Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : SOCLIM (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1560089.0 €

Progress towards more useful and accurate weather and climate predictions requires identifying predictability sources, as well as constraining the circulation response to climate change. While the stratosphere plays a key role in these aspects, efforts have largely focused on dynamical aspects, disregarding its chemical composition. Ozone and water vapour largely determine the stratospheric chemical composition, but also protect the biosphere from harmful UV radiation and contribute to the Greenhouse Effect. Despite advances in understanding the effects of Antarctic ozone depletion and recovery, impacts in Arctic and global stratosphere are not understood. This is due to limited understanding of the complex interactions between stratospheric composition and circulation and their poor representation in models. The SOCLIM project will provide new understanding of the role of stratospheric ozone and water vapour as (1) source of predictability on sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) time-scales, (2) drivers of atmospheric circulation and (3) radiative effects on global climate by using theory, observations and models. We will develop, for the first time, a chemistry-weather prediction system to assess impacts on predictability. Then, we will use two independent chemistry-climate and other IPCC models to quantify impacts on climate change, via the influence of stratospheric composition on the atmospheric circulation response. Lastly, we will determine its contribution to global warming in a range of scenarios from unabated emissions to mitigation via geo-engineering. SOCLIM will provide new process-based understanding of stratospheric composition feedbacks on regional and global climate for a range of time scales never explored before. If successful, it will contribute towards reducing uncertainty in weather and climate predictions, providing better constraints on the climatic impacts of anthropogenic emissions and delivering crucial information for future emission policies.

Mots-clés : chemistry climate interactions,stratospheric ozone,climate variability,radiative forcing
Projet ERC : C9-T Immunity (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DZNE
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498610.0 €

Neurodegenerative diseases are the top 3 leading causes of death and are viewed now as systemic diseases. Adaptive immunity including a T-cell response in the central nervous system (CNS) likely contributes to disease pathogenesis. How T cells are primed and recruited to CNS is largely unexplored, due to the complexity of the process and lack of tools and animal models. I will study these questions on the most common genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Here, a GGGGCC repeat expansion in the C9orf72 gene causes haploinsufficiency through reduced C9orf72 protein expression, and gain-of-function toxicities through repeat RNA and its translation to aggregating dipeptide repeats (DPRs). A synergistic role of these pathomechanisms is suspected but not clearly identified. I propose that T cells are the missing piece of the puzzle for the synergistic effects of C9orf72 haploinsufficiency and DRP toxicity and will explore a) whether peripheral antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and CNS microglia present DPRs to prime antigen-specific T-cell response; b) whether C9orf72 haploinsufficiency alters antigen presentation of microglia and APCs; c) whether T cells mediate synergic effects of C9orf72 haploinsufficiency and DRP toxicity. This novel project for the first time addresses peripheral and CNS activation of T cells against DPRs in C9orf72 ALS/FTD and reveals novel mechanism on synergistic effect of C9orf72 haploinsufficiency and DPR toxicity. It offers a unique integration of neurobiological tools, immunological methods, and single-cell-level approaches. It brings solid evidence on the antigen presentation of endogenous aggregating protein to drive antigen-specific T-cell response, which will broad the understanding on ALS/FTD and other neurodegenerative diseases. It presents a promising research trajectory for the identification of new biomarkers, breakthrough therapeutic targets and the development of novel interventions.
Projet ERC : Uplift (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Conseil supérieur de la recherche scientifique — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1476150.0 €

The vadose zone is the unsaturated region connecting the land surface to groundwater, acting as a filter for nutrients and contaminants and controlling their access to aquifers. Reactive transport in unsaturated porous media is of central importance to our understanding of nutrient cycles and applications such as soil and groundwater remediation. Geological media are heterogeneous across scales, and desaturation leads to complex patterns of air and water and preferential flow channels, enhancing structural heterogeneity. Resolving all scales is unfeasible, severely limiting the capacity of current models to predict field-scale reactivity and the spatial distribution of dissolved reactant plumes in the vadose zone. Uplift proposes a shift in perspective from empirical parameterization to the development of upscaled models rooted in a firm understanding of pore-scale dynamics. The underlying hypothesis is that a framework capable of quantifying subscale mixing limitations, combined with a coarse field-scale description of flow, can significantly improve current models. This requires a better understanding of pore-scale dynamics under unsaturated conditions, along with a theoretical framework capable of capturing their impact at larger scales. Uplift aims to address these challenges by connecting stochastic models of transport to statistical pore-scale features, and combining them with a novel population dynamics framework for reactive transport connecting effective reaction rates to delays due to transport limitations. To support the theoretical developments and complement available data, resolved simulation tools developed in the project will be employed to assess the role of degree of saturation, pore-scale structure, and transient forcings on phase distribution statistics and solute mixing. The proposed framework and its numerical implementation are expected to result in new reactive transport models for the vadose zone with significantly improved predictive power.

Mots-clés : reactive transport mixing stochastic upscaling continuous time random walk
Projet ERC : RECOVER.ME (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
Entité participante : Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DLR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499250.0 €

The aim of the RECOVER.ME project is to achieve human ingenuity in dealing with hardware faults in robotic space exploration. The hypothesis of the project is, that as robots acquire human-like metacognitive awareness and metacognitive regulatory abilities, they will be enabled to recover from severe but rectifiable hardware malfunction all by themselves. This is of particular importance to planetary exploration, as a hardware fault need not be the end of a mission. However, as of today, once a hardware malfunction occurs, the remote robot is typically taken out of operation and troubleshooting is done manually. In the future, especially, when more complex robots are deployed to construct planetary infrastructure for crewed exploration, this can no longer be tolerated. Considering that a hardware fault may occur at any time, such a situation can become safety-critical for the robot, the established infrastructure, and for astronauts in the vicinity of the robot.  To overcome this issue, RECOVER.ME proposes a novel approach for metacognition-enabled failure handling. Instead of relying on hard-coded recovery strategies by specifying how a robot has to react to a certain sub-system fault, the project aims to bootstrap failure handling as a property of the cognitive architecture of the robot itself. Metacognitive awareness is created through a novel knowledge representation that describes how hardware faults may impact robot capabilities. Metacognitive planning will yield contingency configurations employing abstract, affordance-based first order-logic planning for self-programming. To empower robots to monitor their own programming and evaluate the best strategy to react to arbitrary failure cases, generic limitation models will translate sub-symbolic fault information into semantically interpretable knowledge for metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive evaluation. This will provide robots with competent strategies to deal with faults in a similar way to humans.

Mots-clés : metacognition,failure handling,space exploration
Projet ERC : QARA (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Académie autrichienne des sciences — Pays : Autriche — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ÖAW
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 701775.0 €

Rydberg atoms arrays have emerged as a promising platform for assembling quantum matter in a bottom-up approach. This platform combines deterministically prepared, reconfigurable arrays of individually trapped cold atoms with strong, coherent interactions enabled by excitation to atomic Rydberg states and in situ state readout. It enables a scalable realization of quantum spin models with system sizes beyond what can be simulated on classical computers. The main goal of this project is to harness many-body properties of Rydberg atoms for applications in next-generation quantum technology. The first goal is to explore the possibility to harness a novel, robust dynamical quantum many-body phenomenon as a tool to generate useful entangled states in systems with limited control. Specifically, we will study the entanglement properties of quantum many-body scars, a natural phenomenon first discovered in Rydberg atoms arrays, regarding their utility for measurement-based quantum computation, quantum error correction and quantum metrology. Our second goal is to study and develop novel approaches for implementing information processing protocols with Rydberg atom arrays, based on an intimate connection to maximum independent set problems. This includes the exploration of analog quantum annealing algorithms, the development of noise-resilient gate sets for circuit-based approaches, and preparation and manipulation of topologically protected qubits. The third objective is to develop novel tools to characterize quantum many-body states of Rydberg atom arrays and access fundamental properties, such as entanglement measures.
Projet ERC : MICOMAUS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1962500.0 €

Lipid-coated microbubbles are fascinating objects rich in nonlinear dynamics. They are used in medicine as ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs) to visualize organ perfusion. The contrast enhancement results from their ultrasound-driven oscillations, which produce a powerful echo. The echo response is sensitive to ambient pressure and the microbubble surroundings so that bubbles have potential sensing capabilities that reach far beyond their current use as contrast agents. However, UCAs contain microbubbles non-uniform in size (1-10 μm diameter) and in shell properties. The resulting ill-defined echo inhibits game-changing applications such as non-invasive pressure sensing and molecular sensing using functionalized bubbles that bind to diseased cells. Microfluidics allows controlled formation of mono-sized bubbles. However, even the echo response of mono-sized bubbles is heterogeneous due to uncontrolled shell properties.  I aim to go beyond size-control and enable the microfluidic formation of functional mono-acoustic bubbles with a tuned and predictable acoustic response. The challenge is to bridge the gaps between fluid dynamics, colloid and interface science, interface rheology, and acoustics to unravel the coupled problem of microfluidic bubble-shell formation and ultrasound-driven bubble dynamics in the bulk and near or targeted to a wall. To reach this goal, we will develop highly controlled lab experiments at the sub-microsecond and sub-micrometer level, together with simulations and theory development. The ultimate goal is a physics-based parametrization of the acoustic bubble response as a function of shell formulation, microfluidic control parameters, diffusive gas exchange effects, and targeted molecular binding of the bubble to a boundary.

Mots-clés : microfluidics,microbubbles,colloid and interface science,interface rheology,acoustics
Projet ERC : ENGAGE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499590.0 €

Millions of people struggle with mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. Effective treatments exist but are not within reach of everyone due to limited resources. Digital Mental Health Interventions (DMHIs), in which treatments are delivered by using technology via the Internet and apps, can be a solution. However, high rates of drop-out and large individual differences in outcomes make them not yet an adequate solution. Due to scarce process research, with a largely mono-disciplinary focus and reliance on group-level studies, we have limited insight into how to match DMHI components to individuals.  In ENGAGE, I tackle these issues by proposing that engagement is the mechanism of impact that provides the missing link between the intervention components and individual outcomes. Earlier research has shown that engagement is a multidimensional and interdisciplinary concept consisting of behaviour, cognition, and affect. I have developed a first scale to measure engagement, shown individual differences and have shown individual engagement is predictive of outcomes. However, the developed scale is a rudimentary way of measuring engagement using self-report at fixed time-points and as a one-dimensional construct. Consequently, we have only a basic understanding of engagement which does not do justice to its complex multidimensional nature.  ENGAGE will yield the following insights and outcomes: A fine-grained understanding and measurement of real-time engagement, showing the relationship between the dimensions, both on an individual level and over time. Expanding the toolbox of intervention designers to directly influence the individual mechanism of impact, by identifying and analysing the effect of strategies which influence individual engagement with DMHIs. Verification of engagement as mechanism of impact within DMHIs, by studying the relationship between intervention components, engagement, and outcomes within personalised and adaptive DMHIs.

Mots-clés : digital health interventions engagement process evaluation mental health wellbeing
Projet ERC : Q-EDGE (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université de Twente — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Q-EDGE aims to transform the landscape of energy-efficient electronics and quantum computing in response to pressing global energy and computational challenges. Central to this endeavor is the exploration of electron correlations and topological transport in Quantum Spin Hall (QSH) insulators. These are two-dimensional materials characterized by a bulk bandgap and topologically protected metallic edge states. Theoretical models hint at the potential of QSH edge states to facilitate charge transport without energy loss at room temperature and introduce unique quantum excitations in the form of Majorana fermions. Despite their potential, knowledge gaps and experimental challenges hinder harnessing their properties. These include material constraints, such as small bandgaps limiting investigations to extremely low temperatures, and technique limitations obstructing precise edge state measurements. My discovery that germanene, the germanium analog of graphene, is a QSH insulator with a sizable bandgap, combined with my advancements in scanning probe microscopies, equips me to solve these challenges and fulfill my objectives: (1) To uncover the principles underpinning charge and spin transport in QSH insulators. (2) To identify the quantum mechanisms causing deviations from ideal, dissipationless transport. (3) To engineer the QSH edge states to manifest elusive Majorana fermions. Q-EDGE aspires to set new standards in topological research, promoting germanene as a benchmark material and developing methodologies applicable to diverse quantum systems. This initiative will significantly inform and refine contemporary theories of complex quantum phases of matter. The urgency is high since the exploration of this realm has just begun, its promises have not yet been materialized, and the extent of its potential for new physics remains largely untapped. As we stand on the cusp of quantum innovations, Q-EDGE will turn theoretical potentials into tangible breakthroughs.

Mots-clés : quantum spin hall effect,2d topological insulator,scanning tunneling microscopy,germanene,helical luttinger liquid,zero modes,electron correlations,backscattering
Projet ERC : TDVision (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Biomedical Primate Research Centre — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : BPRC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 600000.0 €

What we see depends on what we have in mind. For example, we can quickly find tomatoes in the vegetable department of a supermarket by searching for red and round objects, making them stand out from the background. This is thought to be supported by top-down processing within the hierarchy of areas in the visual cortex, but the detailed neural mechanisms are still poorly understood, partly because of limitations in neural recording technologies. In my lab, we recently developed a three-photon microscope capable of visualizing the activity of large populations of individually-defined neurons in awake and behaving macaque monkeys. Combining this novel imaging modality with well-controlled behavioral tasks provides the exciting opportunity to investigate the neural mechanisms of generative vision at an unprecedented scale and level of detail. We will train macaque monkeys to search for shapes hidden in noisy texture elements, investigate the strategy used by the prefrontal cortex to encode the mental template to guide this search, and how this process warps the encoding of visual information in nearly complete local populations of neurons in early visual areas. We will investigate the topographic organization of the recorded population of neurons, and develop viral and histological tools to determine their cell types as well as their connectivity profiles. We will also use psychophysics to make a link to conscious perception in humans, investigating how a search template can warp perception. Finally, we will incorporate our empirical findings into artificial neural network models with interpretable circuit mechanisms. This is expected to bring the flexibility and robustness of generative vision into models of artificial intelligence, as well as provide a computational framework to define novel hypotheses about the detailed neural mechanisms of generative vision in primates, which we can subsequently test with both behavioral measures and in-vivo recordings.

Mots-clés : selective attention,working memory,top down processing,extra classical receptive field,topographic organization,non human primates,3 photon imaging,human psychophysics,recurrent neural network model
Projet ERC : DailySAM (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Leiden University Medical Center — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LUMC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1578342.0 €

Pneumonia is the number one infectious cause of death in children worldwide. Many of the viruses and bacteria that cause pneumonia regularly infect, or colonize, the upper respiratory tract (URT) without causing disease. This drives community transmission but is also an important source of immunity. The processes and key host immune and microbiota factors that determine the infection kinetics, transmission and development of immunity during such infections need elucidation. I have recently optimized minimally-invasive nasal sampling analysis methods using Synthetic Absorptive Matrix (SAM) strips that now allow me to address these knowledge gaps. Through the daily collection of such well-tolerated nasal samples in children, I will study non-pathological, naturally-acquired URT infections, but also controlled infections in an ethical and safe manner using the live attenuated influenza vaccine. In addition, I will perform high frequency nasal sampling in groups of schoolchildren to precisely measure transmission events over time and even infer exposure. Incoming bacteria, viruses and the resident URT microbiome as well as mucosal host innate and adaptive immune responses will be quantified in parallel throughout infections using existing and new high-throughput assays, including an antigen array and microfluidic qPCR for 32 pathogens. Multi-omics integrative time-series analyses and mathematical modelling will be used to identify parameters that are central and predictive for pathogen acquisition, replication and clearance; as well as for transmission and immune boosting. Key novel markers and concepts will be validated using state-of-the-art in vitro mucosal models.  The comprehensive and detailed understanding of URT infections obtained in this project can lead to better diagnostics, mucosal targeted therapies and vaccines, and provide a basis for the improved predictions of pathogen spread and public health effects of interventions at the population level.

Mots-clés : upper respiratory tract infection minimally invasive nasal sampling multi omics integration paediatrics mucosal immune responses individual infection kinetics host pathogen interaction live attenuated influenza vaccine