. This will enable the unprecedented opportunity to process both scientific publications and patient-specific data to generate literature-founded, personalized, and precise target volumes.  The project has three main objectives: (1) curating an extensive and high-quality multicenter CT dataset, (2) developing and fine-tuning a multimodal foundation AI model for personalized target volume creation, and (3) clinically validating the framework across multiple centers using prospective clinical data, ensuring robust results in real-world settings.  By integrating cutting-edge AI technology with clinical expertise, AI-PIONEER will bridge the gaps between efficiency, standardization, and personalization in cancer treatment, ultimately improving patient outcomes worldwide. Thorough clinical validation will provide the basis for clinical translation. This approach is poised to significantly reduce the burden on clinicians while elevating the quality of cancer care.

Mots-clés : radiation oncology,treatment planning
Projet ERC : CAVIAR (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : École polytechnique fédérale de Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2069415.0 €

The proposed research will critically advance the medical use of high-intensity focused sound waves, namely ultrasound and shock waves. In particular, the project aims to break grounds by elucidating the physics behind ultrasound and microbubble-mediated targeted drug delivery and non-thermal, cavitation-based ablation of biological tissues and stones, relevant in the treatments of neurological diseases, tumours, blood clots, bacterial infections and kidney stones. Through carefully designed in-vitro experiments, the project aims at explaining and comprehensively characterising, uniquely within a single framework, the currently elusive mechanisms behind the mechanical bioeffects produced by cavitation activity across a wide range of acoustic driving conditions from gentle, low-amplitude ultrasound for reversible cellular sonopermeabilisation to drugs up to the fragmentation of stones in shock wave lithotripsy. This will be achieved using a unique combination of advanced measurement techniques such as ultrafast videomicroscopy and synchrotron X-ray imaging, and leveraging the PI's expertise in acoustics, microbubble technology and the physics of cavitation.  The expected outcomes of the proposed research are to i) help optimise the mechanical effects in medical sound wave therapies to improve their safety, precision and efficacy and allowing swift clinical translation for emerging medical therapies; ii) significantly advance experimental techniques to spatiotemporally resolve ultrafast microevents; iii) refine acoustic cavitation detection techniques in the clinical setting by correlating specific visually observed cavitation activities to their acoustic signatures; and iv) propose a new, rigorous measure to assess safety against mechanical bioeffects caused by cavitation in clinical applications using high-amplitude sound waves.

Mots-clés : cavitation,ultrasound,sonoporation,ablation,drug delivery,shock waves,high speed imaging
Projet ERC : PumpQIN (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : École polytechnique fédérale de Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2012780.0 €

Quantum information provides a unifying theoretical concept for condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, information processing, cosmology, and other natural sciences. Processing quantum information is an emerging experimental frontier, but decoherence and scale limit our ability to gain a practical quantum advantage (noisy intermediate-scale quantum, 'NISQ' era). Ultracold atoms in optical lattices exhibit excellent prerequisites for building highly coherent and scalable quantum hardware, as evidenced by their use in optical clocks and atom interferometers. Yet, quantum processing in optical lattices has so far been limited by restricted programmability and qubit connectivity.  PumpQIN aims at establishing a universal quantum processing architecture based on topological pumping and controlled collisions between ultracold atoms in optical lattices. A topological pump can be considered a bidirectional, dispersionless, and robustly quantised method for programming atomic motion. Collisions between atoms can thus be configured in time and space, realising coherent two-qubit gates. Milestones of this project include 1) local control over topological pump trajectories, 2) the realisation of a universal quantum processor with motionally coherent bosons, as well as 3) fermionic quantum processing. These objectives will be achieved by constructing a novel quantum gas apparatus with rubidium and potassium atoms.  The results of PumpQIN will not only redefine how we think about atoms in optical lattices, but also lead the way towards a 'beyond-NISQ' era. Especially the realisation fermionic processing will establish an interdisciplinary frontier in experimental quantum information science with immediate implications for condensed matter physics and quantum chemistry.

Mots-clés : atomic and optical physics amo,topology,quantum information processing,fermionic quantum processing
Projet ERC : LEAP-40 (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : École polytechnique fédérale de Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499992.0 €

Despite having analysed of over 300 inverse femtobarns of data from the CMS experiment at the LHC, no evidence for New Physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) has been found. Yet, the SM is understood to be an effective theory, and a more fundamental theory is expected at smaller scales. A major limitation of current searches is that only 0.02% of the total data produced by CMS is used for analysis, while nearly 99% of the data is discarded within microseconds by the trigger system, before it even leaves the underground experimental cavern. This discarded data, filtered based on known physics signatures, may contain exactly the kind of unconventional signals that current analyses miss. The aim of this project is to dramatically increase the discovery potential of CMS by developing an online system that can analyse every proton collision event at the full 40 MHz collision rate in a signal-agnostic way. By targeting the 99% of lost data, this project opens new possibilities for detecting unconventional New Physics signatures that have eluded detection so far. By leveraging advanced anomaly detection techniques and high-performance computing, both pioneered by the project's PI, this real-time system will capture and analyse events that are currently missed by the existing trigger system. This novel approach will enable CMS to explore the full landscape of collision data with unprecedented sensitivity. If successful, it could revolutionise how we search for New Physics and lead to novel discoveries that reshape our understanding of fundamental forces. This high-risk, high-reward project is a bold LEAP forward in the hunt for New Physics at the LHC, fully exploiting the capabilities of CMS and unlocking its full potential for discovery. This project’s technological innovations on real time Machine Learning inference, have the potential to impact fields such as satellite communications and large telescope arrays, broadening the scope of its significance.

Mots-clés : lhc,triggering,new physics searches,machine learning
Projet ERC : AnimalFarm (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Studies of Cultures and Arts
Entité participante : École polytechnique de Turin — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1485625.0 €

The architecture of intensive animal farming is a pervasive phenomenon of the global built environment, yet little is known about the buildings in which farming occurs. If architectural history is often a history for and by humans, what happens when we apply the tools of this discipline to investigate the zootechnical buildings designed to host livestock? AnimalFarm explores the architectural history of animal farming between Europe and North America, since the modern era and until the present day. Recent architectural historiography has developed an interest in the relationship between humans and other forms of life. Yet, the buildings of animal farming are usually perceived as atemporal, anonymous, and ethically uncomfortable. From sixteenth-century Palladian villas to today’s concentrated feeding operations, Western architecture has evolved along the entanglements between humans and domesticated animals – mostly cattle, pigs, poultry, and horses. Over the centuries, the practice of animal farming has been a pivotal field for spatial, material, and technological experimentations. AnimalFarm employs the methods of architectural history to investigate the print sources, such as treatises, handbooks, and journals, that allowed animal farming to become a transnational and scalable model. The research is conducted on three geographical and chronological strands, that embrace the beginning of agrarian capitalism (1500s-1600s), the dawn of zootechnics (1700s-1800s), and the great industrial acceleration (1800s-1900s). AnimalFarm pioneers a novel research methodology that contaminates the perspective of architectural history with three interdisciplinary layers: critical animal studies, history of veterinary medicine, and history of labor. AnimalFarm ultimately explores the historical roots of a controversial phenomenon of the Anthropocene, and it fosters an alternative gaze on the spatial, material, and ethical implications of the human-animal relationship through time.

Mots-clés : livestock,rural and industrial architecture,critical animal studies,history of veterinary medicine and zootechnics,history of labor,animal history
Projet ERC : SHADES (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Studies of Cultures and Arts
Entité participante : École normale supérieure de Pise — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 50000.0 €

Colour in art is more than mere decoration; it is a vital element of human expression and cultural heritage. Polychrome artworks offer profound insights into historical practices, societal values, and technological advancements across different cultures. Yet, these colours are highly susceptible to deterioration, particularly when exposed to light. Photo-degradation is a complex process and remains unpredictable today, causing irreversible changes that result in fading and alteration of hues. This not only compromises the aesthetic and material integrity of the artefacts but also impedes our ability to fully comprehend the artist’s original vision and poses significant challenges for preserving these invaluable treasures. SHADES introduces an innovative method for detecting and predicting colour fading before it becomes visible to the naked eye. This approach utilises Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) to capture lifetime signal shifts, allowing us to address the inherent unpredictability of photo-degradation. By analysing mock-ups created with traditional recipes for common polychrome layers (binder, dye, and varnish) and subjecting them to controlled exposure to mono- and polychromatic light, we aim to: i) identify the unique 'fingerprint' of each material; ii) monitor signal shifts indicative of photo-degradation; and iii) develop a predictive model to detect colour changes before they are perceptible. By integrating various disciplines, SHADES is set to revolutionise the field of material degradation and conservation. The project will yield accurate predictive models and advanced techniques for preserving polychrome artworks, addressing colour fading before it becomes visible. Its impact extends beyond conservation and restoration, influencing museum exhibitions where light management is critical and advancing material science, ensuring the enduring vibrancy and historical integrity of these priceless artworks.

Mots-clés : polychrome artworks fluorescence lifetime colour fading heritage science conservation science organic dyes organic binders
Projet ERC : SOC-MISC (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et du bien-être — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : THL
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 21646.25 €

One in four women experience a miscarriage. Loss of pregnancy may affect fertility intentions and lead to adverse mental and physical health. Yet, we know little about how social inequalities affect the risk of miscarriage; how miscarriages may exacerbate existing social inequalities in population health; or how context shapes these experiences. One reason for this is poor quality of data, as miscarriages are often either underreported in surveys or only included in health registers if they require hospital care. Moreover, to date, sexual and reproductive health has often been ignored in life course epidemiology.  This proposal goes beyond the state-of-the-art by being the first comprehensive study of the patterns of social inequality in miscarriage and its outcomes. It reaches this goal by assessing the patterns of miscarriage underreporting in surveys before obtaining its estimates. It will make ground-breaking contributions by:  1) Analysing underreporting patterns of miscarriage and using this in further analyses to obtain more reliable results than before. 2) Showing how individual and family-level social inequalities affect miscarriage risk over the life course. 3) Establishing how mental and physical health consequences of miscarriage depend on one’s social background and may widen social inequalities in health. 4) Uncovering the role of national and sub-national context in social inequalities in miscarriage.  Unlike many previous studies based on small and outdated samples, I use longitudinal population registers and large representative surveys in Finland, France and the UK that are exceptionally rich in miscarriage, socioeconomic, other reproductive and health data, and can be triangulated to obtain more reliable results.  The project will lead to a significantly better understanding of a common reproductive experience affecting mental and physical wellbeing, and can help policy makers improve reproductive and population health.

Mots-clés : miscarriage,sexual and reproductive health,social demography,sociology,social epidemiology,pregnancy,social inequalities in health
Projet ERC : ExBHGravRad (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Université de Leipzig — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1497500.0 €

The Einstein equations constitute a system of geometric, nonlinear partial differential equations that describe gravitational dynamics in the framework of Einstein's theory of general relativity. The last decade has seen tremendous progress towards understanding dynamical aspects of the Einstein equations. At the mathematical level, great insight has been gained due to recent advances in the study of partial differential equations, differential geometry and microlocal analysis. The present proposal builds upon these advances in the context of the following two mathematical problems.  Stability and instability of extremal black holes: Extremal Kerr black holes describe rapidly rotating solutions to the Einstein equations. They sit at the transition between black holes and "naked singularities" and exhibit critical geometric features.  This proposal addresses the stability and instability properties of extremal Kerr black holes and is motivated by recent advances by the PI, which cover linear and nonlinear aspects. A successful resolution would give fundamental, new insights into the fate of perturbed extremal black holes and the transition between black holes and naked singularities.  The late-time analysis of gravitational radiation: Gravitational radiation provides an observational window into deep mathematical aspects of general relativity. In this proposal, we investigate a key feature that is amenable to mathematical analysis: the existence of late-time tails in gravitational radiation.  Recent work by the PI and collaborators has lead to the first proof of the existence of late-time tails in a toy model setting, also known as Price's Law. This proposal considers the full setting of the nonlinear Einstein equations via the analysis of late-time tails in the dynamics of perturbations of both flat spacetime and black hole spacetimes. A successful resolution would have important implications for the Strong Cosmic Censorship conjecture.
Projet ERC : HIGMAM (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université technique de Rhénanie-Westphalie à Aix-la-Chapelle — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1433381.0 €

Over the last decade, the steadily increasing research on gradient-structured metals and alloys has demonstrated great successes of this biological and nature-inspired concept to evade the strength-ductility trade-off dictating in regu-lar engineering materials. However, given the intrinsic limitations of conventional manufacturing methods, the currently engineered structural gradient materials are all featuring a linear pattern, usually from exterior to interior, with only simple structures of grain sizes, twin spaces, lamellae spaces, or combinations. A recent preliminary study of my research team accidentally discovered that additive manufacturing could produce periodic and 3D gradient microstructures with not only simple microstructure features, but also hierarchical ones, from grain size to sub-grain boundaries and even lattice distortions. The hierarchical gradient microstructure keeps the same level of high strength but doubles the failure strain compared to the conventional microstructures. This inspires us to systematically investigate the possibilities and boundaries of these new hierarchical gradient microstructures by additive manufacturing. Due to its extreme complexity across multiple scales and physics laws in correlating process, microstructure, and property of such new materials, we aim to develop a systematic approach for designing hierarchical gradient microstructures by using design of experiments, in-depth and multiscale characterization methods, multiphysics and multiscale numerical models, and data informatics. The intelligent integration of the physics-based and data-driven models will eventually boost the dimensionality, efficiency, and accuracy of the modeling approach for the design of the complicated hierarchical gradient microstructure in 3D. It will provide a powerful, digital and sustainable way for the design of new materials and/or processes and evaluation of material performance.

Mots-clés : plastic deformation,anisotropy,damage,fracture,multiscale modeling,gradient microstructures,strength ductility trade off