Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : CoCoS (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Entité participante : Université d'Helsinki — Pays : Finlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2446893.0 €

The discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations opened a new window to the Universe. Space-based gravitational wave detectors, such as the LISA mission, enable an exciting opportunity: using gravitational waves from the very early Universe in the search for beyond-the-Standard-Model (BSM) particle physics.  The LISA science case identifies first order phase transitions as the most promising source of cosmological gravitational waves. There are no phase transitions in the Standard Model, and observation of a phase transition would be revolutionary: a direct signal of BSM physics. It is absolutely necessary to have accurate and reliable theoretical control of the gravitational wave production in BSM phase transitions in order to fully realize the science potential of the observations.  The overarching goal of CoCoS is to calculate, for a given BSM theory, the resulting gravitational wave power spectrum to 10--20\% accuracy. This is more than an order of magnitude better than the current state of the art, where accuracy is limited by uncertainties inherent in standard perturbative approaches. In CoCoS these problems are avoided by using several novel and state-of-the-art simulation techniques.  A first order phase transition in the early Universe proceeds through supercooling, critical bubble nucleation, and growth and collision of the bubbles. Bubbles cause pressure waves, shocks and turbulence, which remains long after the transition has completed and create gravitational waves. In CoCoS the stages of the phase transitions are studied with innovative computational methods: effective field theory approach, which optimally combines perturbation theory and lattice simulations, and state-of-the-art viscous relativistic hydrodynamics.  The high-luminosity LHC and LISA will be operational at the same time, searching for complementary aspects of new physics. The accuracy reached in CoCoS is necessary to fully utilize this synergy.

Mots-clés : large scale simulations,beyond the standard model particle physics
Projet ERC : PROACTIVE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Toscana Life Sciences — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TLS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2498750.0 €

The COVID-19 pandemic caught the world unprepared. Vaccines and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), developed in record time, mitigated the health and economic damages, however our reaction has always been one step behind the virus evolution, and emerging variants repeatedly escaped our interventions. The omicron variant escaped humoral immunity generated by most vaccines and mAbs by mutating immunodominant epitopes. The extremely potent mAb developed by our laboratory also lost potency against omicron. Here we propose to develop vaccines and monoclonals neutralizing existing and future variants of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, by targeting immunologically subdominant regions which are less susceptible to antigenic variation. We will isolate mAbs from individuals who had infection and multiple vaccinations, whose repertoire is enriched in B cells encoding broadly neutralizing antibodies, to build a map of the broadly shared epitopes. Structural prediction and clustering of the immune repertoire through deep neural networks will be used to improve the breadth of coverage of the mAbs. The Monte Carlo-based sequence design of Rosetta and free energy perturbation calculations will be used to in-silico “design protein-binding proteins” and identify newly designed immunogens which can be loaded on nanoparticles and used as vaccines. This approach will provide broadly protective mAbs and vaccines proactively designed to neutralize all variants of SARS-CoV-2 and new coronaviruses that are very likely to jump from animals to humans in the future. If successful, the approach to map subdominant epitopes and use of genomic and structural information to design mAbs and vaccines targeting subdominant, broadly conserved epitopes, will pave the way to approach other pathogens with high antigenic variability such as influenza and HIV viruses, Plasmodium spp. and antibiotic resistant bacteria. This will strongly increase European competitiveness in fighting infections.

Mots-clés : monoclonal antibodies,sars cov 2,coronavirus,pandemic preparedness,global health,artificial intelligence
Projet ERC : LINLOSS (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université nationale d'Irlande à Maynooth — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2281773.75 €

This study aims to provide a new understanding of how losses, disposals and dead-ends shape the direction of social change at moments of rupture, and to develop a formal theory of social loss. Sociologists have shown that people respond to crises by reconfiguring cultural understandings, narratives of self and social relationships. However, we have not paid sufficient attention to how what is disposed of shapes future pathways. LINLOSS will address this gap in the sociological imagination. It will develop new explanations of how loss generates change at multiple, intersecting societal scales: in the transformation of cultural and institutional patterns across generations; within changing configurations of relationships across genealogies and social networks; and in the reconstruction of pasts and futures within biographies. The research will be a comparative, cross-national community study of two ‘exurban’ districts in Ireland and Poland. The main form of data collection will be mixed biographical interviews, combining unstructured and formal elements, connected within genealogical support networks. The analysis will take place across two iterations: a comparative analysis to trace the effects of breaks and losses within and between social lineages at multiple scales; and a thematic analysis to identify how instances of loss are tied together by a common social pattern. We live in ‘unsettled times,’ when it is essential that sociologists provide insights on how pathways of social loss and renewal lead to variations and resilience to new challenges, for individuals, families and communities. If successful, the study will make a significant contribution towards this goal. It will deliver a methodological breakthrough in pioneering methods for the analysis of dynamic, multi-scalar social processes and will make a major theoretical contribution to scholarship on social change.

Mots-clés : community life social change culture biographies social networks life course qualitative research methods comparative research methods
Projet ERC : SynProtect (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Université libre de Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2242580.0 €

Resilience designates the ability of the brain to cope with and adapt to stressful situations. Sleep homeostasis is tightly linked to resilience, and the sleep deficits observed alongside neurodegeneration probably operate as direct “drivers” of neurodegeneration. However, the knowledge gaps still remain huge and causally bridging the molecular/cellular with the behavioral and organismic level remains a challenge, hampering progress equally for biomedical and basic research. Our recent data suggest that a form of presynaptic active zone plasticity (“PreScale”), widely triggered in sleep-deprived Drosophila brains, can enhance the brain resilience to cope with the adverse effects of sleep deprivation. Concretely, genetically fostering PreScale in sleepless mutants rescued them from their reduced lifetime, stress sensitivity, cognitive deficits and hyperexcitability due to too low levels of voltage-gated potassium channels. In SynProtect, we seek to test our hypothesis that PreScale constitutes a globally-operating homeostatic plasticity mechanism remodeling presynaptic terminals comprehensively to tune resilience states. In order to test this idea, we will elucidate the core molecular scenario executing and bidirectionally regulating PreScale and, consequently, decipher how exactly the remodeling of the mere presynaptic active zones and local excitability tuning via potassium channels intersect at the presynaptic terminal. In parallel, we will test whether PreScale is needed to enhance resilience in a brainwide fashion or if its modus operandi is more local. Genetic manipulation of PreScale will allow us to define brain states of high and low resilience, which we will dissect combining super-resolution and in vivo activity imaging and proteomic tools. Thus, we will open the way towards a comprehensive insight into the activity, signaling and metabolic profile of brain resilience.

Mots-clés : synaptic plasticity presynaptic active zone super resolution microscopy drosophila resilience sleep homeostasis behavioral genetics synapse proteomics
Projet ERC : EuroFlash (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : Nederlandse organisatie voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : NWO
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2184932.5 €

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) present astronomers with a compelling mystery: what is creating these brilliant but ephemeral flashes that travel billions of lightyears before reaching Earth? Whatever is producing the FRBs, it requires an extreme energy density and the conditions for `laser-like’ coherent radio emission to be generated. While recent discoveries show that magnetars are a leading contender, the heterogeneous properties of the known FRB sample strongly suggest that there are multiple FRB source types. If so, then we have multiple mysterious FRB origins to uncover.  Due to the great interest in solving this puzzle, enormous progress has been made in recent years. There are now hundreds of known FRB sources, dozens of which repeat, and some of which have been localised to their exact galactic neighbourhoods. The FRB sample continues to grow at a rapid pace of several new sources per day, thanks to new wide-field radio telescopes. Studying these sources with dedicated follow-up is challenging because they emit sporadically and are only visible for milliseconds or less. At the same time, by casting an even wider net we are likely to discover new types of FRB-like signals. With EuroFlash, I will create a coordinated network of European radio telescopes operating over a broad range of radio frequencies, providing high sensitivity and observing cadence, and achieving the best-possible localisations. I will use this network to perform a world-leading, systematic study of repeating FRBs, to understand their progenitor(s) and their relation to the apparently one-off FRB sources. I will also make a novel exploration of the parameter space of short-duration radio transients by exploiting the large field-of-view of LOFAR2.0 and commensal observations to find new sources. In doing so, I aim to discover new types of astrophysical phenomena that probe the extremes of the Universe.

Mots-clés : fast radio bursts,radio astronomy,astrophysical transients
Projet ERC : INFRAEMPIRE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499510.0 €

In early European imperialism, trade and resource exploitation financed lavish building projects in metropolitan centers and fueled further colonial expansion. Today, rising economic powers such as Turkey, China, and Brazil rely on building the infrastructure of other states to drive reconstruction in their own capitals and create “soft power” empires. INFRAEMPIRE will turn an ethnographic lens on the infrastructural imperialism of the Turkish state, a growing power whose construction sector is reshaping the Global South and for almost two decades drove a domestic economic boom. INFRAEMPIRE proposes, firstly, that infrastructural megaprojects create infra-imaginaries, new visions of global futures and new conceptions of the global distribution of power. INFRAEMPIRE secondly posits that in contrast to the hierarchical relations of European colonialism, infrastructural imperialism relies upon a global “big brother” phenomenon, or infra-power, in which exploitation appears to be replaced by largesse, and relations of domination are cast as “equal” and “fraternal.” INFRAEMPIRE thirdly proposes that spectacular megaprojects create infra-subjectivities, new forms of political subjectivity that require a language beyond that of neoliberal globalization, with its teleological assumptions of increasing political and economic liberalization. INFRAEMPIRE is methodologically innovative in developing an ethnographic approach to everyday geopolitics, or the ways that geopolitical imaginaries and tropes function in daily life, and how everyday practices construct the geopolitical. INFRAEMPIRE is also ambitious in scope, comparing six case studies at a crucial geopolitical juncture: the seam of Eurasia, where former and aspiring empires intersect, compete, and build new worlds through infrastructure. The aim of INFRAEMPIRE is to theorize the relationship between infrastructure and empire and to offer a fundamentally new understanding of power relations in a globalized world.

Mots-clés : cultural anthropology social anthropology infrastructure materiality critical geopolitics everyday geopolitics
Projet ERC : LUDEMO (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Université catholique de Louvain — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2490723.0 €

Land use and land systems, i.e. how human societies manage and interact with land through social-ecological systems, are at the core of sustainability issues. Democratic backsliding, i.e. the decline or degradation of the institutions and social norms that sustain democratic societies, is a widespread and impactful trend, with strong but understudied two-ways linkages with land use dynamics. In LUDEMO, we will make key contributions to understanding the linkages between these issues, with (i) explicit articulation and embedding of democratic backsliding concerns and knowledge within land system and sustainability science – moving beyond a focus of democratic backsliding research on social, economic and political aspects, and beyond a focus of sustainability science on policy rather than politics – ; (ii) spatial, quantitative causal analyses of linkages between multiple forms of democratic backsliding and land use changes and related environmental impacts – moving beyond mostly qualitative, political analyses – ; (iii) syntheses and theory building on these two-way interactions. We will investigate these issues through cross-country studies as well as the three focal cases of reactionary forces and agrarianism in Europe’s consolidated rural areas, extractive populism in Canada’s Northern frontiers, and agrarian authoritarianism in Mozambique’s smallholder landscapes.

Mots-clés : land system democracy social ecological systems earth observation
Projet ERC : BRIGHT (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Entité participante : Université technique de Berlin — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 480000.0 €

The rapid growth of solar and wind power, as well as demand electrification technologies, increasingly underscores that successful climate change mitigation strategies will heavily rely on sector-coupled energy systems, in which renewables-dominated electricity is used for previously non-electric end-uses and fuels. Under such sector-coupling, the integration of variable renewable energy (VRE) and demand-side electrification are highly synergistic; cheap VRE makes electrification attractive, while flexibilization of vehicle charging or heat generation reduces reliance on more expensive VRE integration options. Energy modeling tools that inform both policy and the private sector either focus on long-term temporal and spatial scales to understand the transition to climate neutrality (Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)), or on shorter scales relevant for power system operation, VRE integration and sector coupling (Power System Models (PSM)). However, no single tool captures both scales with high detail, leading to an increasingly critical knowledge gap that results in the risk of misallocation of substantial future investments. BRIGHT will bridge this gap by a first-of-its-kind bidirectional coupling of a global IAM with a PSM, combining the strengths of both. It is organized in five work packages: A method-focused WP1 on establishing the model coupling; three WPs on advanced modeling and analysis of sector transitions in transport (WP2), buildings (WP3), and industry (WP4); and a final WP5 that synthesizes insights to enhance energy transition scenarios for Europe, other major economies, and global Paris-aligned climate change mitigation pathways. BRIGHT will inform climate policy and business on crucial questions such as the cost and achievability of climate stabilization targets, residual fossil emissions, and the role of renewable energy technologies and electrification in competition with structurally conservative mitigation options like CCS, biomass or nuclear.

Mots-clés : integrated assessment modeling variable renewable energy sector coupling energy economics
Projet ERC : EMRIWaveforms (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : University College Dublin — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCD
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

The breakthrough detection of Gravitational Waves (GWs) by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration (LVK) is generating waves of excitement within the physics community. The detection itself led to the award of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Even more exciting is that the first detection was only the start. LVK continues to make groundbreaking discoveries as the detector is tuned to be sensitive to ever more distant sources. The next quantum leap in GW science will come with the launch of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), recently adopted as a flagship European Space Agency L-class mission with support from NASA. Just as X-ray, gamma-ray and radio observations of the electromagnetic universe unveiled a host of sources which were previously undetectable by optical telescopes, the sensitivity of LISA to an entirely new GW frequency band will open the field up to a whole new realm of sources such as Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs), supermassive binaries, and exotic objects such as cosmic strings. LVK demonstrated that a hybrid approach is essential for GW science: experimentalists built the detector, while theoreticians produced models for the expected waveforms from GW sources. These waveforms form a crucial part of the data analysis pipeline; a matched-filtering approach is used to extract signals from noisy GW observations, and this process fundamentally relies on access to accurate waveform models. Without the models, many GW signals would go entirely undetected, and even those that are detected would be poorly understood. Many of the GW signals LISA will observe are qualitatively very different from those of LVK sources and will require fresh approaches to waveform modelling. Gravitational Self-Force (GSF) has long been established as the only viable approach for modelling highly asymmetric black hole binaries such as EMRIs, but no comprehensive, efficient and accurate GSF models yet exist. This project will, for the first time, build those models.

Mots-clés : gravitational self force
Projet ERC : FunctionalNanoTher (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : University College Dublin — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UCD
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499796.0 €

We will develop new functional nanoscale medicines that engage and co-operate with cellular pathways that were designed to process and extract useful information from endogenous nanostructures, as well as protect the organism from nanoscale pathogens. We show how functional hybrid nanostructures, part-synthetic and part-cell-derived biomolecular condensate, elicit the full repertoire of cellular processing steps. In particular the enabling of highly efficient escape from endosomes and providing intracellular access to nanostructure embedded biomolecular networks. We show how cellular defences include nanoscale molecular interaction gating mechanisms that grant access on the formation of prescribed molecular assemblies that act as ‘access key codes’. The assembled molecular interactions at these gates may be captured and analysed using time-resolved spatially localized chemical reactions within the cell, and the enabling assemblies analysed in molecular detail. The cell-derived condensate portion of the hybrid particles may be re-engineered to incorporate foreign proteins and RNAs, while retaining overall function, and the new biomolecules can then be delivered to intracellular locations with their function intact. These advances make it possible to understand the connection between nanostructure architecture and function, and thereby open the pathway to recapitulate the functional nanostructures using purely preparative methods. To apply these systems we first propose to use functional nanostructures to deliver specifically optimised mRNA for Covid-19 spike protein into the cell, optimising mRNA metabolism to benefit from endogenous intracellular access. We then propose to engineer and deliver cooperative networks of multiple mRNA, with the prospect of being able to develop functional nanoscale therapies that can counter more extended dysfunctional networks such as those found in the tumour microenvironment.