Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ModeMixer (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
Entité participante : Université d'Exeter — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2269619.0 €

The turbulent atmosphere, flexible optical fibres, and living tissue, are all examples of opaque materials that change in time. Light propagating through these moving complex media is subject to intricate dynamic scattering effects: transmitted optical fields are unrecognisably distorted in space and time. Such phenomena permeate real-world imaging and communications technologies. They prevent microscopy deep into living tissue and hinder both free-space and fibre-optic data transmission.  My vision is the realisation of optical technology that automatically configures itself to dynamically ‘cloak’ unwanted scattering effects of any opaque medium it is coupled to – making it possible to look through to an unobstructed view of scenes on the other side. The multimodal nature of this challenge calls for a raft of new sensing and light control techniques. The aim of this proposal is to develop these technologies.  I have begun to take some of the first experimental steps to achieve these goals: I have developed a new form of adaptive optics that suppresses temporal rather than spatial light distortion. I have also implemented prototype adaptive optical inverters, capable of all-optically unscrambling light propagation through multimode optical fibres (MMFs) supporting ~30 modes. My project builds on these concepts, and is delivered through 3 overarching objectives:  1. Real-time monitoring of spatio-temporal scattering in dynamic complex media: Creating dynamic digital twins of complex media that evolve in real-time.  2. All-optically unscrambling dynamically scattered light: Building new types of programmable optical circuit driven by our digital twins to cloak spatio-temporal scattering effects.  3. Applications: reversing the scattering effects of MMFs and atmospheric turbulence; enabling transmission of quantum entangled photons through noisy channels; and finally, investigating the broader implications of our technology to hybrid opto-electronic neural networks.

Mots-clés : spatial light modulation multiplane light conversion direct laser writing
Projet ERC : TUMAG (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : École d'économie de Paris — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : EEP
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1698500.0 €

Which social groups have most benefitted from financial globalization since the 1980s? How would inequality have evolved if, instead of tax competition, countries had chosen tax harmonization? The goal of this project is to address these questions in a unified framework and using new data. This proposal builds on my previous work and consists of two parts. First, I will create prototype Global Flows of Funds: comprehensive statistics of the ownership of global assets by country of the owner and wealth group (e.g., amount of UK real estate owned by US households in the top 1% of the wealth distribution). Current macroeconomic and inequality data do not indicate which groups of the population own external assets in different countries. To remedy this, I will generalize my earlier work on the size and distribution of offshore wealth to all external assets, leveraging recent major improvements in global wealth data. The resulting database will provide a direct measure of the share of foreign assets in the portfolios of different wealth groups (e.g., fraction of the wealth of the US top 1% invested in foreign assets), bridging the gap between the study of inequality and financial globalization. Second, using these Global Flows of Funds, I will estimate the effect of international tax competition on inequality. I will first provide a comprehensive quantification of the rise of international fiscal externalities since the 1980s, i.e., the extent to which residents of a given country have increasingly been subject to taxation in other countries (e.g., tax havens). Using multi-country models of wealth accumulation with heterogeneous agents calibrated using Global Flow of Funds data and other sources, I will then simulate the counterfactual evolution of inequality under different regimes of international tax coordination (e.g., full tax harmonization) since 1980. The ultimate objective is to renew thinking about the future of international economic coordination.

Mots-clés : inequality,globalization,tax competition,tax havens
Projet ERC : HeaLS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université de Manchester — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 65595.0 €

Mental illness is a major health burden worldwide and the health problems with the heaviest financial burden in Norway. Half of chronic mental disorders emerge before the age of 14, and mental health problems in youth are increasing. The Norwegian government has implemented the interdisciplinary topic "Health and life skills" (HLS) in primary and secondary education to provide pupils with competences to promote health and self-efficacy. School-based interventions may improve mental health and academic performance, but their effects depend on the quality of implementation. There are large variations in how HLS is implemented within and across schools due to lack of national guidelines and a reliance on teachers’ professional judgement. Delayed implementation for some grades and longitudinal nationwide registry linkages forms a natural experiment and rare opportunity to investigate the impact of diverse implementation methods of a politically determined, long-term and population-wide measure. The aim of this interdisciplinary study is to evaluate how variations in the implementation of HLS relate to the intervention’s effect on pupils' mental health, quality of life, school environment, academic performance and dropout. We will collect new HLS implementation data from 5,000 teachers/employees, 1,000 school principals and 180 school owners. Information from these key samples will be combined with prior linked data for 750 000 pupils from existing national registries and large surveys, including educational, health and background information.  The research group includes researchers specialized in education, mental and public health, health promotion, classroom research, school surveys, register-based studies and advanced multi-level methods. The evaluation may affect further implementation and practice of HLS nationally and globally, and thereby promote pupils’ mental health and academic performance and thus also their future.

Mots-clés : curricular changes implementation mental health socio emotional school environment
Projet ERC : NANOVOLC (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Université de Bayreuth — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 334147.98 €

Volcanism is virtually ubiquitous in space and time across the universe. Its explosive expression impacts planetary evolution, life and history on Earth. The brittle – molecular – failure of magma is central to trigger explosive eruptions and yet, its occurrence is elusive to us. The mechanistic understanding of magma dynamics, combined with monitoring activities, form the basis for forecasting eruptions. This is central for modelling the impact on volcanic eruptions and determining the risk scenario in populated areas and along flight routes. A lack of understanding of magma failure thus hampers our ability to study the local and global impact of volcanism. It is only in the last years that nanosized crystals (nanolites) have been exponentially identified in products of explosive eruptions. Pioneering experiments and in situ observations of magmas dynamics, I showed that nanolite formation can occur within seconds and has the potential to set the conditions for brittle magma fragmentation. It is time to observe in situ, under volcanic conditions the formation of nanolites and unravel their role in triggering explosive eruptions. This cutting-edge approach requires interdisciplinary research combined with technological advances. Through NANOVOLC, I will integrate earth sciences with materials science and artificial intelligence to lift the veil on the process of nanolite formation and its role in magma failure. I will deliver a numerical model of magma ascent and eruption to forecast and quantify the impacts of explosive eruptions. To this end, I will i) perform in situ observations of nanolite formation in magmas, ii) build a unique magma fragmentation apparatus that will push the experimental boundaries explored so far, and iii) use artificial intelligence to support numerical model of non-linear volcanic processes. Beyond volcanology, NANOVOLC will provide fundamental understanding of nanocrystal formation in technical glasses, relevant to glass-ceramic industry.
Projet ERC : AUTO-SELECT (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Université de Naples - Frédéric-II — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 594000.0 €

(Macro)autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process induced to preserve cellular homeostasis under conditions of stress, such as nutrient starvation. Upon autophagy activation cellular components are engulfed by autophagic vesicles, which then fuse with lysosomes for substrate degradation. Despite the unquestionable physiological and medical relevance of nutrient- and pharmacological-induction of autophagy in human health, the precise identity of autophagy substrates and the rules governing their selection in vivo are largely unknown. AUTO-SELECT’s goal is to provide a framework to identify physiologically relevant autophagy substrates in different organs and to determine the signaling events that govern their selection. This proposal relies on (1) newly generated mouse models to genetically manipulate autophagy and key autophagy regulators, (2) tools to quantitatively measure autophagy substrate delivery to lysosomes and subsequent degradation in vivo, and (3) -omic technologies and bioinformatic tools to dissect the molecular events that govern substrate selection in response to diverse stimulations in a tissue-specific manner. In addition, AUTO-SELECT will develop new strategies to modulate selective autophagy and test their therapeutic relevance in connective tissue disorders characterized by the intracellular accumulation of misfolded procollagen molecules. AUTO-SELECT has the potential to discover new rules governing cargo selectivity during autophagy and, hence, to provide new links between energy metabolism and cellular quality control that might be exploited for autophagy modulation to treat human diseases.

Mots-clés : autophagy,selective autophagy,lysosome,nutrient sensing,mtor
Projet ERC : TabulaRasa (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Naples - Frédéric-II — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 275000.0 €

TabulaRasa takes the use of clay and wax tablets in the Ancient Near East, the Classical world, and Medieval to Early Modern Europe as the centerpiece of a comprehensive exploration of the role of rewritability in manuscript cultures. Across diverse societies, the recycling of written surfaces proves not only desirable but essential in contexts such as education, note-taking, literary creation, economy and administration. Its profound implications range from palaeographic developments to the acquisition of writing, memorization and composition practices, and aspects of data storage, information overload and resource recycling that persist to this day. Throughout history, the challenge of devising techniques for effortless reuse has sparked a wealth of clever solutions. Among these, clay and wax tablets can be considered paradigmatic: they played a key role in the history of writing from the third millennium BCE up to modern times, enabling effortless, unlimited rewriting without the need to add or subtract material. TabulaRasa takes them as a benchmark for an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural exploration of rewritability. It integrates codicology, palaeography and the study of manuscript cultures into a holistic historical framework, combining study of original artifacts, material analysis and experimentation. The primary objectives encompass a codicological understanding of clay and wax tablets as material objects, deciphering the biomechanics of inkless writing on clay and wax and its implications for palaeographic developments in cuneiform and Latin script, and comprehending the role of erasable media in key historical contexts. Complementing these integrated lines of inquiry, TabulaRasa will broaden its gaze to include a comparative analysis of re-writing practices, adding historical depth to ongoing research on e-ink and environmental sustainability, and providing a breakthrough in the understanding of a fundamental aspect of writing practices past and present.

Mots-clés : manuscript cultures,writing technologies,ancient near eastern studies,medieval studies,early modern studies,clay tablets,cuneiform,wax tablets,latin script,beeswax,palaeography,palimpsest studies,erasing and rewriting practices,information management
Projet ERC : HoloBoot (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Université de Naples - Frédéric-II — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996250.0 €

The holographic principle is believed to embody key fundamental features of any quantum gravity theory. It can be seen as a profound consequence of the intrinsic tension between the definition of quantum observables and the fact that in a theory of gravity it is impossible to define such observables in any finite volume due to the existence of Black Holes. The aim of this project is to push the boundaries of the holographic principle beyond AdS space, formulating a set of self-consistency requirements in dS, flat and inflationary backgrounds directly at the level of the sought-after holographic observables. If successful, this will allow us to understand the basic model independent principles at the basis of a quantum gravity theory and to check if a result of a calculation is consistent with unitarity and causality providing a paradigm shift in the search for consistent quantum gravity theories. The bottom-up perspective developed by HoloBoot will also be centred on phenomenological applications, ranging from classifying model-independent properties of consistent gravitational EFTs to understanding signatures of new particles during Inflation.

Mots-clés : holographic principle,cosmological bootstrap,flat holography,celestial cft,conformal field theory
Projet ERC : THERMODON (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Université de technologie d'Eindhoven — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

There is a pressing need to address the power consumption of computing, which keeps rising to the point it has become an environmental concern. Despite the remarkable progress in semiconductor technology, computing architectures are still energy inefficient, engineered for deterministic tasks as well as susceptible to noise, heat, and variations. Instead of massively over-designing architectures to compute with an acceptable degree of reliability, this research aims to “let physics do the computing” and harness noise, heat and variabilities for energy efficient computing. At the heart of the proposed paradigm is the thermodynamics of open systems entwined with neuromorphic computing. THERMODON aims to develop an unconventional neuromorphic architecture to thermodynamically compute and self-organize (“learn”). I hypothesize that the natural thermodynamics of appropriately engineered architecture can harness noise, heat, and variations to self-organize toward energy efficient “solutions” to “problems” posed by external potentials. I will develop such architecture with neuromorphic oscillatory neural networks that I master in my lab. This research aims to address how thermodynamic principles can be applied to oscillatory neural networks to derive learning rules that are unsupervised, continuously adapting and transforming the architecture into a dynamic “self-organizing” and “open interactive” system that learns, infers and interacts with the environment. THERMODON will bring breakthrough innovations in thermodynamic computing models and AI-specialized hardware to enable online training and inference to intelligent systems. The interdisciplinary research in this project between neuromorphic computing and thermodynamics opens a new and exciting area in computer architecture, triggering a paradigm shift in edge AI computing as well as an immediate impact as a hardware accelerator platform.

Mots-clés : vlsi design,physical design,oscillatory neural networks,
Projet ERC : EQUATE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and Communication Engineering
Entité participante : Université de technologie d'Eindhoven — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999233.0 €

I propose to demonstrate a novel design paradigm for terahertz (THz) technologies, which places the ultrafast thermodynamic properties of quantum materials at the heart. Approaches with conventional semiconductors and metals, as well as recent attempts with two-dimensional materials, typically aim to exploit the optoelectronic properties of materials towards developing THz components and systems. This has so far not led to the desired breakthrough that the, currently still underdeveloped, terahertz regime so greatly needs. The vision of this project is that the truly game-changing potential of quantum materials for THz applications lies in their exceptional ultrafast thermodynamic properties: Quantum materials, such as graphene and topological insulators, have giant thermodynamic THz nonlinearities, and generate ultrafast and efficient THz-induced thermoelectric photocurrents. They can be combined with photonic structures into quantum metamaterials with strongly enhanced light-matter interaction, and are compatible with established electronic and photonic technologies. Exploiting these and more remarkable properties, we will demonstrate THz emitters, nonlinear THz convertors, and THz detectors - all based primarily on thermodynamic design principles. These will outperform currently available THz components on several fronts, and establish quantum materials as the ideal material platform for integrated THz photonics with novel capabilities. Specifically, we will focus on a combination of quantum materials that are relatively well understood, and novel material systems that are promising yet less well understood. As a result, we expect major impacts both on a fundamental level in terms of understanding ultrafast thermodynamic phenomena, and on an applied level in terms of engineering these thermodynamic properties towards concrete THz technologies. The ultimate goal is to unlock the full potential of the THz range and bring utility and benefit to society.

Mots-clés : 2d quantum materials,terahertz technologies,ultrafast dynamics
Projet ERC : FluCo (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Université technique de Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1914864.0 €

Fluctuations are ubiquitous in real world contexts and in key technological challenges, ranging from thermal fluctuations in physical systems, to algorithmic stochasticity in machine learning, to fluctuations caused by small-scale weather patterns in climate dynamics. At the same time, such complex systems are subject to an abundance of influences, and depend on a large variety of parameters and interactions. A systematic understanding of the interplay of stochasticity and complex dynamical behavior aims at unveiling universal properties, irrespectively of the many details of the concrete systems at hand. Its development relies on the derivation and analysis of universal concepts for their scaling limits, capturing not only their average behavior, but also their fluctuations. We propose to analyze the class of conservative stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) as such a universal fluctuating continuum model, and unveil its mathematical analysis as a fruitful field for the discovery of new mathematical structures and methods. The key challenges targeted in this proposal are: (1) Well-posedness of singular conservative SPDEs (2) Singular limits for supercritical conservative SPDEs (3) Stochastic dynamics for conservative SPDEs. We aim to approach these challenges by a novel combination of recent scientific breakthroughs in the fields of strongly nonlinear, conservative SPDEs and singular SPDEs. We thereby intend to advance the highly active and productive field of (singular) SPDEs, which has inspired striking mathematical progress in the last decade. The analysis of conservative SPDEs conjoins several contemporary fields of analysis and probability: Singular SPDEs, nonlinear PDEs, kinetic theory, supercriticality, and stochastic dynamical systems. We are, therefore, confronted with an interplay of stochasticity, irregularity, and nonlinearity, posing new challenges and going far beyond established methods.

Mots-clés : singular stochastic partial differential equations,stochastic conservation laws,degenerate partial differential equations,kinetic solutions,renormalized entropy solutions,random dynamical systems,stochastic dynamics