Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : RUSINFORM (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Passau — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999535.0 €

Over the past decade, Russia’s ruling elites have massively stepped up their efforts to influ-ence media audiences abroad. Amongst others, Russia has been alleged to have sought to sway votes in Austria, France, Germany, Ukraine, and the US. This project’s overarching research ques-tion is: How, and with what consequences, have new Internet-based technologies contributed to the emergence of novel resources, techniques, and processes by which political elites in Moscow can influence media audiences abroad? In order to address this question, a theoretical work package (WP4) will undertake the first major systematic effort to interrogate how much, or how little, we can leverage extant in-depth knowledge of former-Soviet foreign propaganda, conducted in the broadcast era, in order to make sense of Russia’s recent digitally-enabled efforts. WP4 will be informed by three empirical WPs. They will scrutinize three heavily digitally-enabled elements of Russia’s recent efforts: • WP1 will conduct a comprehensive in-depth study of foreign active online audiences and other co-creators of Russia-related content. • WP2 will produce pioneering research about how social media platforms function as key transmission channels that connect Russia’s domestic media with Russian-speaking audiences abroad. • WP3 will be the first study to scrutinize the role of the Kremlin-controlled search engine Yan-dex as a resource of foreign influence. Methodologically, WP1-3 are highly innovative because they combine new computational methods (data mining, automated text analysis) with traditional methods (surveys, in-depth inter-views, grounded theory). In response to Russia’s recent efforts, countermeasures have been ushered in by a plurality of actors, including the EU, NATO, and NGOs. These actors will benefit immensely from the knowledge generated, which will enable them to enhance their initiatives to secure democratic elec-toral processes against undue informational interference.

Mots-clés : political communication,international,foreign communication,comment sections,participatory journalism,counterpublic theory,russian area studies,computational methods,qualitative methods
Projet ERC : Mars through time (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Sorbonne Université — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Sorbonne U
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 110327.25 €

Over the past decades, the robotic exploration of the planet Mars has produced a wealth of geological observations. They show that Mars has not always been the desert planet of today. It has seen eras conducive to rivers and lakes, ice ages, and even periods with a collapsed atmosphere. These different epochs are the reason why Mars remains the objective of space agencies, as they evoke the possibility of past habitability and spectacular climate changes. Yet, in spite of all the data, the climatic processes that have shaped Mars’ surface through time remain largely unknown. What happened on Mars? Was the Red Planet suitable for life? What explains its evolution? The objective of this project is to develop numerical models to simulate the past environments of Mars.A completely new “Mars Evolution Model” will be created by asynchronously coupling hydrology, glacial flows and ground ice models with a new generation 3D Global Climate Model (GCM). This GCM will be derived from the one that we have previously designed to simulate present day Mars. We will radically update it using new technologies to represent the details of the surface as well as all the processes that affected Mars when its environment evolved because of the oscillations of its orbit and obliquity, during changes in the atmospheric composition, or through events like meteoritic impacts or volcanic eruptions. Notably, we will highlight the last ten millions years that have been recorded in the polar layered deposits, whose formation will be simulated for the first time realistically. These new tools will address numerous enigmas found in Mars sciences. They will also offer a new platform to study specific processes such as the atmospheric escape through time or the chemical alteration of the soil. Furthermore, the project will test our capacity to model planetary environments and climate changes, as well as provide lessons on the evolution of terrestrial planets and the possibility of life elsewhere.

Mots-clés : climate modelling  paleoclimates  planet mars
Projet ERC : PhoMEC (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

Over the past ten years the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements (LPQM) has developed and pioneered microcombs – photonic integrated optical frequency combs (OFC), providing access to equidistant optical carriers. Due to their broad bandwidth, high repetition rates, compactness and wafer-scale fabrication, such microcombs represent a novel disruptive technology with a proven track record. While their advantages were shown in ultrafast ranging (LIDAR), high-speed coherent telecommunications, as well as chip-scale atomic clocks and frequency synthesizers, the technology is not yet commercially available and only present in a few research laboratories worldwide. Recent LPQM advances have led to the development of unique proprietary Si3N4 microfabrication processes for ultra-low-power microcombs, and allowed in-house photonic packaging. Taken together the laboratory is now able to implement full-cycle production of a packaged microcomb ready for the integration into a commercial product. We aim to bring the technology to the market by building and promoting a rack-mountable microcomb unit with 100 GHz channel spacing matching the ITU frequency grid over C- and L- telecom bands. The key market segments of the proposed microcomb unit are enterprise and edge data centers, facing growing data traffic and requiring WDM sources for high-speed interconnects. The product will be tested in collaboration with Microsoft UK in an actual data center application as a WDM source for optical circuit switching. We also plan to showcase the technology to Huawei and Nokia Bell Labs who expressed interest in testing. Beyond field-testing with industry partners, the system will be shown at international industry trade fairs to address key stakeholders. The project aims to incorporate a dedicated startup to exploit the technologies. The IP position that EPFL has developed in microcombs and the recent spin-off LIGENTEC that offer SiN foundry service, make this endeavor realistic.

Mots-clés : optical frequency combs,integrated photonics,data centers
Projet ERC : DiCED (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Yougov plc — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Organismes privés (hors enseignement)
Financement ERC de l'entité : 791475.0 €

Overview: This project will set a new agenda and direction for the study of political campaigns. It will examine whether and how new digital technologies are transforming election campaigns and citizen behaviour in new and established democracies. More specifically, it will assess claims that democracies are now entering a new data-driven era of political campaigning that is profoundly reconfiguring how campaigns’ are run, who runs them and their implications for the quality of voter decision-making, the vibrancy of political parties and ultimately, the future of representative democracy. It will do so in three main stages: (1) First, it will define what data-driven campaigning is and critically assess whether it forms new and distinct era of electioneering in conceptual and historical terms? In particular, it will argue that the two key traits of this new mode of campaigning are the increased individualization or micro-targeting of party messages and the automated use of misinformation to mobilize and persuade voters. (2) Based on this definition it will map the ‘supply’ of the new mode of campaigning across new and older democracies by designing an innovative new index to compare use of data-driven techniques by parties. Where is it most commonly seen and why are some parties and countries more likely to promote its growth? (3) Finally, it will assess the impact of these new methods on key political actors and assess the consequences for the longer term future of liberal democracy. Does use of these techniques help counter recent declines in voter turnout by identifying under-mobilized groups? Or, do they ensure parties focus on the already engaged, bypassing those that are harder to reach? Can data-driven campaigning improve citizen choices by giving them the information on the issues they primarily care about or does it help to increase disinformation and even manipulation of voter choices?

Mots-clés : digital campaigns,data driven,big data,elections,machine learning,artificial intelligence,fake news,voting,political behaviour,polarisation,knowledge gap
Projet ERC : HepatoMetaboPath (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Helmholtz Zentrum München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : HMGU
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 487150.0 €

Overweight and metabolic syndrome are reaching pandemic dimensions in industrialized countries and are rising in developing countries. Clinically these diseases can manifest in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most frequent liver disease world-wide. A significant number of NAFLD patients develop non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), making NASH-driven HCC the most rapidly increasing cancer in the USA, with a similar trend in Europe. While HCC is the second most common cause of cancer related death, the mechanisms triggering NASH and subsequent HCC are poorly understood and efficacious therapies are lacking. My group has strong expertise in inflammation-driven HCC (e.g. by Hepatitis B, C viruses). Recently, we have established a mouse model of NASH-driven HCC recapitulating human pathology in the context of metabolic syndrome. We demonstrated for the first time that CD8+ T- and natural killer T (NKT)-cells become activated during metabolic syndrome, cross-talk with hepatocytes and alter hepatic lipid metabolism causing NASH and HCC. We found an identical profile of CD8+T and NKT-cell activation in human NASH underlining the clinical relevance of our model. As the mechanisms of immune cell activation in NASH and transition to HCC remain unknown, this research proposal aims to (1) Identify the priming cell types in metabolic CD8+ T-, NKT-cell activation and the molecular mechanisms of immune cell-hepatocyte crosstalk. (2) Determine the role of antigen recognition and danger- or pathogen-associated molecular patterns in NASH/HCC. (3) Identify the environmental and genetic determinants of NASH to HCC transition. Our findings will enhance the understanding of NASH and HCC development by identifying the underlying mechanisms of immune cell activation. We will identify genetic changes facilitating NASH to HCC transition and whether metabolic normalization of former NASH patients suffices to significantly reduce HCC.

Mots-clés : obesity,nash,metabolic syndrome,immune cell activation
Projet ERC : FRESCO (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2977037.5 €

Oxide compounds are usually highly ionic, with metal and oxygen ions carrying large positive and negative point charges. When inversion symmetry is broken as in ferroelectrics or at surfaces or interfaces, oxides can thus harbour large electric fields. This unleashes a quantum phenomenon known as the Rashba spin-orbit coupling that allows the generation of spin currents from charge currents and vice versa without ferromagnets, circumventing their drawbacks to perform these tasks. In the FRESCO project, we will combine the advantages of Rashba-driven spin-orbitronics phenomena with the ultralow switching energy of ferroelectrics. Building upon our demonstrations of giant spin-charge conversion at polar oxide interfaces and of non-volatile electoresistance in ferroelectric tunnel junctions, we will aim at a non-volatile electrical control of interconverted spin and charge currents in materials systems combining Rashba spin-orbit coupling with ferroelectricity. Guided by first-principles calculations, we will design and explore several families of atomically engineered polar heterostructures combining oxides and transition metal compounds. We will assess their spin-charge interconversion efficiency, its controllability by electric fields and its connection with the energy dependent spin Berry curvature. We will harness this controllability in spin-based non-volatile logic architectures operating through ferroelectricity-controlled spin-charge conversion. Building upon this, we will propose and explore several classes of devices including light-activated sources of spin currents based on photoferroelectricity, reconfigurable non-volatile logic gates, and tuneable THz sources and modulators. FRESCO will pioneer a new approach to generate spin currents and manipulate the static (or dynamic) magnetic states by electric fields beyond conventional magnetoelectricity, but retaining its advantageous low operating power, with a view towards attojoule electronics.

Mots-clés : ferroelectricity,rashba effect,spin orbit coupling
Projet ERC : PhotoRedesign (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499900.0 €

Oxygenic photosynthesis uses the energy of sunlight to generate the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat, but the vast majority of the received solar energy is not converted to biomass. Enhancing photosynthesis to improve the production of food, energy and high value compounds is a compellingly important challenge that has not been taken up yet, because it requires the modification and exchange of large ensembles of interacting photosynthesis components from different organisms. For the first time, we will undertake the comprehensive redesign of photosynthesis to enhance its capacity to harvest and safely convert solar energy. To achieve this, we combine in our team unique and complementary expertise in genetics, biochemistry and biophysics in the full range of bacterial and plant photosynthetic organisms. We will combine genetic engineering with new approaches from synthetic biology and adaptive evolution to create a novel enhanced variant of photosynthesis in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis as chassis. The ground-breaking overall objective is to combine photosystems from different photoautotrophic organisms, including de novo-designed antennas in reimagined photosystems. By employing a multidisciplinary approach for combining different natural and de novo-designed photosynthesis modules in one adaptable bacterial chassis with the goal to create a novel enhanced type of photosynthesis, PhotoRedesign goes far beyond conventional applied and fundamental photosynthesis research. PhotoRedesign will establish new model systems and toolkits for the next generation of photosynthesis researchers, and it develops a novel concept for modifying complex processes, hitherto considered to be immutable. In consequence, PhotoRedesign will advance photosynthesis research and create the basis for improving the productivity of economically-relevant photosynthetic organisms.

Mots-clés : photosynthesis,light reactions
Projet ERC : PhotoRedesign (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : University of Sheffield — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2498068.0 €

Oxygenic photosynthesis uses the energy of sunlight to generate the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat, but the vast majority of the received solar energy is not converted to biomass. Enhancing photosynthesis to improve the production of food, energy and high value compounds is a compellingly important challenge that has not been taken up yet, because it requires the modification and exchange of large ensembles of interacting photosynthesis components from different organisms. For the first time, we will undertake the comprehensive redesign of photosynthesis to enhance its capacity to harvest and safely convert solar energy. To achieve this, we combine in our team unique and complementary expertise in genetics, biochemistry and biophysics in the full range of bacterial and plant photosynthetic organisms. We will combine genetic engineering with new approaches from synthetic biology and adaptive evolution to create a novel enhanced variant of photosynthesis in the model cyanobacterium Synechocystis as chassis. The ground-breaking overall objective is to combine photosystems from different photoautotrophic organisms, including de novo-designed antennas in reimagined photosystems. By employing a multidisciplinary approach for combining different natural and de novo-designed photosynthesis modules in one adaptable bacterial chassis with the goal to create a novel enhanced type of photosynthesis, PhotoRedesign goes far beyond conventional applied and fundamental photosynthesis research. PhotoRedesign will establish new model systems and toolkits for the next generation of photosynthesis researchers, and it develops a novel concept for modifying complex processes, hitherto considered to be immutable. In consequence, PhotoRedesign will advance photosynthesis research and create the basis for improving the productivity of economically-relevant photosynthetic organisms.

Mots-clés : photosynthesis,light reactions
Projet ERC : PAThs (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Sapienza University of Rome — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2192507.0 €

PAThs aims to provide an in-depth diachronical understanding and effective representation of the geography of Coptic literary production, which is the corpus of writings, almost exclusively of religious contents, produced in Egypt between the 3rd and the 11th centuries in the Coptic language. PAThs takes an original and pluridisciplinary approach, combining, for the first time in this field, philology, codicology, archaeology and digital humanities, in order to explore the process of production, copying, usage, dissemination, and storage of Coptic works in relation to the concrete geographical contexts of origin of both the texts themselves and their related writing supports. By analysing texts and contents, paratexts (titles and colophons) and linguistic layers (style and dialects), the literary products will be strictly related not only to the places where they have been copied, but also to the single intellectual milieux responsible for their creation. Cultural orientations and literary tastes in specific areas of Egypt will be singled out, while changes in the manufacture of codices will emerge, in a manuscript tradition that offers the oldest witnesses for the use of codex. An exhaustive digital atlas of late antique and early medieval Egypt will be produced, based upon an interactive, flexible and versatile tool that will allow detailed and focused research and correlation of chronological, regional and thematic data. This will illustrate, as never before, the relationship between settlements, as revealed by the archaeological investigations, and intellectual production, as revealed by manuscripts, and will provide a new comprehensive perspective on the spread and development of Coptic literature and manuscript culture. A portal will integrate the atlas with several by-products, consisting of databases for collecting information on authors, works, manuscripts, and sites: an altogether new achievement in Coptic studies.

Mots-clés : christian egypt,coptic literature,coptic archaeology,digital humanities applied to archaeology and philology
Projet ERC : PCPHDX (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer science and informatics
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1512035.0 €

PCPs capture a striking local to global phenomenon in which a global object such as an NP witness can be checked using local constraints, and its correctness is guaranteed even if only a fraction of the constraints are satisfied. PCPs are tightly related to hardness of approximation. The relation is essentially due to the fact that exact optimization problems can be reduced to their approximation counterparts through this local to global connection. We view this local to global connection is a type of high dimensional expansion, akin to relatively new notions of high dimensional expansion (such as coboundary and cosystolic expansion) that have been introduced in the literature recently. We propose to study PCPs and high dimensional expansion together. We describe a concrete notion of “agreement expansion” and propose a systematic study of this question. We show how progress on agreement expansion questions is directly related to some of the most important open questions in PCPs such as the unique games conjecture, and the problem of constructing linear size PCPs. We also propose to study the phenomenon of high dimensional expansion more broadly and to investigate its relation and applicability to questions in computational complexity that go beyond PCPs, in particular for hardness amplification and for derandomizing direct product constructions.

Mots-clés : probabilistically checkable proofs  pcps,hardness of approximation,computational complexity,error correcting codes,high dimensional expanders,local testability