Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : VISIONIS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Hebrew University of Jerusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

VISIONIS sets out to write a cultural history of vision in Early Islam. It aims to generate a paradigm shift in the understanding of visuality in the transitional period between Late Antiquity and Early Islam. The project argues that the Qur’an is a key locus for our knowledge of the scope of visual strands in the epistemic space of Late Antiquity and the ways in which these visual strands were adapted and transformed by the emerging new religious community of Muslims. It also assumes that Early Islamic exegetical, theological, legal, literary, and historiographic texts and Early Islamic artistic production attest to the heretofore unstudied adjustment, conceptualization, and calibration of the various Qur’anic visual elements in combination with local-temporal trends. The project challenges the text-oriented research on the Qur’an that has prevented scholars from perceiving the work’s entanglement with the visual cultures of Late Antiquity. It also aims to rectify the comparative research of Islamic artwork and Islamic legal statements that resulted in a lack of comprehensive research into the Qur’an and Early Islamic texts as sources for the inquiry of Islamic visual concepts and images. VISIONIS will thus reverse the state of the art through two groundbreaking endeavours: 1) study of fundamental but neglected aspects of the Qur’an and Early Islamic writings, 2) development of a holistic perspective on the use and meaning of the visual, of practices of seeing, and concepts of the sense of sight in Early Islamic textual and material culture. The project will thus dramatically improve our understanding of the cultural dynamics of Late Antiquity and Early Islam, will raise awareness of the specificities of Muslim discourses on seeing, enabling an assessment of their historical anchoring, and challenge prevailing misconceptions of Islamic visual cultures.

Mots-clés : qur anic studies,qur anic exegesis,islamic art,arabic poetry,islamic law,historiographic narrations,visual culture studies,sense of sight,sensory studies,visionary journeys,eschatology,philology,late antiquity,visual judaism,text image relation,christian images,literary visuality,visual rhetoric,postcolonial,image text relation
Projet ERC : ViSioN (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Delft University of Technology — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TU Delft
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499962.0 €

ViSioN presents my Network Science view on virus spread in networks, in which the duality between the virus transmission process and the contact graph is key. The devastating Corona crisis reveals two major shortcomings in traditional epidemiology. First, it ignores the human contact graph and implicitly assumes a homogeneous population without specific graph structure. Second, most models for the virus spreading process relate to a Markovian setting, with exponential infection and curing times, leading to an exponential decay of the epidemic. Measurements, however, point to significantly different infection and curing time distributions. In addition, digital technology can help in constructing the contact graph and combined with medical testing, all infected can be detected, thus avoiding a second wave. Building on my pioneering work on Markovian epidemics in networks, I will complement the recipe book of epidemic model ingredients with corresponding algorithms/software for next pandemic outbreaks. I will develop the theory of non-Markovian epidemic process on networks, a surprisingly missing element today, because non-Markovian theory is needed to tell, based on the characteristic infection and curing times of the virus, how long a pandemic will last and when the peak occurs. Next, I will combine all available measurement technologies to construct the best possible contact graph via temporal networking or adaptive networking. Finally, I will explore how accurately infections can be predicted under partial information of process and contact graph. ViSioN’s outcomes will allow to predict, manage and control any epidemic in the best possible way. Moreover, as epidemics are part of the larger class of “local rule–global emergence” systems, my outcomes will be directly beneficial for the other members of this broad and abundant class, and find applications ranging from computer malware spread to human brain surgery.

Mots-clés : network science,epidemics on networks
Projet ERC : INTERRUPT_VIOLENCE (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Edinburgh — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 894993.75 €

Violence Violence is an important societal challenge and associated with poor health outcomes across the life-course. Studies find consistent associations between childhood violence exposure and risk for victimisation and perpetration in adulthood, particularly across generations. Thus far, we lack an evidence-base to understand the underlying mechanisms of intergenerational violence transmission as well as potential for prevention in regions with high rates of interpersonal violence such as sub-Saharan Africa. This marks a major evidence gap and a compelling need. This study will use a mixed methods approach to develop the first-known empirically-generated theoretical framework on intergenerational violence transmission. It will do so using three approaches never utilised in the region: 1) using data from a 1-year longitudinal study of 1800 adolescents in South Africa (interviewed in 2010/11 and 2011/2012) it will re-trace original participants, re-interview them as young adults aged 20-27, recruit their children (n~211) and previous primary caregivers (n~540) and conduct in-depth qualitative work on a sub-sample of families to identify mechanisms of violence transmission across generations and genders, 2) it will investigate the effect of the prevalent structural risk factors poverty, poor service access and delivery and the HIV epidemic on violence transmission, and 3) it will examine the effect of protective interventions and policies using quasi-experimental methods. This study will transform our understanding of the causes, effects and potential prevention mechanisms of intergenerational violence transmission through cutting-edge social science research. This is an ambitious research agenda of a complex behaviour and is characterised by methodological and theoretical innovation never used in the region before. The methodology presents high risks balanced by the potential for ground-breaking scientific and social impact for violence research and prevention.

Mots-clés : violence,child abuse,intimate partner violence,intergenerational,family,health
Projet ERC : CHUbVi (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Synergy grants)
Entité participante : Friedrich Miescher Institute — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : CO-PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FMI
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2698125.0 €

Viruses such as Influenza A (IAV) and others remain one of the greatest threats to human health and society. Despite their danger and widespread prevalence, the molecular mechanisms of how they infect mammalian hosts and evade the immune system remains poorly understood. Recent studies from our team implicate two common proteins – HDAC6 and unanchored ubiquitin chains – in host cells as key mediators of viral entry via the aggresome processing pathway. This discovery offers a new line of investigation for understanding and preventing viral infections. By identifying the pathways and interactions involved in this infection process, we will provide new molecular targets for the development of broad-spectrum antiviral compounds. Multidisciplinary studies by a team consisting of a molecular biologist, a virologist, and a chemical biologist will use a diverse set of tools to validate these pathways and gain fundamental knowledge about their regulation. To achieve this, detailed studies on the exact nature of the ubiquitin chains needed to activate HDAC6 will allow the development of biochemical and cellular assays of Influenza A infection and enable the determination of the precise mechanism and the downstream cellular pathways necessary for viral infection. The chemical synthesis of labeled ubiquitin chains will support detailed structural studies and a clear understanding of how they are formed and packaged into infectious viral particles. The strong possibility that numerous other virus types also utilize this pathway will be tested with life-threatening agents of current concern including Zika, Dengue, Ebola, and MERS viruses. By demonstrating – with both biological approaches and small molecule compounds – that blocking these cellular processes in cells and animal models reduces viral infection, this project will provide a wealth a novel insights and the basis for the development of a new generation of anti-viral therapies.

Mots-clés : ubiquitin chains,hdac6,influenza virus,aggresome pathway,proteasome,stress granules,proteostasis
Projet ERC : COLOURMIND (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Sussex — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999975.0 €

Visual perception is central to how we think and behave. However, there are major unresolved issues in understanding how the human mind draws on experience to perceive the dynamic and variable world. The COLOURMIND project, led by Franklin, will tackle these crucial issues with an ambitious investigation of the impact of the visual environment on colour perception that will provide a new theoretical framework for the field. The project will ask ground-breaking questions: What aspects of colour perception are affected by the visual environment, such that people from different environments perceive colour differently?; What processes enable colour perception to calibrate to visual experience and what is their nature and scope?; Does colour perception ‘tune-in’ to the visual input experienced during infancy? COLOURMIND will adopt a diverse range of innovative methods to address these questions, and will: i.) investigate the colour perception of people immersed in natural non-industrialised environments in some of the remotest parts of the world to identify the extent to which visual environment shapes colour perception; ii.) use innovative neuroimaging methods to identify how the visual cortex changes in response to chromatic experience; iii.) pioneer the use of ‘Altered-Reality' (next generation virtual reality) to elucidate calibrative processes in colour perception; and iv.) conduct carefully controlled experiments with infants to address the role of development. The cutting-edge questions, innovative approaches and theoretical power of the COLOURMIND project will lead to breakthroughs on issues that are fundamental to understanding the complexity of the human mind (e.g., learning, plasticity and inference; perceptual development; cultural relativity), and findings will have practical application. Overall, the ambitious project will push the frontiers of multidisciplinary research on colour perception, and will resonate throughout the cognitive and social sciences.

Mots-clés : colour,perception,visual development
Projet ERC : Watecco (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Bar-Ilan University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : BIU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149775.0 €

Watecco is a unique, photoacoustics based profiler, designed to determine the depth distribution of natural phytoplankton assemblages and of algal cells in mass cultures and of their photosynthetic efficiency. It can report the stratification of the light absorbing photosynthetic pigments and is unique in its sensitivity to document changes in the quantum yield of phototrophic plankters. The profiler is of great importance in following the health and photosynthetic light utilization efficiency of natural and manmade water bodies, freshwater and marine. Since increase in photosynthetic efficiency and the related proliferation of algal biomass of phytoplankton in lakes, rivers and in the sea occurs mainly as a result of nutrient enrichment, or anthropogenic eutrophication, as well as due to Global Climate Change related water acidification, Watecco can provide an early warning alert call to environmental pollution by urban or farm sewage, compromising the safety of water supplies and coastal fisheries. Furthermore, the capability of Watecco to provide fast, real time data on the efficiency of photobioreactors and algal mass cultures makes it a unique tool in the optimization of these devices for attaining high yields of their target products. Commercialization activities of Watecco include market analysis, financial and business planning, legal workup, IPR protection and contracting with manufacturers and investors. The project also covers the finalization of the development of a submersible prototype, a user friendly interface, and its field testing and data validation. This innovative technology will yield reliable and robust data for coastal authorities responsible for evaluation of the proliferation and collapse of algal populations, marine labs and nature reserves, water supply authorities, industries involved in the mass culture of algae for the production of biodiesel and fine chemicals, and installations based on high-rate-algal sewage treatment systems.

Mots-clés : water quality,drinking water,water warming and acidification,biomass,quantum yield of photosynhtesis,profiler,biofuel
Projet ERC : HyArchi (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering
Entité participante : Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : Inrae
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 358462.5 €

Water is the most limiting environmental factor for agricultural production worldwide and climate change exacerbates this threat. The HyArchi project will address this issue from a plant biology perspective and proposes new strategies to improve crop tolerance to drought. The main objective is to optimize water uptake and transport in cereals affected by drought. HyArchi will target maize, a major crop and a foundational model in plant genetics and water relations that is grown in irrigation or rain-fed conditions. HyArchi will consider three root traits: root system architecture, generated through continuous growth and branching; water transport; and environmental signalling. The first two traits yield the root hydraulic architecture. HyArchi will investigate how this architecture evolves in time and space by integrating local and systemic signals that communicate water availability. HyArchi proposes two innovative molecular discovery approaches recently validated by my group in model plants. Genome-wide association studies will be used to uncover novel genes, with signalling functions acting on root hydraulics. Transcriptomic analyses of an experimental split-root system will be used to identify molecules (e.g. hormones, miRNAs) involved in systemic signalling and governing root growth and hydraulics. These studies will be supported by key methodological developments. A semi-automated set of pressure chambers will be constructed to measure root hydraulics in multiple genotypes under highly controlled local root environments. Improved root image analyses will be coupled to mathematical modelling to represent local and systemic effects of water on root hydraulic architecture. Ultimately, HyArchi will deliver enhanced knowledge on root water transport and its control by a set of new genes, with a description of their natural variation and impact on whole-plant drought responses. Importantly, this will allow introducing beneficial alleles into elite cultivars.

Mots-clés : maize,plant genetics,phenotyping,root,water
Projet ERC : Cu4Energy (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Leiden University — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Water oxidation (WO) and oxygen reduction (OR) are crucial reactions to produce and to consume solar fuels. It is important that WO and OR occur with very high catalytic rates with only a very small thermodynamic driving force (i.e. a small overpotential). In these terms, natural catalysts perform significantly better than the artificial systems. Especially the copper enzyme Laccase operates fast at a low overpotential. In principle one could use the same design principles used in the enzymatic systems to produce artificial catalysts for OR and WO. It is envisioned that for the most ideal OR and WO catalysts: 1. all redox reactions within the catalytic cycle should occur as close as possible to the thermodynamic potential where OR and WO become accessible. 2. Equilibria that are not coupled to redox reactions need to be biased for product formation. 3. Proton shuttles are necessary to manage proton transfer concerted with electron-transfer and electron-transfer coupled to O–O bond cleavage or O–O bond formation. In this proposal molecular copper catalysts for OR and WO are studied by means of a combined electrochemical and computational approach, taking in account the design principles above. Experiments will be carried out wherein the structure of the catalyst is linked to the observed catalytic activity and the potential energy surface of the catalytic cycle. The proposal is in particular focused on the rate-determining step of the catalytic reaction, as improvements here will directly lead to enhanced catalytic rates. A functional model system of Laccase will be designed to study the rate limiting proton-and-electron-coupled O–O bond scission reaction, which is the rate limiting step in OR by Laccase. The aim of the proposal is to significantly increase of fundamental understanding of the design principles for molecular OR and WO catalysts and to deliver new and very active molecular copper catalysts for OR and WO at the end of the project.

Mots-clés : coordination chemistry,homogeneous catalysis
Projet ERC : WATU (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 68546.25 €

Wave turbulence and fluid turbulence belong to the same class of turbulent states made of a large number of nonlinearly coupled degrees of freedom driven far from equilibrium. The Weak Turbulence Theory is a statistical theory of low amplitude turbulent waves. The predicted phenomenology (energy cascade) is very similar to that of fluid turbulence, which badly lacks such a statistical theory. Weak Turbulence is thus a promising mathematical framework for turbulence in general. It is observed in many systems such as planetary atmospheres, astrophysical plasmas, tokomak fusion plasmas, superfluid turbulence or Bose-Einstein condensates for example. The theory is much less advanced in the strong wave turbulence case for which a richer phenomenology appears due to the generation of coherent structures. Furthermore, to a large extent the theory lacks experimental validation. My project aims at studying several physical systems (vibrating elastic plate, 1D and 2D water surface waves, 3D internal waves in a stratified fluid) specifically chosen to highlight various features of wave turbulence both in the weak and strong regimes. Under strong forcing, coherent structures will appear such as developable cones (elastic plates), solitons and sharp water wave ridges (water surface waves) or even fluid turbulence for overturning 3D internal waves. I will specifically use two unique large-scale facilities available in LEGI (Grenoble, France): the 30 m 1D wave flume for surface water waves and the 13m-diameter Coriolis turntable for water surface waves and internal waves. I will setup advanced space-time resolved profilometry and velocimetry techniques adapted to the dimensionality and size of each one of these systems. Advanced statistical tools on massive datasets will provide a profound insight into the coupling between waves and structures in the various regimes of wave turbulence.

Mots-clés : wave turbulence,weak turbulence,experiments,surface waves,internal waves
Projet ERC : HOPE (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Synergy grants)
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 : 794268.81 €

We aim at shedding a unique light on hippocampal function at circuit level through the design of a novel method to trace the construction of brain circuits in health and disease based on hybrid multiphoton in vivo longitudinal color imaging of the dynamics and structure of genetically-tagged neuronal clones from birth into adulthood. This is made possible by the exceptional interdisciplinary collaboration of three labs with expertise in advanced optical microscopy, genetic engineering and systems developmental neuroscience. Our novel methodology, applied here to the hippocampus, will pioneer a new way to track the emergence and plasticity of heterogeneous neuronal circuits as these progressively give rise to function in physiological and pathological contexts, thus bridging the gap between early development and adult circuit physio-pathology. This will enable us to revisit adult hippocampal function from a developmental perspective. The hippocampus is classically described as providing a cognitive map of space, involved in navigation, learning, and episodic memory. However, a more computational and less representational vision of its role presently emerges in which its circuits are best described as producing sequences of neuronal activation arising from the interaction between external contextual inputs and internally-generated preconfigured dynamics. Converging work including ours leads us to hypothesize that internally preconfigured assemblies, shaped by their developmental journey, are the basic modules of hippocampal function. In this context, we will use our new approach to address three interrelated questions: 1) Are assemblies shaped by specific circuits in the adult hippocampus (objective A)? 2) Are they prewired or shaped by experience (objective B)? 3) What is their patho-physiological significance (objective C)? Addressing these major issues raises a timely challenge in both optics and genetic engineering at the core of this synergistic proposal.

Mots-clés : nonlinear microscopy,multiphoton microscopy,adaptive optics,light sheet microscopy,tissue imaging,harmonic generation microscopy,bioimage informatics,large image data,cell lineage,clonal analysis,connectomics,neurodevelopement,brainbow,genetic engineering,calcium imaging,hippocampus,development,circuits,neuronal dynamics