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 : University of Cambridge — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : U. Cambridge
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 674378.76 €

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 : CaTs n DOCs (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Heidelberg University — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1996000.0 €

Shape-persistent organic cage compounds consisting only of covalent bonds are fascinating synthetically targets, because they are studied as hosts for the selective recognition of guest molecules, such as artificial lectins, for catalysis in confined space or for the construction of a new type of porous material. For the latter, the shape-persistency and rigidity of the cage cavity is of utmost importance. There are in principle two existing strategies for the synthesis of shape-persistent organic cage compounds. Strategy I: A stepwise approach by irreversible reactions. Here, the advantage is the chemical stability of the target compound due to the intrinsic stabilities of the formed bonds. The disadvantage of this approach is in general the low overall yield, because the system does not allow any ‘self-correction’ of once formed bonds. This is different for the other approach used in Strategy II: By using dynamic covalent bond formation as synthetic tool, shape-persistent organic cages can be constructed from rather simple molecular building blocks in one step. Here, the yields are usually very high or even quantitatively, because the reversibility of the reaction allows the system to self-correct. Unfortunately, the resulting compounds are more prone to chemical cleavage of the cages than those synthesized by the irreversible approach. Within this project, we will combine the advantages of both strategies to synthesize chemically and thermally stable nano-sized discrete organic cage compounds in a two-step approach in high yields. To demonstrate the versatility and synthetic power of this approach, pure hydrocarbon cages will be synthesized in a few steps in high yields. Finally, this strategy will make for the first time open and closed-shell fullerenes and heterofullerenes that are isomerically pure, accessible.

Mots-clés : organic synthesis,aromatic materials
Projet ERC : CausT (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and processes engineering
Entité participante : Universidad Politécnica de Madrid — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPM
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2500000.0 €

Simulations have driven many recent scientific advances. In the case of the physics of fluid turbulence, they have involved some of the most expensive computations at any time, but faster computers now permit meaningful simulations to run in minutes in a modest machine. This proposal centres on exploring the role of simulations in this limit of ‘zero’ computing cost, and on the analysis of the resulting data. What ‘free’ simulations allow is ‘Monte-Carlo’ research, in which ideas are ‘randomly’ tested and only evaluated afterwards, in the hope that some of them be fruitful. Their main advantage is to alleviate ‘paradigm lock’, in which radically new ideas are unlikely to get tested and knowledge gets stuck in a local optimum. But ensembles of cheap simulations also provide causal information about what the effect of a particular ‘random’ initial condition is. The main result in turbulence is expected to be the identification of novel flow structures, with definitions grounded in the underlying physics. Up to now, structures have mostly been described in terms of properties assumed to be important (e.g. intensity), with their effect on the flow being tested a-posteriori, but Monte-Carlo search allows us to reverse the process, identifying structures from their effects. In particular, we will search for flow configurations that are ‘causally most sensitive’ to perturbations, in the sense that the perturbations are most effective when applied to them. Both the probing perturbations and the receptive flow states constitute ‘causes’. The implied definition of causality only applies over times of the order of a turnover, and is connected with control: changing the cause modifies the effect, with obvious applications. The flows examined will mainly be wall-bounded ones, including effects such as rotation and rheology, but we will also examine the general inverse energy and momentum cascades towards larger scales. Some preliminary experiments are described.

Mots-clés : turbulence,simulations,monte carlo searches
Projet ERC : EVaP (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Entité participante : University of Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UvA
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499991.0 €

Since 1990, deadly violence has occurred in more than 30% of elections held outside of advanced, industrialized democracies. In the 2007 Kenyan elections and the 2010 Côte D’Ivoire elections, violence killed thousands of people in just a few months, undoing years of institution-building and undermining democracy. Much of contemporary politics unfolds in countries holding competitive elections but lacking institutionalized democracy. In these countries, election violence still happens routinely because politicians use violence to influence election outcomes in their favor. A major political and scholarly problem is that we know a lot about the conditions that make elections more or less violent, but lack insight into the more fundamental issues of how violence plays out on the ground. Departing from the focus on intensity in existing work, I develop a novel party-centered theory to explain the nature, organization, and consequences of election violence. Political parties are crucial actors linking politicians and citizens, and I attribute a central role to parties’ organizational and social links. The diversity of parties’ social support influences whether violence provides electoral benefits, implying that parties supported by a single group benefit more from violence. Party organization at the local level in turn explains whether groups can engage in targeted violence or have to rely on poorly-controlled thugs-for-hire. This theory changes how we think about election violence, explaining (1) how and why election violence happens and (2) the consequences of election violence for citizens. EVaP breaks new empirical ground by testing these claims subnationally in India and Nigeria, two of the world’s largest emerging democracies. EVaP uses a multi-method approach to examine within-country variation in party institutions, social support, and election violence in India and Nigeria, combining fieldwork interviews, quantitative data, survey experiments, and surveys.

Mots-clés : election violence,political parties,conflict research,developing world
Projet ERC : ASSHURED (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Social World and Its Diversity
Entité participante : University of London — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : U. London
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498069.0 €

Since 2012, over 4 million people have fled Syria in ‘the most dramatic humanitarian crisis that we have ever faced’ (UNHCR). By November 2015 there were 1,078,338 refugees from Syria in Lebanon, 630,776 in Jordan and 2,181,293 in Turkey. Humanitarian agencies and donor states from both the global North and the global South have funded and implemented aid programmes, and yet commentators have argued that civil society groups from the global South are the most significant actors supporting refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Whilst they are highly significant responses, however, major gaps in knowledge remain regarding the motivations, nature and implications of Southern-led responses to conflict-induced displacement. This project draws on multi-sited ethnographic and participatory research with refugees from Syria and their aid providers in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey to critically examine why, how and with what effect actors from the South have responded to the displacement of refugees from Syria. The main research aims are: 1. identifying diverse models of Southern-led responses to conflict-induced displacement, 2. examining the (un)official motivations, nature and implications of Southern-led responses, 3. examining refugees’ experiences and perceptions of Southern-led responses, 4. exploring diverse Southern and Northern actors’ perceptions of Southern-led responses, 5. tracing the implications of Southern-led initiatives for humanitarian theory and practice. Based on a critical theoretical framework inspired by post-colonial and feminist approaches, the project contributes to theories of humanitarianism and debates regarding donor-recipient relations and refugees’ agency in displacement situations. It will also inform the development of policies to most appropriately address refugees’ needs and rights. This highly topical and innovative project thus has far-reaching implications for refugees and local communities, academics, policy-makers and practitioners.

Mots-clés : refugees,conflict induced displacement,syrian conflict,humanitarianism,south south relations
Projet ERC : MySocialBeIng (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LMU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1106233.5 €

Since Heinrich Schliemann excavated the famous shaft graves at Mycenae and identified the individuals as members of Agamemnon’s royal family, archaeologists have tried to understand the social structures which materialised in the collective graves of Mycenaean Greece. Whereas today’s understanding of family ties goes well beyond biological relatedness (e.g. patchwork families), prehistoric individuals buried together and their belonging are still predominantly explained by biological models – also due to the inability to trace past biological relatedness. But now the necessary methods have been developed and we will apply them to the extraordinary archaeological richness of Mycenaean Greece with its many collective graves which will serve as a paradigmatic case study for unravelling prehistoric social complexity beyond elites. MySocialBeIng will produce and integrate comprehensive archaeological, anthropological, genetic and isotopic analyses for all individuals buried together in selected collective graves (chamber, tholos) in order to decipher the criteria for their selection and social belonging out of the dialectic interplay of biological relatedness and social practices (gender, mobility, nutrition, burial, material culture). This has only recently become possible with 1) the development of bioinformatics tools to model biological relationships, 2) single-stranded DNA library production for numerous individuals, 3) innovative pedigree-based Bayesian modelling of 14C dates and 4) novel datasets of bioavailable strontium in Greece. The results will have a major impact on Mycenaean archaeology and on archaeology as a discipline by establishing a ground-breaking new approach to the study of past social relations. Moreover they will be relevant for the social sciences in general as well as for society, allowing us to fully understand the complexity of social belonging in the human past and thus helping to overcome the 19th-century “biological bias" of belonging.

Mots-clés : bronze age,mycenaean greece,burial archaeology,archaeogenetics,bioarchaeology,social archaeology,social practices,isotope analysis
Projet ERC : EdGe (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : VU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1870135.0 €

Since many social and economic outcomes are moderately heritable, it is in principle possible to discover genetic variants associated with them. Such discoveries could yield new insights into the causal pathways underlying human behaviour, the complex interplay of environmental and genetic factors, and the relationship between socio-economic traits and health. This proposal builds on a recent genome-wide association study on educational attainment (EA) led by the applicant (Rietveld et al. 2013, Science), which identified for the first time specific genetic variants robustly associated with a socio-economic outcome. The project will leverage the unique resources of the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC), which is co-led by the applicant. The proposed research will extend existing knowledge by: 1) discovering additional genetic variants and causal pathways associated with EA; 2) developing methods to use the available genetic association results in novel, more efficient ways; 3) shedding new light on characteristics related to EA such as economic preferences, cognitive function, and cognitive health; 4) showing how policies promoting EA interact with genetic predisposition; 5) using genetic information to better understand the causal effects of educational policy interventions, 6) developing better tools to identify individuals at risk for cognition-related diseases before the onset of symptoms; and 7) identifying causal pathways of genetic influence on cognitive health via neurobiological measures. The project aims to elucidate the complex causal pathways connecting genes, environment, individual characteristics, and health-related outcomes; make methodological contributions applicable in genetic epidemiology and the social sciences; and contribute towards designing more effective public policy, which could improve public health and lower health costs.

Mots-clés : education,cognitive function,gwas,molecular genetics,behavioral genetics,microeconomics
Projet ERC : PHOTHERM (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UPC
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1359068.22 €

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 : INSEETO (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed matter physics
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 : 2498714.0 €

Since transition-metal oxides heterostructures can be grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with semiconductor-like accuracy, fascinating phases and functionalities derived from their spin-charge correlations have been discovered. So far, reflection high-energy electron diffraction is the only widely established technique for monitoring the structure and homogeneity of multilayers in-situ, while they are growing, and provide direct feedback information on how to optimise the growth process. With our proposal we will introduce second harmonic generation (SHG) as new in-situ technique that allows us to track spin-and charge-related phenomena such as ferroelectricity, (anti-) ferromagnetism, insulator-metal transitions, domain coupling effects or interface states in a non-invasive way throughout the deposition process. With this we are pursuing two goals: first, to establish SHG as new in-situ characterization technique in PLD which monitors strong spin-charge correlation effects while they emerge during growth; second, to apply in-situ SHG for tailoring novel functionalities in exemplary chosen types of transition-metal-oxide heterostructures of great current interest. These model systems are (i) proper ferroelectrics tuned to high-k dielectric response and improper ferroelectrics whose behaviour is determined by the unusual nature of the polar state; (ii) compounds in which the interplay of strain and defects leads to novel and reversibly tuneable states of matter; (iii) heterostructures with functionalities originating from the interaction across interfaces. In-situ SHG as new, property-monitoring tool in PLD has an immense potential to uncover new states of matter and functionalities. We are convinced that this will play an essential role in the leap towards the next generation of functional oxide heterostructures.

Mots-clés : multiferroics,magnetoelectric effect,ferroelectrics,oxides,strain
Projet ERC : INTEXseas (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Earth system science
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 : 2500000.0 €

Single extreme weather events can be hazardous, but for certain socioeconomic sectors the seasonal aggregation of weather is particularly harmful. Extremes on timescales up to two weeks are typically related to specific weather systems, but no such link exists for extreme seasons. Therefore, they are very difficult to meteorologically understand, despite their utmost societal relevance. This project aims at filling this gap, providing a multi-faceted analysis of different types of extreme seasons in a changing climate. Very large ensembles of climate simulations serve to investigate the characteristics and dynamics of the, e.g., hottest and coldest, and wettest and driest, season in regions worldwide. The extreme season characteristics include their spatial scale and their extremeness given the entire distribution of seasonal values in this region. Their dynamics is related to the fundamental understanding of the sequence of weather events that makes a season extreme: is it a single, highly unusual weather event that renders a season the most extreme (e.g., an unprecedented heat wave) or rather an unusual frequency of well-known weather systems (e.g., a series of strongly precipitating cyclones). These paradigms, referred to as “something new” vs. “more of the same”, are particularly relevant when considering extreme seasons in a warming climate. This project will combine state-of-the-art climate modelling, a unique set of weather-system diagnostics informed by profound dynamical understanding, and novel impact assessment pathways to address three main hypotheses: 1) different types of extreme seasons differ in terms of their spatial scale and relation to weather systems; 2) for specific types of extreme seasons, future climate simulations indicate a marked increase of extremeness; and 3) for certain socioeconomic sectors, the consequences of the future modulation of extreme seasons is more severe than inferred from climate change trend considerations alone.

Mots-clés : extreme season,precipitation,wind,temperature,weather systems,storm tracks,global circulation,seasonal prediction,climate warming,weather and climate impact