Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : UltiMatePV (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : EPFL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3329173.0 €

The transition towards a society powered by 100% renewable energy necessitates the widespread de-ployment of photovoltaics. This poses a challenge due to the limited availability of resources and space. To address this, breakthrough technologies that consume fewer resources and achieve higher conversion efficiencies than the dominant silicon technology are required. The overarching goal of UltiMatePV is to re-invent the modern solar cell and open the gate to a new generation of resource-saving photovoltaic technology with highest conversion efficiencies. Enabling light-trapping beyond the Lambertian limit, based on schemes such as multi-resonant photonics, will allow for the realiza-tion of higher efficiency solar cells with typically 10x less use of semiconductor materials and thus reduce the required resources tremendously. This strongly reduced device thickness will also lead to confinement of the photo-generated charge carriers. The resulting increase of the carrier concentration will open the door for the realization of the worldwide first efficient hot-carrier cell, in which most of the carriers can be extracted before they thermalize. A new generation of devices based on the three currently relevant types of semiconductor absorbers (Si, III-V, perovskite) will be researched, account-ing for, e.g., the new requirements in terms of compatibility with resonant optical structures and ultra-low interface defect density. The unique complementary consortium of experimental, theoretical and modelling teams will overcome the Shockley Queisser limit for single junction solar cells with both ultrathin multi-junction and hot-carrier solar cells, enabling the first experimental proof of effects pre-dicted theoretically. We aim for a solar cell with an efficiency of 40%, requiring 10 times less semi-conductor material than classical devices, while paving the way to a broader range of other optoelec-tronic devices.

Mots-clés : photovoltaics,ultrathin photonics,perovskite,hot carrier
Projet ERC : OPEN-2QS (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Stockholm — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3509475.0 €

OPEN-2QS aims to deliver a disruptive change in our capabilities of analog quantum simulation of open 2D many-body systems. For the first time, this will allow us to investigate quantum matter with competing coherent and dissipative processes over extremely long times - a regime that is inaccessible by current technology. This will open a new window for the discovery of emergent dynamical phenomena and states of matter, such as quantum glasses. As any system in Nature eventually couples to an environment, and thus is open, the research program of OPEN-2QS will deliver foundations and concepts whose relevance extends to chemistry, biology and information processing, thereby also forming a basis of future technological innovation. OPEN-2QS’ ambition to redefine the state-of-the-art of open system quantum simulation will be achieved by employing ion crystals, forming two-dimensional geometries, which host >100 individually addressable and mutually coupled particles. Strong state-dependent tunable dipolar Rydberg interactions will allow for a full control over the build-up of quantum correlations in 2D geometries. Vibrational phonon quantum degrees of freedom will enable the engineering of irreversible dissipative processes. The ensuing complex dissipative dynamics will be stabilized over thousands of dissipation cycles via coherence-preserving in-situ optical cooling. Monitoring quantum trajectories under dissipative dynamics and an unprecedented access to reservoir correlation functions will enable the investigation of collective relaxation behavior and exotic forms of matter. We will study the impact of quantum effects on phase transitions, explore correlated dynamics in quantum glasses, test fundamental principles of quantum thermodynamics, and advance numerical algorithms through a close theory-experiment interplay. To achieve these goals, we have gathered a world-wide unique team of pioneers in trapped ions, Rydberg physics and quantum non-equilibrium theory.

Mots-clés : trapped ions,open quantum systems,phase transitions,rydberg states
Projet ERC : STARMORPH (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Institute of Experimental Botany — Pays : Rép. Tchèque — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ÚEB AV ČR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499596.0 €

STARMORPH is a ground-breaking endeavour with the ambitious goal of understanding plant organ morphogenesis, which will pave the way to engineering plant growth. This is of paramount importance for enhancing agricultural and forestry yields and hence contributing to global food security and environmental sustainability. Plant organ morphogenesis involves differential growth, where various organ parts expand at different rates to create specific structures. A significant challenge lies in understanding these differential growth programs while considering the mechanical constraints imposed by the tissues. The plant hormone auxin plays a central role in differential growth. It forms concentration gradients within tissues, dictating the direction and rate of cell expansion. Mechanistically, auxin can either repress or promote growth in a tissue and concentration-dependent manner, but this biphasic behaviour remains largely unexplained. The extracellular space, cytosol, and nucleus have distinct auxin perception mechanisms and hence STARMORPH pitches an "auxin signature" concept, considering nuanced auxin levels in each compartment specifying an ensemble signal with quantitative and qualitative cell responses for morphogenesis. Currently, auxin subcellular compartmentalisation is poorly understood, and a key focus of the project is to provide a subcellular map of auxin dynamics within a growing organ to uncover how tissue mechanics interact with auxin-dependent growth processes, which will be pivotal for understanding plant morphogenesis. The STARMORPH project leverages a unique combination of plant, cell and synthetic biology, genetics, biophysics and organic chemistry expertise. This interdisciplinary collaboration aims to dissect plant morphogenesis from molecular to organ scales and has the potential to revolutionise our understanding of plant growth and development, with applications in biotechnology and plant engineering.

Mots-clés : morphogenesis,plants,auxin signature,cell wall,mechanochemical constraints,organelles,multiscale biology,hormone quantification,biosensor engineering,developmental plasticity,differential growth,signal integration,apical hook,interdisciplinary
Projet ERC : GERACLE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Universität für Bodenkultur. Vienne — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2638603.75 €

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field, which forms an important shield for our habitat, drops dramatically during geomagnetic excursions and reversals (termed GERs). The Laschamps excursion (~41 000 years ago) occurred during profound climatic changes, possibly leading to drastic effects on the biosphere. While impacts of GERs on the atmosphere can be expected, the magnitude, time scales, and even the direction/sign of effects on our habitat are unknown. The significantly weakened magnetic field shrinks the magnetosphere, enhancing energetic particle fluxes from outer space to the middle and lower atmosphere and even ground. The impact of GERs on the energetic particle precipitation from the magnetosphere is also unknown. The dynamics of near-Earth space and the atmosphere during GERs and their potential impacts have not yet been addressed in full complexity, due to a lack of reliable data, precise models and interdisciplinary approaches. We will unravel key dynamics and connect physical processes during GERs and establish their environmental consequences by synergistically bringing together expertise from palaeomagnetism, magnetospheric, solar, heliospheric, atmospheric physics and climate. We will combine new data-based geomagnetic field models with state-of-the-art magnetospheric, atmospheric, and global Earth-system models for a complete process view. Expected breakthroughs will include new knowledge on the very existence and structure of the magnetosphere and radiation belts, radiation fields and ionization patterns in the atmosphere, and induced physical, chemical and dynamical effects and climate responses during GERs. Further emphasis will be put on potential hazards for our technological society during a potential future GER. GERACLE will go far beyond the current state–of–the–art, provide ground-breaking advances, and form a new paradigm of the consequences of past and yet unexplored GER events for our habitat and the impacts of possible future GERs.

Mots-clés : solar terrestrial relations magnetospheric physics
Projet ERC : MiniLife (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Groningue — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : RUG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 3402136.25 €

The de novo creation of living systems is a long-standing dream of humanity. To realise this dream, we need a clear conceptualisation of the goal and the experimental means to put it to practice. We think now, time is ripe to make a serious attempt. There is emerging consensus that a minimal living system should be out-of-equilibrium and self-sustaining, have metabolism, an inheritance system, a boundary to keep the constituents together and that a population of such systems should be able to undergo Darwinian evolution. The aim of this proposal is to develop, for the first time, synthetic chemical systems with all of these features. Due to its very nature MiniLife is standing on two, equally strong feet: chemistry and biology. The strongest link between them is autocatalysis, which allows reproduction. Our approach to creating the first artificial chemical living system takes the following steps: (1) Identification of new, and development of existing, autocatalytic (super)systems that function as chemical (and informational) replicators. (2) Coupling of metabolism with chemical replicators. (3) Coupling of autocatalysis to compartment growth and division. (4) Synthesis of a chemical supersystem comprising all three components (replication, metabolism and compartmentalisation). (5) Demonstrating minimal Darwinian evolution upon subjecting the systems synthesized in 1-3 to out-of-equilibrium selection regimes. (6) Approaching a minimal living system by enhancing of the evolvability of the triple systems developed in 4. We have assembled a strong consortium that brings together PIs of previous ERC Advanced Grants in three key areas to be integrated: Ashkenasy and Otto bring expertise in synthetic chemical self-replicating systems; Griffiths brings expertise on compartmentalisation using microfluidics, and Szathmáry is a leading expert on theory of replicator evolution and computational modelling. Success would constitute a landmark achievement in basic science.

Mots-clés : systems chemistry evolvability autocatalysis infrabiological systems microfluidics error threshold reaction network
Projet ERC : T-SECTOR (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université Harvard — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1601165.0 €

A central problem of understanding the Earth system is quantifying climate-solid Earth feedback that requires time-series studies. One important time series is the climate (sea level) record that shows transitions between ice ages and warm periods for the last millions of years, involving vast mass transfer between continents (ice load) and oceans. Volcanism is sensitive to such pressure changes, but its response to glacial cycles is largely unknown for the global mid-ocean-ridge (MOR) system, where 80% of Earth’s volcanism occurs. Models of MOR response to sealevel fluctuations predict changes in crustal thickness, chemistry of lavas and hydrothermal activity. Establishing high-resolution time series on MORs, however, has previously not been possible, because the sea floor is rapidly covered by sediment as it moves away from the MOR and thus cannot be directly sampled. Recent studies, however, show MOR eruptions deposit samples of lava as glass on nearby sediments for up to 100 ka. These carbonate-rich sediments can be precisely dated by oxygen isotope stratigraphy and provide an archive of ridge eruptions (glasses) and hydrothermal activity (trace metals) in the sediments that can be sampled by gravity coring. Through closely spaced new cores to be retrieved during multiple research cruises, a high-resolution time series of volcanism and hydrothermal activity can be achieved and directly linked to the climate record, whereas seismic techniques can be used to determine variations in crustal thickness over time. We propose to obtain integrated data sets for all these processes from slow, intermediate and fast spreading ridge segments over the past 1.5 Ma in unprecedented detail. The results of these glass, sediment and crustal thickness time series will allow us to unequivocally test the influence of glacial cycles on MOR processes and will provide the first high-resolution time series of ocean ridge magmatism, opening up a new frontier of scientific exploration.

Mots-clés : paleoceanography,hydrothermalism
Projet ERC : CircuitEvolution (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université Rockefeller — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 721750.0 €

Animals display remarkable diversity in their behaviors, yet very little is known about how nervous systems evolve to generate such variation. CircuitEvolution will answer two fundamental questions: 1. How does brain wiring change across species as novel behavioral traits evolve? 2. What core features of brain circuits are deeply conserved across species? We will use electron microscopy connectomics, the only method that enables unbiased, brain-wide structural analysis of the synaptic connectivity between all neurons. Building on recent rapid progress in Drosophila melanogaster, the frontier of whole brain connectomics, we will target drosophilids at a strategically selected range of evolutionary divergences. Two PIs (Cardona, Jefferis) are pioneers in Drosophila connectomics, and our third PI (Ruta) and collaborators (Prieto-Godino, Benton) have pioneered molecular genetic investigation of behavioral and circuit evolution across drosophilids. Crucially, with our fourth PI (statistical physicist, Sales Pardo), we will identify conserved and divergent neurons and circuits across increasingly distant species, developing new inference methods for connectome alignment, simplification, and neuron annotation. Working together on this project we can develop a new field of whole-brain comparative connectomics. With cutting edge technology, we will obtain and share multiple connectomes for 7 species. These unique datasets will allow comparisons across species, sexes and developmental stages and support three areas of biological investigation within this grant: olfactory circuits, courtship behavior and the conserved core of the insect brain. This will generate many hypotheses that will be tested experimentally by the PIs, collaborators and laboratories worldwide. The insights and methods will have a major impact on understanding conserved and evolving circuit function across phyla all the way to mammalian brains and impact the design of artificial intelligence systems.

Mots-clés : connectomics,neuronal evolution,neural circuits,drosophila,olfaction,sexual dimorphism,network analysis
Projet ERC : CODICUM (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : National Archives of Sweden — Pays : Suède — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : RA
Type d'entité : Organismes publics (hors enseignement & recherche)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1801812.5 €

Medieval books were instrumental in shaping European history, communicating rituals, stories and ideas as they were read, copied and shared. To modern scholars they illuminate trade, craft, religious, social and intellectual networks. Less than 10% of the European corpus survives, and in Scandinavia the situation is far worse. However, by historical accident a very high number of Latin fragments – c. 50.000 – from these precious books have been preserved. CODICUM will study and analyse the Nordic book fragments as sources to medieval book culture and its networks. While parchment fragments are found throughout Europe, the numbers and the randomness of their survival in the Nordic countries lend them a special significance. The time is now ripe for interrogating this promising material as one unique European archive by combining approaches from the humanities and the sciences. How was Scandinavia included in different intellectual networks and how did these networks evolve and overlap? How was book production adapted to the limited resources of the north? What can this cross-national archive teach us about curating textual heritage in the long term? CODICUM is led by PIs from four different fields – palaeography, literature, history, and bio-codicology. This unique blending of research expertise enables an innovative synergy which will expand the perspective of European book history c. 1000-1500, reconnect fragments to each other and digitally ‘reassemble’ medieval books, explore the craftsmanship associated with book production, reveal the relationships between the transmitted manuscripts material and illuminate the international networks linking Northern Europe. Researching medieval book culture on an unprecedented scale, CODICUM will seek to resituate our understanding of the book in shaping the Nordic region and connecting the region to the rest of Europe thereby pushing the poorly known Nordic fragment archive into the fore of European book-historical research.

Mots-clés : parchment,bio codicology,ecclesiastical history,monastic history,crafts,scandinavia
Projet ERC : MEDGREENREV (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université de Grenade — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1798983.75 €

As Mediterranean societies prepare for the impacts of climate change over the next few decades, a case study to inform their future resilience is associated with one of the defining events in world history: the emergence of Islam in the 7th century, the subsequent Arab (and later Berber) conquests of the southern and western Mediterranean, their associated population movements and the environmental adaptations that enabled these new societies to flourish. The introduction of new forms of agriculture that transformed the economies of the conquered regions has been previously framed as the “Green Revolution”. Moving beyond the limited focus of earlier research, with its restricted spatial and chronological scope, this project will adopt an integrated ecological approach, encompassing plants, animals and soils, from production through to consumption, and compare the impact and legacy of environmental transformations associated with long-term societal change in the western Mediterranean (Iberia and Morocco), beyond the initial Arab/Berber conquests. Adopting a broader chronological span, from the century before the conquests through to the century after the dissolution of the last Islamic polity in Iberia, the transition from Islamic to Christian regimes in Iberia will be compared, for the first time, with the persistence of Islamic polities in northwest Africa, against the backdrop of climatic fluctuations. This will enable relationships between environmental transformations and sequences of political and demographic change to be effectively contextualised. The synergy between our groups will combine regional specialisms with a wealth of scientific expertise, enabling us to conduct the first long-term and inter-regional study of how conquest, migration and encounters with resident populations and landscapes drove environmental transformation in the western Mediterranean during this formative period in world history.

Mots-clés : geoarchaeology,zooarchaeology,archaeobotany,palynology,gis,multiculturalism,state formation,mediterranean,iberia,north africa,longue dur e,arab conquest,medieval green revolution
Projet ERC : ALCEMIST (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Université nouvelle de Lisbonne — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UNL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2336961.0 €

ALCEMIST challenges the conventional engineering mindset where passive static components (beams, wires, joints) are driven by active dynamic ones (motors, dampers, sensors); our innovative materials enable the combined functionality in a single component. This bold ambition is feasible because our research will unlock the full potential of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), unique responsive materials that reversibly change shape, colour, adhesive or damping properties, triggered by stimuli like heat, light, humidity or strain. We propose a radically new sustainable materials platform based on polysaccharides, functionalising precursors such that anyone-using click chemistry-can make LCEs that are powerful yet biocompatible and biodegradable, at one tenth of the cost of state-of-the-art LCEs. Further, using bond-exchange chemistry, ALCEMIST LCEs will be re-processable and re-usable. We also present a ground-breaking processing approach based on flow patterning to make large-scale LCEs of complex shapes and actuation modes. The synergy of three perfectly complementary and highly productive scientists, each a recognised leader in their field, enables this transformative approach to making atypical LCEs. As all our methods are ideal for industrial upscaling, we will also demonstrate the yet untapped potential of LCEs when they are applied in atypical contexts, totally different from the current mainstream academic focus. These range from adhesives that can be reversibly debonded on demand or sun-powered adaptive building elements which save energy and improve indoor atmosphere, to microhearts and peristaltic vasculature that can remove the growth limits of lab-grown organs, or smart threads that give doctors critical feedback on suture tension when conducting robotic surgery. By overthrowing multiple conventions in the ways LCEs are synthesised, studied and engineered, ALCEMIST will enable and stimulate new lines of research, basic and applied, across large communities.

Mots-clés : liquid crystals,liquid crystal elastomers,cellulose chemistry and physics