Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : MigraGenes (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

It is firmly established that the migratory behaviour of animals is largely genetically hard-wired. However, we do not know the genes involved, where these are expressed and how the genetic code guides individuals to fly in a specific direction for more than a month, across deserts, mountain ranges or oceans, to finally reach a wintering area on the other side of the globe. To approach these gaps of knowledge, I propose a coherent research program that builds on my long-term research of migratory genetics. I will use different species of migratory songbirds to investigate three key questions in migratory genetics: (1) how does the inherited migratory program instruct the juvenile on its first journey?, (2) which are the genes that control migratory behaviour and when and where are they expressed? and (3) how have migratory genes evolved across species with different migratory behaviours? The three parts of this program are designed to maximize gain of new knowledge by combining large scale field studies with cutting-edge molecular techniques. I will carry out a translocation experiment and combine it with state-of-the-art tracking methodology to determine how direction of navigation is inherited. By profiling the expression patterns of genes in the brain before and during the first phase of migration using both spatial and single-cell transcriptomics, I will uncover the mainly unknown migration genes and regulatory networks as well as where in the brain these are expressed. Through comparative genomics on the species-rich genus Phylloscopus (in which migration has been lost, gained and increased in distance multiple times during its diversification), I will explore how migration genes have evolved in concert with the migratory behaviours. In summary, this project has the potential to finally identify the elusive migration genes and add milestones in our understanding of the genetic architecture and regulation of long-distance migration.

Mots-clés : bird migration,orientation,satellite tracking,translocation experiment,comparative genomics,gene expression,
Projet ERC : Tree2Globe (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : Université de Lund — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2012059.0 €

Three trillion trees lie behind a carbon sink that has taken up about 30% of humanity’s carbon emissions over recent decades. Yet whether we can continue to rely on this huge natural subsidy is highly uncertain. The sink emerges from systematic perturbations in the dynamics of growth, death and establishment of individual trees. Taken together across the forest, these lead to the net uptake or release of carbon. Both theory and recent observations point towards profound changes in these dynamics of the world’s forests being underway, potentially causing the sink to saturate and decline. But our ability to accurately assess and quantify such on-going changes worldwide is severely limited. The reasons for this are twofold: a lack of standardised measurements of the sink and the dynamics that cause it across the world, and the difficulty of modelling the dynamics of trillions of trees. Tree2Globe solves both of these limitations, using a novel model-data assimilation approach to consistently integrate the dynamics of millions of observations of individual trees collected under disparate protocols worldwide and link together this information in space and time based on physically-consistent principles. The resulting global forest reanalysis system will (a) provide a step-change in capability to make accurate and timely assessment of the rates of tree growth, death and establishment globally and (b) quantify how these combine with the legacies of past land-use and disturbance to explain the size, location and trajectory of the global carbon sink in trees over the period 1990-2027. This will enable us to make a definitive assessment of whether hypothesised changes in forest dynamics and the resulting carbon sink are coming to pass. This unique insight into how the world’s forests and their contribution to climate change mitigation are changing will provide key information to help guide the world to meet its net zero emissions policy commitments.

Mots-clés : forest carbon sink forest dynamics reanalysis vegetation modelling
Projet ERC : SoftFrac (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université Friedrich-Alexander d'Erlangen-Nuremberg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2494538.0 €

SoftFrac will revolutionise geometrically nonlinear fracture mechanics of soft materials (in short soft fracture) by capitalising on configurational mechanics, an unconventional continuum formulation that I helped shaping over the past decades. Mastering soft fracture will result in disruptive progress in designing the failure resilience of soft devices, i.e. soft robotics, stretchable electronics and tissue engineering applications. Soft materials are challenging since they can display moduli as low as only a few kPa, thus allowing for extremely large deformations. Geometrically linear fracture mechanics is well established, nevertheless not applicable for soft fracture given the over-restrictive assumptions of infinitesimal deformations. The appropriate geometrically nonlinear, finite deformation counterpart is, however, still in its infancy. By combining innovative data-driven/data-adaptive constitutive modelling with novel configurational-force-driven fracture onset and crack propagation, I will overcome the fundamental obstacles to date preventing significant progress in soft fracture. I propose three interwoven research Threads jointly addressing challenging theoretical, computational and experimental problems in soft fracture. The theoretical Thread establishes a new constitutive modelling ansatz for soft in/elastic materials, and develops the transformational configurational fracture approach. The computational Thread provides the associated novel algorithmic setting and delivers high-fidelity discretisation schemes to numerically follow crack propagation driven by accurately determined configurational forces. The experimental Thread generates and analyses comprehensive experimental data of soft materials and their geometrically nonlinear fracture for properly calibrating and validating the theoretical and computational developments. Ultimately, SoftFrac, for the first time, opens up new horizons for holistically exploring the nascent field soft fracture.

Mots-clés : geometrically nonlinear fracture mechanics,soft materials,continuum modelling,computational simulation,experimental testing and characterisation
Projet ERC : DISCOVER (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université Friedrich-Alexander d'Erlangen-Nuremberg — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2775408.0 €

Soft materials play an integral part in many aspects of modern life including autonomy, sustainability, and human health, and their accurate modeling is critical to understand their unique properties and functions. However, the criteria for model selection remain elusive and successful modeling is limited to a few well-trained specialists in the field. My goal is to democratize constitutive modeling through automated model discovery and make it accessible to a more inclusive and diverse community to accelerate scientific innovation. My overall objectives are: i) Establish a new family of constitutive neural networks that simultaneously and fully autonomously discover the model, parameters, and experiment that best explain a wide variety of soft matter systems; ii) Quantify the performance of our discovered models on tension, compression, and shear experiments for the heart, arteries, muscle, lung, liver, skin, brain, hydrogels, silicone, artificial meat, foams, and rubber; and iii) Quantify the uncertainty of our models, parameters, and experiments using a Bayesian analysis. My hypothesis is that automated model discovery will facilitate the exploration of a large parameter space of models and provide unprecedented insights into soft matter systems that are out of reach with conventional theoretical and numerical approaches today. My immediate deliverable is a fully documented open source scientific discovery platform that includes our new neural networks, experimental data, benchmarks, models, and parameters. This discovery platform has the potential to induce a ground-breaking change in constitutive modeling and will forever change how we simulate materials and structures. This project will democratize constitutive modeling; stimulate discovery in soft matter systems; provide deep-learning based tools to characterize, create, and functionalize soft matter; and train the next generation of scientists and engineers to adopt and promote these innovative technologies.

Mots-clés : soft matter biomaterials automated model discovery constitutive artificial neural networks physics inspired deep learning computational mechanics mathematical modeling uncertainty quantification constitutive modeling hyperelasticity
Projet ERC : fAIces (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université du Minho — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UMinho
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 27500.0 €

Facial recognition technologies collect billions of faces that are stored for multiple uses spanning individual identification and tracking, to training of deep neural networks, the mainstay of modern artificial intelligence (AI). From tagging a photo on social media or unlocking a computer, to controversial applications of facial recognition in public spaces, schools, workplaces, and law enforcement activities, facial processing technologies have entered almost every aspect of our lives. While expected benefits relate to security and safety, critics highlight that these technologies normalize surveillance and erode privacy, exacerbate discrimination, and contain insurmountable flaws and inaccuracy. The fAIces project asks: What matters in facial recognition technologies, and why? How politics of mattering enact diverse ways of being implicated? Which forms of citizenship and public engagement are affected? How multiple and complex ethical choices emerge?  This study develops a novel methodology by which the perspectives of social groups that have never been studied together, which are jointly but antagonistically implicated in facial recognition technologies, are taken into consideration: scientists who conduct research on facial recognition; professionals working in start-ups and technology companies; members of advocacy groups and activists; black communities; and artists who incorporate facial recognition in their work. The fAIces project will produce an innovative social theory of the face through the combination of a new conceptual approach – “etho-assemblages”, which transgresses the idea of pre-given fixed and dichotomic ethical principles – and the generation of original empirical data. Major outcomes are based on expanding ethics and imagining alternative futures, fueling citizenship and public engagement, and fostering opportunities for academic thinking to be inspired by activism, underrepresented groups, and artistic practices.

Mots-clés : facial recognition technologies artificial intelligence ethics security surveillance privacy discrimination futures citizenship and public engagement with technology
Projet ERC : STONE-WORK (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Trinity College — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499708.0 €

STONE-WORK challenges the perception of architecture as a primarily conceptual activity by shifting focus from individual to collective achievement. Despite the emphatic materiality of architecture its history remains dominated by a sequential model which privileges the agency of individuals and ideas. STONE-WORK’s fundamental premise is that architecture results from a cumulative sequence of actions involving an array of actors, great and small. There can be no buildings without materials and no materials without those who procure, transport, and fashion them. How can design be related to the material from which it takes form and the skills which give it form? Though interdependence of systems and actors is a key scientific concept, it has had inadequate impact on the study of early modern architecture. Stone, the most valued building material of the period, offers a way into architectural process which forces us to include the broader community involved in the making of buildings. No other medium so fully encapsulates the sequential nature of architectural production involving a wide range of agents of varying skill and authority. Revealing stone’s hidden trajectory from quarry to wall, floor, column, and chimneypiece will probe the nexus of skills, techniques, and support mechanisms developed by communities in its sourcing, supply, and fashioning and the impact of these processes upon building activity. This cross-disciplinary research, combining the history of architecture and craft with geology, will produce the first holistic analysis of architecture and stone production, thereby interrogating the relationship of material, design, and execution. The prodigious classical architecture of Britain and Ireland in the eighteenth century, richly documented in untapped archival material, is an exemplary episode in monumental stone building which offers a meaningful, accessible, and feasible route into the complex problem of interdependence in architectural production.

Mots-clés : architectural history architectural ornament craft history sculpture history stone marble
Projet ERC : VOICES (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Trinity College — Pays : Irlande — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2499663.0 €

VOICES aims to recover the voices and interrogate lived experiences of women in early modern Ireland. Ireland formed part of the British, European and Atlantic world and women there responded to similar sets of transformative processes as other early modern women - proto-globalisation, state formation, confessionalisation, warfare, commercialisation, environmental change, and so on – which facilitates interrogation that is comparative, connected, and entangled. Two ambitious research questions underpin this pioneering project which focuses on Ireland as a case study. (1) What role did women play in a society undergoing profound economic, political, and cultural transformation? (2) What were their experiences of recurring social upheaval, bloody civil war and extreme trauma, especially sexual violence, and how have these been politicised? Our novel approach derives in large part from the interrogation of previously inaccessible historical data, now available digitally. This windfall is exceptional, but the resulting data is unstructured. Innovative technologies transform this unstructured data into knowledge that can be interrogated and visualised. VOICES will then transform the field of history by allowing us to: • recover the marginalised voices, lifecycles, and identities of women in Ireland and assess their contribution to the household, regional and national economies; and relationship to the land (WPs1, 2); • situate the experiences of women in the broader analytical framework of Europe, Britain, and the Atlantic world (WPs1-4); • lay the foundations for further future scholarship on the family, gender, identity, memory, emotion, and trauma in the early modern period (WPs1-4); • produce ontologies that outline key concepts and entities that relate to women and violence that can be reproduced across time and place, which makes VOICES the exemplar of the new and longstanding research questions now answerable by digitisation and associated methodologies (WP0)

Mots-clés : atlantic world british isles digital humanities colony empire
Projet ERC : FRAGILE IMAGES (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université Christian Albrecht de Kiel — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

FRAGILE IMAGES fundamentally challenges the dominant notion of images as powerful actors. It moves away from the focus on the affective, persuasive, performative, and immersive image and instead focuses on its fragility, instability, ambiguity, and self-reflexivity. This radically new approach brings together a Visual Studies perspective and a cultural-historical approach and applies them to Roman imagery from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD. It has three main objectives:  1) A systematic study of pictorial fragility The manifold phenomena of pictorial fragility are divided into three analytical dimensions: temporal fragility, which deals with the material, contextual, and conceptual mutability of images; semantic fragility, which deals with their ambiguity; and ontological fragility, which addresses their self-reflexivity. The case studies aim at elaborating the semantic, aesthetic, but also social potentials of such ‘fragile’ images.  2) A new perspective on Roman visual culture By means of a comparative approach, the project explores the extent to which manipulated, ambiguous, and self-reflexive images differ in their spatial contexts and in their socio-cultural forms of use. This focus invites a new way of looking at Roman art: The temporality, ambiguity, and self-reflexivity of Roman images are constitutive elements of an innovative, sophisticated, intelligent, and even intellectual visual culture. This perspective moves away from the old view of Roman art as a mere derivative of Greek pictorial concepts.  3) A reformulation of image theory in the light of ‘fragile’ images This project will not only challenge the common notion of the power of images, but also transcend the dichotomy of power and weakness. ‘Fragility’ is not considered as an image deficit, but as a pictorial quality to be analysed in terms of its specific potential. The focus on pictorial fragility will result in renegotiating the ‘activity’ of image and viewer.

Mots-clés : roman art,classical archaeology,visual and image studies,
Projet ERC : DISPERSALS (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Study of the Human Past
Entité participante : Université de l'Algarve — Pays : Portugal — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UALG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

Genetic evidence suggests that successful modern human migration out of Africa is believed to have started c. 70,000 years ago, populating the whole world, at different rates and times. This incredible voyage took place because of human’s unique resilience, versatility, and innovation, both biological and cultural, to external stimuli, including ecological and environmental changes. The main objective of DISPERSALS is to investigate the migration and dispersal dynamics of early Homo sapiens in Africa and archaeologically evaluate the genetic model that southern African human populations were the genesis of the successful out-of-Africa some 70,000 years ago. This will be accomplished by investigating cultural and biological continuity/discontinuity issues and human population movements in the last c. 100,000 years in the poorly studied Limpopo and the Save river basins, central Mozambique, an area mediating the two key regions of human development, i.e., southern and eastern Africa.  DISPERSALS will compare the human occupation and ecology between central Mozambique and eastern and southern Africa using a multi-scale approach based on the study of regional diachronic cultural traits. It will reconstruct regional population patterns, followed by comparative quantitative population genetics combined with GIS computational network analyses. The results will be then integrated through Agent-based modeling, based on the incremental creation, elimination, or reorientation of network links to simulate a quantitative framework to study the evolution of population dispersal across southern-eastern Africa. The project will be crucial in providing ground-breaking high-resolution archaeological, chronological, and paleoenvironmental data. DISPERSALS will deliver a fundamental perspective on the key processes that triggered migrations and dispersals within Africa and out-of-Africa which ultimately resulted in the human diaspora over the entire planet.

Mots-clés : african stone age,middle stone age,later stone age,early human migrations and adaptations