Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : ITUL (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Pompeu Fabra University — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPF
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1213654.24 €

Shannon's Information Theory paved the way for the information era by providing the mathematical foundations of digital information systems. A key underlying assumption of Shannon's key results is that the probability law that governing system is known, allowing to optimize the codebook and decoder accordingly. There are a number of important situations where perfectly estimating the system law is impossible; in these situations the codebook and decoder must be designed without complete (or no) knowledge of the system law. The vast majority of the Information Theory literature makes strong simplifying assumptions on the model. Theoretical studies that provide a general treatment of information processing with uncertain laws are hence urgently needed. For general systems, standard asymptotic techniques cannot be invoked and new techniques must be sought. A fundamental understanding of the impact of uncertainty in general systems is crucial to harvesting the potential gains in practice. This project is aimed at contributing towards the ambitious goal of providing a unified framework for the study of Information Theory with uncertain laws. A general framework based on hypothesis testing will be developed and code designs and constructions that naturally follow from the hypothesis testing formulation will be derived. This unconventional and challenging treatment of Information Theory will advance the area and will contribute to Information Sciences and Systems disciplines where Information Theory is relevant. A comprehensive study of the fundamental limits and optimal code design with law uncertainty for general models will represent a major step forward in the field, with the potential to provide new tools and techniques to solve open problems in close disciplines. Therefore, the outcomes of this project will not only benefit communications, but also areas such as probability theory, statistics, physics, computer science and economics.

Mots-clés : information theory,coding theory,digital communications,data compression
Projet ERC : HIRESMEMMANIP (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Short term memory (STM) is impaired at old age and a host of neuropsychiatric disorders, and has been the focus of a multitude of psychological and theoretical studies. However, the underlying neuronal circuit mechanisms remain elusive, mainly due to the lack of experimental tools: we suggest that rapid manipulations at the neuronal level are required for deciphering underlying mechanisms. We have developed an approach combining large-scale extracellular recordings and high density multi-site/multi-color optical stimulation (“diode-probes”), which enables high resolution closed-loop manipulation of multiple circuit elements in intact, free, behaving rodents. After training mice and rats to perform bridging-free STM-tasks, we will evaluate local circuit mechanisms in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Two broad classes of manipulations will be used: First, necessary components and timescales needed for STM maintenance will be established by focal real-time silencing of specific cell types and real-time jittering of spiking in those cells. Second, sufficient components (neuronal codes) will be determined by a circuit-training phase, in which novel associations between synthetic brain patterns and behaviorally-relevant short-term memory traces will be established. The first class is equivalent to erasing memories and the second to their writing. Together, these manipulations are expected to reveal global and local circuit mechanisms that facilitate STM maintenance in intact animals

Mots-clés : optogenetics,precise timing,memory,oscillations,mice,rats,hippocampus,prefrontal cortex,extracellular
Projet ERC : FinanceCC (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Imperial College London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1738670.0 €

Should firms maximize financial value without regard to any environmental and social damages? If not, how should shareholders convey their social and environmental preferences? And, how should investors form their portfolio strategies and engage with the companies they invest in to mitigate climate change and other externalities? These are new fundamental questions firms and investors are confronted with in the face of accelerating climate change, and the new role financial markets are expected to play in the fight against climate change. Another transformational development is the rise of institutional investors –asset managers, insurance companies, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds—who together own more than 70% of the shares of publicly traded companies. These institutional investors are de facto the critical actors to aggregate investor preferences and engage with companies on their behalf. This research project is divided into two major themes: (A) to determine how financial markets provide the asset price signals and information to help investors shape their portfolio strategies in the face of climate change risk; (B) to identify how institutional investors approach climate change and engage with companies to lead them to accelerate the transition towards renewable energy. These two themes cannot be separated from public policy towards climate change, and the broader context of the global fight against climate change by governments, municipalities, regulators and civil society. Accordingly, a major aspect of the research is to make explicit how public policy shapes corporate behaviour through the actions of institutional investors.
Projet ERC : LIDD (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Zurich — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UZH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1963935.0 €

Should the people be allowed to vote on the adoption of immigration restrictions that violate international law? Should it be permissible to launch a citizens’ initiative demanding the reintroduction of the death penalty? May a proposal be put to a popular vote despite the fact that voters are not properly informed about its effects? With the mushrooming of direct-democratic instruments throughout Europe and the introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), the relationship between popular sovereignty and the rule of law is set to become one of the defining political issues of our time. Yet despite their great practical relevance, the questions of where the legal limits of direct democracy should be drawn and how compliance with these limits should be reviewed have remained almost completely unexplored. This leaves a major gap in the research that has serious repercussions for the functionality and legitimacy of direct democracy. It is the ambitious objective of LIDD to provide the scientific basis for resolving this urgent challenge. By innovatively combining comparative legal analysis with both qualitative and quantitative methods from other social sciences, the project builds on the experience made with various direct-democratic mechanisms in order to develop general conclusions. Part 1 of LIDD distils a core of issues that is regarded as being beyond the reach of direct democracy across all European states and elaborates best practices that will help states define and apply the limits of direct democracy in a sensible way. Part 2 identifies common European minimum standards that institutional and procedural systems for reviewing compliance with these limits must satisfy and makes suggestions for improving these systems. Part 3 applies the findings from Parts 1 and 2 to the EU level; it shows how the admissibility requirements that an ECI must meet should be adapted and clarified and how the admissibility procedure could be improved.

Mots-clés : direct democracy,referendums,citizens  initiatives,european citizens  initiative,rule of law,international law,human rights
Projet ERC : CRYVISIL (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2484375.0 €

Silicon is the most abundant element in the earth’s crust. Its oxide, silica (SiO2) is the basis for most minerals of the earth’s crust, and also for a number of technological applications ranging from window glass, via electronics to catalysis. The structure of crystalline materials such as quartz or silica-based minerals is well understood due to the application of scattering techniques such as x-ray or neutron diffraction, for example, which allow accurate structure determinations. Silica, however, also forms glasses, which are amorphous or vitreous. Its structure is not well understood. In fact, diffraction techniques have only been able to deliver pair correlation functions, which reveal the density of a material around a given atom, but do not allow a detailed reconstruction of the atomic structure as in the case of crystalline materials. Until recently, a real space image of a silica glass with atomic resolution had not been recorded. Using scanning probe techniques applied to a thin silica film grown atomically flat on a metal substrate, it has been possible to reveal, for the first time, an atomically resolved image of vitreous silica. Both, a crystalline as well as a vitreous phase have been imaged. With this system, it is now possible to address the transition from a vitreous state to a crystal-line in real space by developing a scanning probe microscope that allows the study of its structure over a wide range of temperatures ranging from cryogenic temperatures to 1500 K. It is the purpose of this grant application to build such a device and apply it to the crystal-glass transition and the study of vibrational properties. This instrument may also be used to address a number of scientific problems related to other glass-formers, such as borates and the influence of silica modifications by atom doping, for example.
Projet ERC : RACOM (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Liverpool — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 989379.0 €

Silver coinage formed the backbone of state finance in Classical antiquity. The fineness and quality of a coinage is often taken by historians to be a comment on the fiscal health of the issuing state, yet very little is really known about its fineness and chemical composition, and many of the existing analyses are inadequate to answer key questions. Samples for analysis are commonly taken from the surfaces, or from just beneath the surfaces, of silver coins, and these are not representative of the original alloys used, leading to erroneous estimates of overall composition. The aim of the project is to examine financial and monetary strategies from c. 150 BCE to a major coin reform in c. 64 CE – a period that witnessed the creation of an overarching currency for the Mediterranean world and increasing monetisation – by providing a detailed and reliable set of analyses of the chemical composition of all major silver coinages of the period, obtained by taking samples from deep within the coins. It will also evaluate two new, non-destructive techniques to see how they compare with established protocols. The period witnessed a major increase in long distance trade and probably also economic growth and a rise in per capita income. Roman conquest led to greater economic and monetary integration of the Mediterranean area, and Rome’s apparent currency monopoly may have had its own consequences for the development of coinage and management of finances. Flows of precious metals to Rome and other important centres of power helped to finance Roman expansion, and understanding the chemical composition of silver coinage will transform our understanding of Roman monetary strategy as an instrument of imperialism.

Mots-clés : roman empire,coinage,monetary history,hellenistic world,scientific analysis,microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry,inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry,lead isotopes,metallography,laser ablation,negative muons
Projet ERC : SILVER (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
Entité participante : Fondation Innovation et Transitions — Pays : France — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : FIT
Type d'entité : Autres
Financement ERC de l'entité : 163957.5 €

Silver was the primary metal of economic exchange and military finances in ancient Mediterranean and Near-Eastern societies. Silver isotopes will help quantify monetization of these societies by identifying Ag mineral sources, monetary sinks, and its major transfer routes. High-precision stable Ag isotope analysis initiated in Lyon has shed new light on the provenance of silver coinage. This is because Ag isotopes are distinctive of coinage’s intrinsic value in contrast to traditionally-used Pb and Cu isotopes, which may characterize impurities or additives. The common belief that PbS (galena) ores accounted most of the silver mined in the antique world will be tested. We will extract Ag from ores around the Mediterranean and test PbS prevalence over As and Sb sulfosalts and low-temperature ores with Ag, Cu, and Pb isotopes and trace elements. Our work will address major questions: (i) understand the sources of unminted silver as a precursor to coinage; (ii) use Ag isotope fingerprinting of the earliest coinages of Athens to identify the contributions of Greek mines to the development of the world’s first democracy; (iii) map the Greek and Persian mines which sourced the treasure captured by Alexander the Great, and investigate the spread of its silver; (iv) study the causes of the monetary reform of the Roman Republic in 211 BC; and (v) model the silver cycle from mines to coinage and artefacts in its economic context. In the short term this project represents radical scientific innovation, which will pave the way for a global and quantitative understanding of the history of monetary development in the ancient Mediterranean. In the long term, it will contribute to the emergence of a community of analysts, numismatists and economic historians with shared expertise about the monetization of ancient societies and their management of precious metal resources.

Mots-clés : museum collections,ore deposits
Projet ERC : SUGARCODING (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : Technical University of Munich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TUM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499403.74 €

Since its discovery more than a decade ago, the most studied network in the human brain remains a paradox. The default mode network (DMN) is most active during the resting state and deactivates once subjects engage in goal directed behavior. Although reported in hundreds of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the function of the DMN is still unknown. I hypothesize that memories are consolidated in the DMN during resting state, a process that is interrupted once we engage in cognitive processing. This hypothesis is based on two complementary and recent findings. First, brain regions involved in encoding of novel or retrieval of consolidated memories strongly resemble regions of the DMN. Second, the DMN consumes most glucose during resting state as revealed by positron emission tomography (PET). Importantly, energy in the brain is mainly dedicated to neuronal signaling and synaptic plasticity related to memory consolidation. To test my hypothesis, I will use hybrid PET/MR imaging to simultaneously study fMRI activity and energy metabolism of the DMN during episodic memory processing. Integrating this novel imaging approach with my recently developed brain connectivity methods, I will (i) identify the metabolic baseline of fMRI-deactivations in the DMN, (ii) track the metabolic demand and directional connectivity in the DMN during memory consolidation, and (iii) evaluate non-invasive brain stimulation as a therapeutic option to modulate memory consolidation. The DMN is massively disturbed in psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety and affective disorders. SUGARCODING aims at uncovering memory consolidation as a universal function of the DMN that seems to critically orchestrate the human mind and its pathological deviations. ...

Mots-clés : episodic memory,default mode network,hybrid pet,mr imaging
Projet ERC : POPULIZATION (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Bocconi University — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1415760.0 €

Since the Great Recession of 2008, populist parties have scored major electoral successes around Europe. Nonetheless, the populist map of Europe has mixed colors: in some countries, voters rally behind right-wing parties promising closed borders while, in others, resentment towards rising inequality has fuelled left-wing movements; some other countries have been less susceptible to populist rhetoric. Why are populist parties more successful in some places (or times) compared to others? What makes right or left populism more prominent in some countries (or after certain crises)? This project tackles these questions with the tools of behavioral political economy, a blossoming field at the intersection of behavioral economics and political economy, which applies insights from cognitive psychology and methodologies from microeconomics to understand political behavior. I will address two fundamental issues that can shed light on the puzzling pattern of support for populism: the heterogeneity and time (in)stability of preferences and cognitive abilities; and the role of limited attention in shaping preferences and information processing. First, I will focus on the demand side of the market for policies, voters. I will set up and maintain a novel longitudinal study, the European Preferences and Cognition Dataset (EPCD, Project 1), collecting repeated measures of economic preferences, social preferences and cognitive abilities for the same individuals in representative samples of European countries. Second, I will focus on the supply side, politicians. Building on the empirical evidence from the EPCD, I will develop theoretical models to explore how political candidates and elected representatives react to voters’ behavioral factors and unstable preferences (Projects 2-4). The combined output of these projects will greatly improve our understanding of European citizens' political preferences and how they affect economic and political outcomes.

Mots-clés : political economy,behavioral economics,experimental economics,populism,ideological polarization,economic preferences,social preferences,cognitive abilities,limited attention,unstable preferences,longitudinal studies,electoral competition,strategic communication,information acquisition
Projet ERC : PHOTHERM (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Spanish National Research Council — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : CSIC
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 640931.78 €

Since the beginning of civilization, humanity has built houses to sustain comfortable living conditions throughout the seasons. In our modern society, about 50% of the total energy consumption is used for heating and cooling. Growing demands for thermal management in many different sectors, from electronics to housing, inevitably means increased energy consumption. The primary source of heat is coming from the combustion of fossil, bio, or waste-based feedstocks, all contributing to emissions. This project seeks to fundamentally change how we generate heating and cooling by developing a new class of materials that capture, store, and release both solar and ambient heat. The solar thermal management materials are a unique combination of molecular photo-switches that capture and store sunlight, so-called MOST systems, together with phase change materials (PCM) that can contribute to thermal management. The two classes of materials operate at fundamentally different principles. The input of MOST system is photons, whereas the output is heat. The PCM materials can absorb heat from the environment. By combining the two materials into one, we can harness and upgrade two of the most abundant renewable sources of energy on the planet: ambient heat and sunlight. The materials function will be demonstrated in heat to power devices that can operate 24/7 without the need for traditional batteries. The MOST-PCM combination has the potential to disrupt how we control the temperature in a broad range of applications, from local power production to heating and cooling in electronics systems, to temperature control in automotive and housing. The materials developed in this project have the potential to radically change thermal comfort and energy consumption and give new design opportunities to thermal management systems from the 10-9 to 10 m length scale.

Mots-clés : molecular photoswitches
Projet ERC : LO-KMOF (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : KU Leuven — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KUL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 120000.0 €

Since the invention of integrated circuits, there has been a persistent incentive towards miniaturization. An indispensable part of every chip is a multi-level wiring system fabricated on top of the semiconductor layer containing the transistors. As transistors get smaller and more densely packed, the complexity and the impact on performance of the on-chip interconnects rises. The non-zero resistance and capacitance associated with the metal wires and the dielectric medium between them induce cross-talk noise between adjacent interconnects, limit the speed of signal propagation and increase the power consumption of a chip. The LO-KMOF project proposes an approach to alleviate these issues by integrating for the first time metal-organic frameworks as an interconnect dielectric. The project will make use of a novel vapour phase deposition approach for these materials, developed in the ERC project VAPORE. If successful, the project will contribute to chips that are not only faster but also consume less power. The proposed technology will be validated in an industrially relevant demonstrator.

Mots-clés : metal organic frameworks,thin films,vapor phase deposition,low k dielectrics,chip fabrication