Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : Dreamscape (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Académie royale néerlandaise des arts et des sciences — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KNAW
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1748906.0 €

Why and how do we dream? Although this question has fascinated humankind since the earliest ages, it remains largely unanswered. Each night, when we fall asleep, we progressively disengage from the external world until we cease to perceive it and to act upon it. Despite this sensorimotor disconnection, in our dreams we perceive and act, and although we do so in a purely imaginary world, our experiences bear so much resemblance with the real world that we almost invariably take them for real. How does the brain create such a real-world analogue, and why? Based on my previous work, in which I identified a neural signature of dreaming, I propose to answer this question by studying a set of electroencephalographic (EEG) potentials, which not only occur spontaneously during sleep, but in a similar form also during wakefulness, as part of reactions to unexpected environmental stimuli. The overarching objective of this proposal is to understand the precise role of these brain potentials in the generation of dreams. Specifically, I will 1) provide a systematic characterization of these potentials in the sleeping and waking brain, 2) clarify their relation to arousal systems, 3) assess how they relate to sensory and motor features of dreams and 4) manipulate them to causally affect dreams. To achieve these aims, I will employ a unique combination of cutting-edge experimental approaches, including 256-channel-high-density EEG sleep recordings combined with controlled sensory stimulations, serial awakening paradigms, pharmacological manipulations, closed-loop acoustic slow wave modulation and movement analyses in neurological patients who act out their dreams. These projects will contribute to the basic understanding of how and why we dream, with implications for the fields of consciousness, neuroscience and neuropsychiatry. They will also provide technological and pharmacological tools to manipulate sleep and dreams, with clinical relevance for patients with sleep disorders.

Mots-clés : dream,sleep,electroencephalography,neurophysiology
Projet ERC : DevCycle (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Cell Biology, Development, Stem Cells and R egeneration
Entité participante : Académie royale néerlandaise des arts et des sciences — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KNAW
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Animal development depends on precisely timed cell divisions, which ensure the formation of tissues and organs with specific architectures and functions. As cells differentiate and mature, they need to modify the expression of cell-cycle regulators in order to achieve tissue-specific division patterns. It is largely unknown how cells coordinate cell-cycle gene expression changes with developmental timing and how cell cycles can be altered to give rise to different tissue architectures and organ sizes.  DevCycle will address these questions by studying intestinal cell cycles in nematodes. I have recently pioneered tools to measure mRNA expression changes and chromatin modifications in purified intestinal cells from C. elegans, which we will use to uncover how the expression of cell-cycle genes is changing during development and to identify novel regulators that control stage-specific gene expression. Moreover, I will implement a novel microfluidics platform for long-term imaging of larval development to identify the mechanisms that allow temporal coupling of cell cycle and development. This system will allow us to visualize and manipulate transcription factor gradients that direct intestinal cell cycles, providing unprecedented insights into how cell cycles are timed. Finally, I will analyse the mechanisms that control cell-cycle behaviour in P. redivivus, a related nematode in which intestinal cells undergo a slightly different cell-cycle pattern. Expanding our analyses to this species will empower us to investigate how cell-cycle patterns can diversify to generate phenotypic variability. Together, this research program will develop a mechanistic understanding of the temporal control of cell cycles in development, revealing new paradigms on how tissue-specific division patterns arise. This knowledge will open up future avenues to modulate cell cycles for tissue engineering purposes, as well as to control cell divisions in disease.

Mots-clés : tissue patterning,developmental timing,heterochronic factors
Projet ERC : UnMaP (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Conseil national de la recherche — Pays : Italie — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CNR
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 195000.0 €

Contrary to the popular belief that philosophy in Arabic declined around the 12th century, it has actually thrived in forms that are largely unexplored. Arabic philosophical manuscripts present a wealth of textual and visual annotations by students, teachers, and individual scholars who have kept selecting, manually copying, teaching, and studying philosophical texts until the 19th century. Well after the printing revolution, the margins of manuscripts served across the Arabo-Islamic world as material platforms – akin to today’s academic journals – for this choral philosophical enterprise.  With a few notable exceptions, this “real-life” philosophy is cut out of historico-philosophical accounts, in which the spotlight is often on a selection of great minds. The views shared by professors, students, and scholars have hitherto remained on the uncharted margins of manuscripts and on the fringe of the global history of philosophy.  “The Uncharted Margins of Philosophy” (UnMaP) aims to bring those contributions from the margins of manuscripts into the forefront of philosophical discourse.  By delving into the paratextual annotations within 207 manuscripts of the Logic of Avicenna’s (d. 1037) Book of Healing, spanning seven centuries and three continents, UnMaP promises to broaden the horizons of the global history of philosophy. It will (1) shed new light on the uncharted routes of cultural transfer in the pre-modern, globalising world; (2) provide a generalisable model of research on neglected sources for the history of philosophy; (3) challenge the paradigm of knowledge as the product of a few soloists and their intellectual hegemony by bringing to light marginalised traditions from the past.  With innovative techniques, including AI-driven handwriting analysis on manuscripts with Convolutional Neural Networks, this project pioneers a new “Material History of Philosophy”, bridging the gap between Material Philology, Philosophy, History, and Digital Humanities.

Mots-clés : arabic philosophy history of logic medieval studies philosophical manuscripts arabic manuscripts marginalia
Projet ERC : QuantMeta (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2374938.75 €

The key to realizing quantum systems that can implement quantum information processing is entanglement generation between many qubits. For distributing entanglement strong interactions between localized qubits (atoms) and flying qubits (photons) have to be ensured. The quantum-science community is currently searching for systems that offer enhanced light--matter interaction, as the efficiency of quantum operations in current state-of-the-art systems is limited by the interaction strength and loss mechanisms, which impede the generation of useful many-body entangled states. We plan to address this challenge by creating quantum metamaterials from quantum-emitter arrays as novel interfaces for generating atom-photon entanglement. Whereas most of the scientific effort focuses on coupling localized qubits to pre-designed structures to enhance interaction (i.e., cavities), we plan to take a completely different approach: building bottom-up quantum optical metamaterials out of quantum particles. We will achieve this by embedding silicon-vacancy-center arrays integrated in a diamond chip, which have shown to be top candidates for entanglement distribution.  We will harness the enhanced collective response of the emitters to light and achieve a quantum response by coherently controlling the emitters' internal degrees of freedom. We will also access never-before-observed long-lived states, which are ideal for quantum memory. Our vision is to implement a scalable quantum light source with many degrees of freedom that generates large-scale atom-photon entanglement. By employing quantum information protocols we developed, our system can generate many-body entangled states applicable to one-way quantum computation. Our system unites major advantages for scaling-up entanglement: 1. High-fidelity quantum control over photonic states. 2. Potential operation-time speed-up by parallelizing photon control. 3. Quantum memory with long-lived states. 4. Integration into nanophotonics

Mots-clés : metamaterials,atomic arrays
Projet ERC : VARNATPOL (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

This project examines how nationalism polarizes the electoral politics of advanced democracies: how it drives us apart and whether it could bring us closer together. Across advanced democracies, concerns over deepening divisions have proliferated in recent years, and national identities have emerged as a prime suspect in driving this polarization. According to the common framework in electoral politics research, this polarization is shaped by a transnational cleavage that has at its core a cultural conflict between national attachments and universalist values. VARNATPOL proposes a different perspective: that the dividing lines structuring our politics are drawn not between those with stronger and weaker national attachments, but rather across groups who subscribe to different varieties of nationalism. To assess how varieties of nationalism shape polarization, VARNATPOL theorizes and empirically investigates how national identities are linked with mass attitudes and commitments to democratic norms, map onto partisan identities, and provide opportunities for political mobilization. VARNATPOL’s theoretical approach calls for a multi-method comparative research design. The first Work Package analyzes novel survey data to investigate how common understandings of nationalism in the public shape partisan divisions, and includes methodological innovations using open-ended survey questions to study national identities. The second Work Package examines how elites differ in their efforts to mobilize support based on appeals to the varieties of nationalism identified in the first Work Package. The third Work Package explores whether elite appeals to national identities shape polarization through their effect on public opinion and partisan hostility. Challenging the common wisdom regarding the ways in which nationalism polarizes the electoral arena, VARNATPOL will contribute not only to academic research but also to public debates about the challenges facing our societies.
Projet ERC : CODY (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1439413.0 €

Modern data analysis and optimization rely on our ability to process rapidly evolving dynamic datasets, often involving matrix operations in very high dimensions. Dynamic data structures enable fast information-retrieval on these huge databases by maintain- ing implicit information on the underlying data. As such, understanding the power and limitations of dynamic (matrix) data structures is a fundamental question in theory and practice. Despite decades of research, there are still very basic dynamic problems whose complexity is (exponen- tially) far from understood – Bridging this gap is one of the centerpieces of this proposal. The second theme of this proposal is advancing the nascent role of dynamic data structures in continuous optimization. For over a century, the traditional focus of optimization research was on minimizing the rate of convergence of local-search methods. The last ∼3 years have witnessed the dramatic potential of dynamic data structures in reducing the cost-per-iteration of (Newton type) optimization algorithms, proclaiming that the bottleneck to accelerating literally thousands of algorithms, is efficient maintenance of dynamic matrix functions. This new framework is only at its early stages, but already led to breakthroughs on decade-old problems in computer science. This proposal will substantially develop this interdisciplinary theory, and identifies the mathematical machinery which would lead to ultra-fast first and second-order convex optimization. In the non-convex setting, this proposal demonstrates the game-changing potential of dynamic data structures and algebraic sketching techniques in achieving scalable training and inference of deep neural networks, a major challenge of modern AI. Our program is based on a novel connection of Kernel methods and compressed sensing techniques for approximate matrix multiplication.

Mots-clés : data structures,dynamic algorithms,optimization,lower bounds
Projet ERC : DryCoAdapt (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499325.0 €

How plants evolved to shape their microbiota is a long-standing question in ecology and evolution. I posit that the microbiome forms a crucial part of how plants adapt to changing environments and that this microbiota optimization should be manifested in a strong genomic and phenotypic signature of adaptation. I propose to use natural plant variation and biogeography to dissect how plants evolved along with their microbiota to cope with aridity. Eight within-genus pairs of Brassicaceae species have been identified, distributed vicariously across a steep precipitation gradient. These species pairs represent eight independent instances of adaptation to aridity. This natural distribution offers an excellent framework for studying the evolution of plant-microbe interactions under arid conditions. My team will carry out an eco-evolutionary common garden experiment to compare the microbiomes of all 16 of these species under drought stress. By combining this experimental design with microbiome de-construction and gene deletion experiments, my lab will (i) test the hypothesis that microbially-induced drought resistance in plants is an evolutionary trait encoded in plant genomes (ii) identify the mechanisms that bacteria employ to protect plants from drought, and desert plants employ to attract beneficial bacteria. The sessility of plants dictates a particularly strong need for microbiota optimization in order to respond to a dynamic environment when there is no option to flee. Microbes are known to protect plants from drought stress, and plants are known to enrich particular microbes when stressed, but how these processes are linked remains unknown. This proposal is designed to establish this link by using our extensive knowledge on plant distribution to guide the study of the plant microbiome. Successful implementation will establish if and to what extent plants evolved to supplement their own genomes with those of their microbiota to cope with challenging environments.

Mots-clés : plant microbe interactions,drylands
Projet ERC : CooPAIRation (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Biotechnology and Biosystems E ngineering
Entité participante : Leibniz-Gemeinschaft — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : WLG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1654408.0 €

CooPAIRation is an ambitious project that aims to harness the genetic diversity and evolutionary history of the TaPik wheat immune receptor pair to determine the molecular mechanisms underpinning paired receptor compatibility and guide the design of optimised immune receptor pairs for disease resistance. Bioengineering new resistance profiles in plant immune receptors offers a powerful solution for the timely deployment of new disease resistance traits in the field to fight off rapidly evolving plant pathogens that threaten food security. However, bioengineering plant immune receptor pairs often leads to suboptimal immune responses, likely due to receptor incompatibility caused by the editing process. To address this, the central hypothesis of CooPAIRation is that identifying the mechanisms underlying paired immune receptor compatibility in the context of natural and bioengineered alleles will guide optimisation efforts to enable the deployment and stacking of immune receptor alleles without detrimental effects for crop plants. To achieve our aim, we will combine phylogenetics, functional assays and structural biology to link variation in the immune response across different immune receptor pairs to specific molecular determinants of receptor compatibility and harness this information to design optimised receptor pairs for disease resistance. We will pursue the following objectives: 1. Phylogenetics: Determine the variation in immune response triggered by coevolved and mismatched receptor pairs 2. Mechanisms: Identify the molecular mechanisms underlying sensor-helper compatibility 3. Biophysics: Define the biophysical properties of optimal and suboptimal sensor-helper combinations 4. Resistance: Deliver optimised receptor pairs for disease resistance At the completion of this project, we will define the underpinning functioning principles of paired immune receptor compatibility and deliver optimised strategies for bioengineering disease resistance.
Projet ERC : Shape-En-Resist (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499894.0 €

Gram-negative bacteria are notoriously resilient, dominating the list of pathogens requiring urgent medical attention. Fundamental to their remarkable antibiotic resistance is a tripartite envelope comprised of an inner-membrane (IM), peptidoglycan cell wall (PG) and an outer membrane (OM). While these layers were previously viewed as separate compartments, it is becoming apparent that they work together in order to maintain envelope integrity. However, little is known about the crosstalk between components and molecular mechanisms orchestrating envelope assembly and functionality. Our latest work has identified a key interaction between the PG and the BAM complex which inserts new OM proteins (OMPs), revealing a mechanism coordinating PG and OMP biogenesis and directing them both to the cell center. We posit that coordination is a key principle of envelope assembly and multiple interactions among envelope constituents are waiting to be discovered. In Shape-En-Resist we will uncover novel physical and genetic interactions, identify coordination mechanisms and elucidate their impact on bacterial physiology and antibiotic resistance. To this end, we will focus on three aims: (i) Explore the assembly of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an endotoxin covering the bacterial surface, and characterize its interplay with envelope biogenesis. (ii) Comprehensively map PG-OMPs interactions and study how they affect bacterial response to antibiotics. (iii) Uncover the outcomes of spatially heterogenous envelope biogenesis and whether this process is a source of phenotypic diversity. To address these questions, a multidisciplinary approach will be taken, combining cutting-edge microscopy, advanced genetic screens, proteomics and novel functionality assays. We expect this project to uncover the interaction network amongst envelope components, reveal how it impacts the physiology of both single cells and bacterial populations, and ultimately expose the secrets of bacterial resilience.

Mots-clés : gram negative bacteria,bacterial envelope,envelope biogenesis,outer membrane,lps,peptidoglycan,phenotypic diversity
Projet ERC : WordOrigins (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Université hébraïque de Jérusalem — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : HUJI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

WordOrigins will establish an understanding of language generation by integrating ecological neuroscience and computational models. Language is central to human experience, enabling communication and thought expression. However, the brain mechanisms that generate meaningful language, convey coherent thoughts and elicit responses still need to be understood. I will address this gap by leveraging advances in electrophysiology (iEEG) and artificial intelligence, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). These technologies offer the opportunity to explore unconstrained language generation and uncover the cognitive processes underlying it. The research combines two key elements: Ecological Electrophysiological Measurements: iEEG data from participants engaged in natural conversations provide insights into how the brain processes language in real-life situations; and Modeling Cognitive Processes with LLMs: LLMs offer a computational framework for modeling and interpreting language generation, generating testable predictions about how language is processed. This proposal focuses on several fundamental endeavours: Planning Multiple Words in Language Generation studies how the brain plans speech by predicting multiple future words. Modeling the Cognitive Effort of Generating Meaningful Words investigates how the brain produces more effortful, meaningful words. Multilingual Neural Encoding and Language Representation focuses on bilingual patients to understand whether early language processing is abstract or language-specific. Eliciting Meaningful Interaction Through Neural Synchronization examines whether LLM-based agents can enhance neural synchronization and trust during interaction. Disentangling Synchronization from Shared Input explores how cognitive mechanisms beyond shared stimuli affect synchronization. Together these elements promises us concrete foundations for the challenge of understanding how our ideas are formed and communicated.

Mots-clés : brain encoding,language production,large language models,social interaction,embeddings,interpretability,language representation,artificial intelligence