Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : IQuake (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : École normale supérieure PSL — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ENS PSL
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1890000.0 €

While most earthquakes occur near plate boundaries, where the relative motion of tectonic plates is accommodated by slip on active faults, rare and unexpected but destructive earthquakes also occur in Stable Continental Regions. In SCRs, although we do not know why, earthquakes occur everywhere, they cluster, are of all magnitudes and are modulated by surface loads. However, no tectonic, secular strain can be detected and we do not know the origin of the elastic stress fueling these seismic events. Current hypothesis suggests that SCRs are stable reservoirs of elastic stress in which earthquakes can tap to break the crust. However, although tremendous work has been conducted to seismically characterize these regions, existing catalogs are not dense enough to explore potential physical mechanisms. I propose to test the following hypothesis: these rare albeit potentially destructive earthquakes are the result of the static fatigue of continents under stress left by previous phases of deformation in the geological history of a region. I will leverage the latest developments in artificial intelligence to grow the densest and largest global catalog of earthquakes in SCRs from seismological and InSAR data (WP1). I will develop a tool to predict realistic time series of surface loads affecting the crust (WP2). I will implement static fatigue in the form of brittle creep in a numerical model (WP3) to test whether continents are effectively failing today under paleo-stress left by fossil plate boundaries perturbed by todays' modulations of crustal stress, comparing model outcomes with data collected in WP1. This interdisciplinary project combining seismology, geodesy, machine learning and numerical modeling will allow to (1) grow a physical understanding of the seismogenic behavior of SCRs, (2) tune estimates of seismogenic potential (and eventually hazard) for any given SCR (3) test whether a changing climate will affect the seismogenic potential of SCRs in the future.

Mots-clés : stable continental regions,earthquakes,insar,gnss,rock mechanics
Projet ERC : COCONUT (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Princeton — Pays : Etats-Unis — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 0.0 €

The COCONUT project aims at developing predictive capabilities to understand how colloids (nanometals, fine particles, bacteria, viruses, asphaltenes..) control immiscible two-phase flow in complex geological formations. Colloids (including nanoparticles) have an incredible potential to remobilize non-aqueous phases trapped by capillary forces in soils and the subsurface, and then to remediate contaminated groundwater or to enhance oil recovery. Their use in daily engineering, however, is still underexploited because the lack of knowledge regarding their transport mechanisms is an obstacle to precise control of two-phase flow. Importantly, the presence of colloidal particles flowing in the subsurface challenges the standard modeling viewpoint of flow and transport based on Darcy's law. We posit that the precise control of colloids on the motion of two-phase flow can only be achieved by developing a deep knowledge of the coupled hydro-electro-chemical processes at the pore-scale. The COCONUT project uses a combined modelling-experimental strategy focusing on the pore-scale mechanisms and on the upscaling to the continuum-scale. The project is multi-disciplinary and uses computational and experimental sciences, fluid dynamics, electrochemistry, and mathematics. The project will require the development of hydro-electro-chemical computational models at different scales of interest (WP1). We will use high-resolution simulations to interrogate emergent physico-chemical processes and characterize the surface attractive and repulsive forces at the nanoscale (WP2). Then, we will decipher the mechanisms leading to the displacement of fluids trapped in an unsaturated porous medium in the presence of colloids using pore-scale modelling and microfluidic experiments (WP3). Finally, we will demonstrate and optimize the two-phase flow colloidal control in geological systems at the column-scale (WP4).

Mots-clés : porous media pore scale modeling microfluidics colloids hydro electro chemical coupling
Projet ERC : CLEVER-FUEL (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Séville — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999478.75 €

CLEVER-FUEL proposes a revolutionary approach for low-carbon fuels production paving the way for a direct “waste to biofuels” conversion strategy. The project will develop a completely novel route to produce deoxygenated hydrocarbons – highly important chemical compounds in the biofuel and biochemical industries - via designing of advanced catalysts for the H2-free hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) process. This ground-breaking route take the edge over current biomass upgrading approaches which rely on high-pressure hydrogen – an expensive resource whose manipulation, transport and storage imposes serious limitations and represent a bottleneck to the commercial deployment of this technology. CLEVER-FUEL will create new chemistry and reaction engineering concepts to circumvent this handicap by using the cheapest and safest possible hydrogen source: water. The overriding goal is to create a new conversion pathway by using water as hydrogen donor and advanced multifunctional catalysts able to catalyse water reduction and hydrodeoxygenation simultaneously yielding oxygen-free biofuels. Such multifunctionality resolves the problem of oxygen-rich bio-compounds upgrading in a single reactor under mild conditions and avoiding the external supply of high-pressure hydrogen thus opening a completely new research avenue for biomass conversion technologies. CLEVER-FUEL will combine unique multifunctional catalysts with advanced operando characterisation techniques to provide a rational strategy for catalysts design. In addition, novel reactor concepts based on microchannel catalytic systems will be implemented to facilitate process intensification.  CLEVER-FUEL represents a forward-thinking concept in catalysis and reaction engineering and it is conceived to open new horizons in bioenergy research unlocking the potential of biofuels and offering catalytic solutions to big society challenges in the pursuit of a low-carbon future.

Mots-clés : heterogenous catalysis,reaction engineering,biofuels,
Projet ERC : POTRANSI (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Initiatives around the world are addressiInitiatives around the world are addressing societal challenges by experimenting with social innovations (SI), i.e., new ways of doing, thinking and organising. Examples include sharing economy, eco-communities, participatory democracy and many more. Such SIs can contribute to societal transformation if/when they challenge, alter and/or replace dominant structures and institutions that underly the root causes of societal challenges. To have such a transformative impact, SIs must undergo some form of diffusion, scaling or mainstreaming. In this process, they lose (some of) their novelty and risk reproducing or even aggravating the structures/problems that they meant to challenge in the first place, thereby possibly contradicting their original intentions. This project tackles this innovation paradox from a power perspective by studying how power relations are changed and/or reproduced in processes of transformative social innovation (TSI) and asking how/to what extent SIs are/can be mainstreamed and gain power while upholding transformative potential. We develop a novel power framework that synthesises major power contestations in social and political theory to analyse how actors across different institutional logics (state, market, community, non-profit) gain/lose/exercise/undergo power in TSI. We conduct embedded case studies of 4 SI-trends (sharing economy, eco-communities, decentralised energy, and participatory democracy) at multiple scales, including 12 translocal networks and 12 local initiatives in 3 geographical contexts (United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal), using interviews, participant observation, document reviews and Transformative Power Arena sessions. We design a Critical Power Moments methodology for retrospective analysis of how power relations are (re)produced/transformed over time, as well as a prospective participatory Transformative Power-tool to identify challenges and strategies for powering TSIs.

Mots-clés : social innovation,transformative change,transformative social innovation,power relations,power dynamics,sustainability transitions
Projet ERC : RockDeath (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2470873.0 €

The dynamics of the solid Earth, e.g., the initiation of plate tectonics, the strength of plate boundaries, and the formation and evolution of mountains, is directly controlled by the chemical and physical action of water. In the shallow (brittle) part of the lithosphere, fluid pressure counteracts the lithostatic pressure and weakens faults. At greater depth, the chemical activity of water makes rocks plastically weaker, and is also responsible for metamorphic reactions that induce weakening. Fluids have been invoked to explain observations of tremor and slow slip at depth, and a large fraction of crustal seismicity is attributed to upward fluid flow, inducing earthquake swarms.  Yet we still have very few quantitative constraints on either fluid pressure or chemical activity of water at depth in the lithosphere. In addition, fluid pressure and transport are coupled to deformation, and the mechanisms by which fluids induce fault slip and seismicity are not well understood: crustal fluids are very mobile, and rock physical properties evolve in response to both fluid-rock interactions and deformation.  The aim of this project is to identify and quantify the coupled mechanical, hydraulic and chemical processes occurring across the lithosphere, from slow creep to rapid earthquake slip, and determine the role played by fluids on deep and shallow seismicity, slow slip, and long-term evolution of plate boundaries.  I propose to conduct laboratory rock deformation experiments with state-of-the-art instrumentation and data processing methods to determine the spatio-temporal evolution of fluid flow and seismicity during faulting, quantify the evolution of rock physical and transport properties during long-term ``healing'', and test how chemical water activity and metamorphic hydration reactions impact deep fault rheology. The laboratory data will allow us to establish the geophysical signature of fluids in the lithosphere, and how they impact the dynamics of faults.

Mots-clés : rock physics,experimental,fault,earthquake,fluid flow,permeability,seismic cycle
Projet ERC : WIRE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999415.0 €

The magnetosphere is a natural plasma laboratory. Radiation belts in the magnetosphere are full of high energy particles. The energetic electrons in the Earth’s radiation belts can be hazardous to Earth-orbiting satellites and astronauts in space. Many of the space systems on which modern human society depends operate in this region. The fluxes of radiation belt electrons are very dynamic, which is not fully understood due to the delicate balance between various acceleration and loss processes. Wave-particle interactions are believed to play a crucial role in the acceleration and loss of these particles. To quantify the effect of different waves on the dynamics of radiation belt electrons, comprehensive wave models are needed. Currently, there are some wave models based on satellite measurements. However, the space coverage of these wave models is not sufficient due to the orbit limit of satellites. In this project, combining state-of-the-art measurements from multiple satellites, comprehensive wave models will be developed. We will improve our sophisticated physics-based radiation belt dynamic model by using the wave models developed in this project and calculate diffusion coefficients using more realistic background magnetic field and plasma density models for the first time. Furthermore, fundamental acceleration and loss of energetic electrons caused by different waves in the Earth's radiation belts will be quantified. We will systematically validate simulation results against satellite measurements to understand the competition between acceleration and loss caused by various mechanisms. All these improvements will be critically important for answering the overarching scientific question: Why do the Earth’s radiation belts respond differently to geomagnetic storms which have approximately the same intensity? The knowledge gained in this project can be useful for basics plasma physics and astronomy physics because the similar fundamental processes exist.

Mots-clés : earth s radiation belts,plasma waves,wave models,wave particle interactions,radiation belt modeling
Projet ERC : EMERGE (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999991.0 €

Geological processes governed paleo-atmospheric CO2 variations and exerted major control on past climate change beyond the million-year time scale. Vast deep carbon reservoirs are known to be activated at continental rifts, where the faulted lithosphere provides CO2 pathways and where recent surveys detected massive CO2 emissions. However, progress in quantifying natural CO2 degassing and its impact on past climate is impeded for 3 reasons: (1) current CO2 flux measurement techniques require labourintensive field surveys that can cover only small areas; (2) a consistent framework uniting geodynamic processes and CO2 transport to the surface is missing; (3) past CO2 flux from rifts is difficult to quantify because compilations do not account for geodynamic characteristics.  EMERGE will enter uncharted territory by linking 3 innovative approaches. The project will: (1) advance airborne CO2 flux measurements via drones. Focusing on rifts in Kenya, Ethiopia, Czech Republic and Iceland, we will measure for the first time tectonic CO2 flux distributions of entire regions allowing unprecedented insight into subsurface CO2 pathways; (2) characterise geodynamic controls on lithospheric CO2 transport via novel numerical modelling techniques; and (3) integrate data of all known rifts since 540 million years ago to understand the role of tectonic degassing in shaping Earth’s climate through time.  Zooming in on the geosphere-atmosphere interface, this project integrates interdisciplinary ideas and methods from geodynamics, micrometeorology, petrology, and paleoclimatology. EMERGE may generate broad impact on scientific and societal level: dronebased CO2 flux measurements will be a game changer in understanding tectonic CO2 release at rifts and other plate boundaries worldwide. The methodological and scientific advances may be essential for establishing a solid baseline of tectonic CO2 emissions to accurately quantify controls on past and future climate change.

Mots-clés : continental rifting,geodynamic modelling,co2 degassing,plate tectonics,carbon cycle
Projet ERC : DEEPRETINA (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Entité participante : Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : Inserm
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1998280.0 €

A major goal of sensory neuroscience is to understand how sensory neurons process natural scenes. Models built from the responses of sensory neurons to simple stimuli do not generalize to predict how complex, natural scene are processed. Even as early as in the retina, this issue is not solved. Deep network models have been proposed to predict the responses of visual neurons to natural stimuli. However, they are still far from being a realistic model of the visual system. First, the sensitivity to perturbations of the stimulus can thus be very different for a deep network model and for our visual system. Second, it is not clear how the model components can be related to actual mechanisms in the brain. Our purpose is to understand how the retina processes natural scenes. We will follow an interdisciplinary approach where we will build realistic deep network models of retinal processing and test them in experiments. We will develop deep network models that can predict ganglion cell responses to natural stimuli, and map the components of these models to specific cell types in the retinal network. Our project is original because it will use two novel methods, that will be key to achieve our goal. The first one is a novel approach to characterize retinal function, where we will probe the selectivity of the retina to perturbations of natural stimuli. The second one is a novel tool based on 2-photon holographic stimulation to decompose the retinal circuit. They are tailored to address the specific issues of deep networks. Each ganglion cell has a receptive field center, the region of visual space whose stimulation evokes the strongest responses. Our project is divided in three parts. We will first understand how natural images are integrated inside the receptive field center. We will then ask how stimulation outside the receptive field center affects ganglion cell processing of natural images. Finally, we will focus on motion processing during natural scene stimulation.

Mots-clés : retina,deep network,vision,neurophysiology
Projet ERC : EXCURSION (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth System Science
Entité participante : GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : GFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1970508.0 €

EXCURSION resolves around fundamental questions concerning the operational mechanism, causation, and predictability of the most frequent transitional events of the Earth's magnetic field. Geomagnetic excursions are episodes of low field intensity globally with no complete polarity reversals but anomalous magnetic directions that do not reflect a dipolar field. They reduce the shielding against solar and cosmic radiation, thus triggering significant technological and potential environmental and climatic impacts. Our understanding of geomagnetic excursions is severely limited. The urgency to study these events arises from several facts, including the substantial decrease in geomagnetic field strength over the past centuries, certain future events considering the dynamic nature of excursions, and harmful effects on modern technology. To advance in this subject, we must understand the core dynamics and global and regional characteristics of as many of these events as possible. This project focuses on the geomagnetic excursions in the Brunhes Chron (past 780,000 years). I will build the first data-based model of the geomagnetic field over the Brunhes Chron, complemented with high-resolution reconstructions of excursions. These models will be assimilated into state-of-the-art 3D dynamo simulations to infer the excursional state of the core and geodynamo. Furthermore, novel machine learning methods will be applied to the new models to assess past field configurations that resemble the present-day and identify common characteristics and potential precursors of the excursions. This ground-breaking synthesis of multi excursional events analyzed with data-based reconstructions, data assimilation by 3D numerical simulations, and machine learning techniques will create a holistic framework and will advance our knowledge beyond the current understanding of the Earth's outer core dynamics.

Mots-clés : geomagnetic field,paleomagnetism,paleosecular variation,geomagnetic excursions,geomagnetic reversals,geodynamo,data assimilation,core dynamics
Projet ERC : ZOMBIHAVIOUR (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université d'Utrecht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

Reminiscent of zombies in pop culture, some parasites hijack host behaviours. Our understanding of this parasite strategy to improve transmission is minimal, despite its convergent evolution across major taxa. Functional genetics studies would advance our knowledge of the molecular underpinnings of “zombie behaviour”. Additionally, learning how behaviour can be altered would elucidate how “normal” phenotypes are maintained. However, most zombie-making parasites and their hosts are not classic model organisms, which complicates mechanistic interrogation.  The so-called “zombie ants’ can be used to study parasite hijacking of animal behaviour in more detail. Zombie ants are infected by Ophiocordyceps fungi that cause summit disease. Infected ants ascend vegetation that they bite into as they die to ensure fungal spore dispersal. My lab developed fungal culturing techniques, infection methods and behavioural assays to detail infection-related changes in daily ant foraging, communication, and locomotion. Additionally, by integrating multi-omics tools, we identified candidate fungal products and ant host pathways that might underlie the behavioural changes observed. However, to move from correlation to causation these candidates need to be functionally tested.  By leveraging my lab’s pioneering work and my training in molecular microbiology I aim to elucidate the molecular genetics underlying parasite hijacking of host behaviour. I propose to 1) adopt molecular genetics tools to characterise fungal products that induce altered host behavioural phenotypes, 2) use RNASeq and RNAi to investigate the affected ant pathways that give rise to those phenotypes, and 3) further establish involvement of these behavioural pathways through integration of the animal model Drosophila melanogaster.  The proposed work will be transformative in our understanding of parasite manipulation strategies and spark novel research into sustainable pest control strategies and fungus-derived drugs.