Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : BePreSysE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : University of Barcelona — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UB
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1835220.0 €

Over the past 20 years cosmology has made the transition to a precision science: the standard cosmological model has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. But precision is not enough: accuracy is also crucial. Accuracy accounts for systematic errors which can be both on the observational and on the theory/modelling side (and everywhere in between). While there is a well-defined and developed framework for treating statistical errors, there is no established approach for systematic errors. The next decade will see the era of large surveys; a large coordinated effort of the scientific community in the field is on-going to map the cosmos producing an exponentially growing amount of data. This will shrink the statistical errors, making mitigation and control of systematics of the utmost importance. While there are isolated and targeted efforts to quantify systematic errors and propagate them through all the way to the final results, there is no well-established, self-consistent methodology. To go beyond precision cosmology and reap the benefits of the forthcoming observational program, a systematic approach to systematics is needed. Systematics should be interpreted in the most general sense as shifts between the recovered measured values and true values of physical quantities. I propose to develop a comprehensive approach to tackle systematic errors with the goal to uncover and quantify otherwise unknown differences between the interpretation of a measurement and reality. This will require to fully develop, combine and systematize all approaches proposed so far (many pioneered by the PI), develop new ones to fill the gaps, study and explore their interplay and finally test and validate the procedure. Beyond Precision Cosmology: Dealing with Systematic Errors (BePreSysE) will develop a framework to deal with systematics in forthcoming Cosmological surveys which, could, in principle, be applied beyond Cosmology.

Mots-clés : analysis of forthcoming large cosmological surveys
Projet ERC : WEALTHPOL (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of Oxford — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1696109.0 €

Over the past decade scholars across the social sciences have grappled with the causes and consequences of economic inequality and social mobility. Income inequality has risen to levels unseen for a century. At the same time, economies in Europe and beyond have seen an even larger concentration in wealth, along with unprecedented volatility in asset markets such as housing and equities. These changes in the distribution of wealth have been of great economic and political consequence, with the debates over housing, inheritance, and capital taxation shaping contemporary political discourse. Yet, scholars of political economy remain beholden to analyses of inequality and mobility that examine only the flows of income in the labour market and ignore inequality and mobility in the stock of wealth held by citizens. WEALTHPOL is a ground-breaking interdisciplinary project with a series of three high-risk and novel work packages that transform our knowledge about wealth inequality and wealth mobility. WEALTHPOL 1 develops the first comprehensive collection of data about the distribution and inheritance of wealth in Europe and beyond. WEALTHPOL 2 provides the first political database of how governments shape the pattern of wealth through political pledges and policymaking, spanning seven decades and thirty-seven countries. Finally, WEALTHPOL 3 uses cutting-edge laboratory and survey experiments to expand our knowledge about what citizens think about wealth. WEALTHPOL draws these three strands together by connecting policy environments and the distribution of wealth to citizens’ attitudes to wealth inequality and the kinds of policies that might shape it. In doing so, WEALTHPOL revolutionises our understanding of - and our capacity to respond to - the politics of capital in the twenty-first century in Europe and beyond.

Mots-clés : political economy of wealth
Projet ERC : LEGA-C (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 848216.39 €

Over the past decade, redshift surveys and multi-wavelength imaging campaigns have drawn up an empirical picture of how many stars had formed in which types of galaxies over the history of the universe. However, we have yet to unravel the individual pathways along which galaxies evolve, and the physical processes that drive them. Continuing with the previous approach -- larger and deeper photometric samples -- is not adequate to achieve this goal. A change of focus is required. In this ERC project I will embark on a new way to address the question of galaxy evolution. I will do so as Principle Investigator of the recently approved LEGA-C observing program that has been allocated 128 nights of observation time over the next 4 years with ESO's flagship facility the Very Large Telescope. This new survey will produce for 2500 distant (at z~1) galaxies with, for the first time, sufficient resolution and S/N to measure ages and chemical compositions of their stellar populations as well as internal velocity dispersions and dynamical masses. This will provide an entirely new physical description of the galaxy population 7 Gyr ago, with which I will finally be able solve long-standing questions in galaxy formation that were out of reach before: what is the star-formation history of individual galaxies, why and how is star-formation ``quenched'' in many galaxies, and to what extent do galaxies grow subsequently through merging afterward? LEGA-C is worldwide the largest spectroscopic survey of distant galaxies to date, and ERC funding will be absolutely critical in harvesting this unparallelled database. I am seeking to extend my research group to realize the scientific potential of this substantial investment (6.5M Eur) of observational resources by the European astronomy community. Timing of the execution of the VLT program is perfectly matched with the timeline of this ERC program.
Projet ERC : SAMPLING (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Entité participante : University of Warwick — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1928168.75 €

Over the past two decades, a wave of Bayesian explanations has swept through cognitive science, explaining behaviour in domains from intuitive physics and causal learning, to perception, motor control and language. Yet people produce stunningly incorrect answers in response to even the simplest questions about probabilities. How can a supposedly Bayesian brain paradoxically reason so poorly with probabilities? Perhaps Bayesian brains do not represent or calculate probabilities at all and are, indeed, poorly adapted to do so. Instead the brain could be approximating Bayesian inference through sampling: drawing samples from its distribution over likely hypotheses over time. This work aims to put meat on the bones of this hypothesis by identifying the kinds of algorithms used by the brain to draw samples. Previous proposals of simple sampling algorithms both do not match human data, nor scale well to more complex probability distributions and hypothesis spaces. In our first work programme, we will investigate advanced algorithms that have been developed in computer science and statistics, to see which one is employed by the brain to draw samples. A catalog of reasoning errors has been used to argue against a Bayesian brain, but only with infinite samples does a Bayesian sampler conform to the laws of probability. In our second work programme, we will show how with finite samples the sampling algorithm we identify systematically generates classic probabilistic reasoning errors in individuals, upending the longstanding consensus on these effects. In our third work programme, we will apply the algorithm to group decision making, investigating how the sampling algorithm provides a new perspective on group decision making biases and errors in financial decision making, and harness the algorithm to produce novel and effective ways for human and artificial experts to collaborate.

Mots-clés : bayesian brains,approximate rationality
Projet ERC : PIMTOC (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149987.0 €

Over the past years the Laboratory of Phonics and Quantum Measurements (LPQM) has developed a photonic chip that generates ultrashort pulses at 10-100 GHz mode spacing and is capable to spectrally cover all the telecommunication bands for high speed telecommunication testing applications, in contrast to existing products that usually only cover one band. Our fabrication base is a well-established semiconductor technology, expanded through innovative processes to cover the needs of optics developed from zero until now at EPFL. This gives a cost advantage due to integration and high reliability thanks to miniaturization. We propose to develop over the next 18 months a product prototype and marketing strategy of a chip based optical frequency comb (OFC) that can be used for broadband (i.e. > 50 terahertz) coherent telecommunication test device characterization with detectable line spacing of tens of gigahertz. Potential future customers would be telecommunication companies, network providers and R&D labs that could use the devices as both receiver and multi-channel local oscillator for coherent telecommunication architectures for both long haul and metro applications. The aim of this project is to analyse the market opportunities, understand the needs of potential end-users, identify the most promising market segments and identify those elements that will comprise the pricing for a product beyond the demonstrator.

Mots-clés : photonic integrated circuits,high capacity coherent telecommunication,frequency combs
Projet ERC : PROSPECTS (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : Université Paris Cité — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UP Cité
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1999312.0 €

Overgrowth syndromes (OS) are rare genetic disorders that can be either localized or generalized. In most cases, the mutations are not inherited but occur during embryogenesis leading to somatic mosaicism. The genes involved in OS are not well characterized but most appear to be part of the PIK3CA/AKT/mTOR pathway, a major actor in cell growth and proliferation. Among the different genes, gain-of-function mutations of PIK3CA have a prominent role. Patients with PIK3CA gain of function mutation (PROS) usually have complex tissue malformations, including abnormal vessels, anarchic adipose tissue, muscle hypertrophy and/or bone deformation. Currently, there are no specific treatments for PROS patients. Patients mainly receive supportive care including debulking surgery, sclerotherapy and nutritional support. PROS often result in severe disabilities with deleterious social consequences and premature death. We recently generated a mouse model of PROS that, for the 1st time, recapitulates the patient phenotype, identified BYL719, a PIK3CA inhibitor undergoing development in oncology, as a potential therapeutic for PROS and demonstrated the efficacy of this drug in our mouse model (Venot et al, Nature 2018). Based on these very promising results, we were authorized to treat adults and children suffering from very severe forms of PROS. The clinical outcome is very promising. Now, in this project, we will decipher the physiopathology of PROS, identify biomarkers and new treatments. To this aim, we will combine in vitro and in vivo approaches using very innovative technologies and new mouse models of OS. Consistently with my previous works, we will extend our findings to Human through our unique PROS Biobank. The accomplishment of this project may lead to the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and strategies to slow down the progression of PROS. But, more importantly, based on the pleiotropic role by PI3KCA in cancer, our findings will open new perspectives in oncology.
Projet ERC : HepatoMetaboPath (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Entité participante : German Cancer Research Center — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : DKFZ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1508710.0 €

Overweight and metabolic syndrome are reaching pandemic dimensions in industrialized countries and are rising in developing countries. Clinically these diseases can manifest in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most frequent liver disease world-wide. A significant number of NAFLD patients develop non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), making NASH-driven HCC the most rapidly increasing cancer in the USA, with a similar trend in Europe. While HCC is the second most common cause of cancer related death, the mechanisms triggering NASH and subsequent HCC are poorly understood and efficacious therapies are lacking. My group has strong expertise in inflammation-driven HCC (e.g. by Hepatitis B, C viruses). Recently, we have established a mouse model of NASH-driven HCC recapitulating human pathology in the context of metabolic syndrome. We demonstrated for the first time that CD8+ T- and natural killer T (NKT)-cells become activated during metabolic syndrome, cross-talk with hepatocytes and alter hepatic lipid metabolism causing NASH and HCC. We found an identical profile of CD8+T and NKT-cell activation in human NASH underlining the clinical relevance of our model. As the mechanisms of immune cell activation in NASH and transition to HCC remain unknown, this research proposal aims to (1) Identify the priming cell types in metabolic CD8+ T-, NKT-cell activation and the molecular mechanisms of immune cell-hepatocyte crosstalk. (2) Determine the role of antigen recognition and danger- or pathogen-associated molecular patterns in NASH/HCC. (3) Identify the environmental and genetic determinants of NASH to HCC transition. Our findings will enhance the understanding of NASH and HCC development by identifying the underlying mechanisms of immune cell activation. We will identify genetic changes facilitating NASH to HCC transition and whether metabolic normalization of former NASH patients suffices to significantly reduce HCC.

Mots-clés : obesity,nash,metabolic syndrome,immune cell activation
Projet ERC : Microbes4U (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Proof of concept grants)
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 : 136875.0 €

Overweight and obesity have reached worldwide epidemic level. Both overweight and obesity are characterized by comorbidities such as cardio-metabolic risk factors (i.e., insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, low-grade inflammation) representing a major public health problem. Therefore, it is urgent to find a therapeutic solution to target all these metabolic disorders. Among the environmental factors able to influence the individual susceptibility to gain weight and to develop metabolic disorders associated with obesity, we have contributed to the demonstration that gut bacteria (i.e, gut microbiota) influence host metabolism. We recently discovered a putative interesting microbial candidate, namely Akkermansia muciniphila. More exactly, we found that the administration of Akkermansia muciniphila reduced body weight gain, fat mass gain, glycemia, cholesterolemia and inflammatory markers in diet-induced obese mice. Moreover, in overweight/obese patients subjected to a calorie restriction diet, the higher abundance of Akkermansia muciniphila was associated with a better cardio-metabolic status. These observations suggested that the administration of Akkermansia muciniphila in overweight or obese people could be a very interesting therapeutic solution. Currently, no human study have investigated the beneficial effects of Akkermansia muciniphila administration on obesity and metabolic disorders. Thus, the main objective of this ERC POC project “Microbes4U” is to get the proof of concept in humans of the safety and efficacy of Akkermansia muciniphila administration in the treatment of overweight, obesity and metabolic disorders associated such as insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes and dyslipidemia.

Mots-clés : obesity,diabetes,gut microbiota,akkermansia muciniphila,cardio metabolic risk factors,clinical trial,insulin resistance
Projet ERC : COMICS (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Cultures and cultural production
Entité participante : Ghent University — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UGent
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1452500.0 €

Owing to their visual essence and status as a popular, modern medium, comics – newspaper strips, comics magazines and graphic novels – provide valuable insight into the transformation of collective consciousness. This project advances the hypothesis that children in comics are distinctive embodiments of the complex experience of modernity, channeling and tempering modern anxieties and incarnating the freedom denied to adults. In testing this hypothesis, the project constructs the first intercultural history of children in European comics, tracing the changing conceptualizations of child protagonists in popular comics for both children and adults from the mid-19th century to the present. In doing so, it takes key points in European history as well as the history of comics into account. Assembling a team of six multilingual researchers, the project uses an interdisciplinary methodology combining comics studies and childhood studies while also incorporating specific insights from cultural studies (history of family life, history of public life, history of the body, affect theory and scholarship on the carnivalesque). This enables the project to analyze the transposition of modern anxieties, conceptualizations of childishness, child-adult power relations, notions of liberty, visualizations of the body, family life, school and public life as well as the presence of affects such as nostalgia and happiness in comics starring children. The project thus opens up a new field of research lying at the intersection of comics studies and childhood studies and illustrates its potential. In studying popular but often overlooked comics, the project provides crucial historical and analytical material that will shape future comics criticism and the fields associated with childhood studies. Furthermore, the project’s outreach activities will increase collective knowledge about comic strips, which form an important, increasingly visible part of cultural heritage.

Mots-clés : graphic novels,comics,comics studies,childhood studies,children s literature,modernity,history of the body,affect
Projet ERC : OXYGEN SENSING (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Integrative Biology: from Genes and Genomes to Systems
Entité participante : Umeå University — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1485000.0 €

Oxygen (O2) levels can vary enormously in the environment, which induces dramatic behavioral and physiological changes to resident animals. Adaptations to O2 variations can be either acute or sustained. How animals detect and respond to the changes of O2 availability remains elusive at the molecular level. In particular, what is the precise mechanism of acute O2 sensing, what are the primary sensor for acute hypoxia, and why do neurons of various species exhibit completely different sensitivity to hypoxic challenges? The research proposed here aims at addressing these intriguing but challenging questions in the model system nematode C. elegans, which offers unique advantages to systematically dissect O2 sensing at both genetic and neural circuit levels. C. elegans responds dramatically to acute O2 variations by altering its locomotory speed. We will make use of this robust behavioral response to O2 stimulation for high-throughput genetic screens, aiming to identify a collection of molecules critical for acute O2 sensing. These molecules will be subsequently characterized in the context of a well-described nervous system of C. elegans. Our findings will offer the opportunity to shed light on conserved principles of acute O2 sensing that are operating in the O2 sensing systems in humans such as carotid body. In addition to its robust responses to O2 variation, C. elegans exhibits remarkable tolerance to a complete lack of O2, anoxic exposure. My team will thoroughly investigate anoxia tolerance of C. elegans by performing a screen for anoxia-sensitive mutants that has previously been challenging. The discoveries will allow us to delineate the molecular underpinning of anoxia tolerance in C. elegans, and to inspire other researchers to develop better strategies to cope with hypoxic challenges caused by certain diseases such as stroke and ischemia, which are the most causes of human deaths in developed countries.