Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : QuSINT (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Forschungszentrum Jülich — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : FZJ
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1461424.0 €

The ability to measure – at the atomic scale – quantum states and their interactions, as well as fundamental observables such as magnetic and electric fields, and to freely entangle and teleport quantum mechanical states at this length scale is the dream of nanoscale quantum technology. Yet this vision comes with the daunting challenge of combining ultimate quantum sensitivity with atomic resolution in a mobile quantum sensing and information device – so far elusive for solid-state quantum systems. QuSINT will turn this dream into reality. This breakthrough will rely on a single electron spin being turned into a quantum mechanical two-level system in a magnetic field. Crucially, this quintessential quantum mechanical two-level system will be brought to the tip of a scanning probe microscope, to form a fully integrated and mobile spin-qubit sensor capable of sensing static and time-dependent magnetic fields on the atomic scale with single-spin sensitivity. Core of the spin-qubit sensor is a single, well-isolated electron in an open-shell molecular nanostructure. It will be fabricated in situ from single atoms and molecules on surfaces by atomic manipulation, and coherently controlled by electron spin resonance. QuSINT will foster “quantum leaps” in solid-state quantum technology and its many applications. For example, it will allow the ultra-precise characterization of quantum materials at the atomic scale, transform the diagnostics of nanoelectronic devices and multi-qubit systems, and enable the analog quantum simulation of so far intractable many-body systems. In quantum computing and cryptography, it can also be used for quantum state tomography, and as a transport bus to entangle remote stationary qubits and teleport information, paving the way for atomic-scale solid-state quantum computing with spin qubits on surfaces. Combining quantum sensitivity with atomic resolution, QuSINT will unleash the quantumness of condensed matter at the most fundamental level.

Mots-clés : quantum sensing on atomic scale quantum simulation on surfaces scanning probe microscopy,mobile spin qubit sensor sensing static and time dependent magnetic fields entanglement of remote stationary qubits on surfaces
Projet ERC : JestArt (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Studies of Cultures and Arts
Entité participante : CY Cergy Paris Université — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CYU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1474565.0 €

This project seeks to pioneer a groundbreaking, fresh, and inclusive perspective on European cultural heritage history from the perspective of the jester. By exploring the lives of jesters—who they were, why they have been marginalized in traditional cultural histories, and the profound influence they wielded in the arts—this study will uncover their overlooked role and reshape our understanding of entertainment and artistic expression in European history. The project is structured around three primary objectives: i) To understand what it meant to be a jester in Early Modern Europe, focusing on their professional and cultural profiles, socio-economic conditions, abilities or disabilities, and their specialized skills. It explores who their patrons were, where they performed, and how they were recognized. The research examines the various paths jesters took to court life and their living conditions. ii) To investigate the long-standing exclusion of jesters from cultural heritage, hypothesizing that rivalry between jesters and artists played a role. As artists became organized in academies, they gained status, sought patronage, and pushed jesters to the margins of courtly life, caricaturing them into grotesque figures. The research explores how the institutionalization of art impacted jesters’ roles, their diminishing presence at court, and their evolution into caricaturesque characters in theater, literature, and the visual arts. iii) To reevaluate jesters’ productions as a forgotten artistic canon. Jesters, often educated and integrated into courtly life, contributed to various forms of entertainment, including writing, performance, music, and dance. The project questions how they influenced artists and contributed to a broader canon that enhances our understanding of early modern desire for wonder.

Mots-clés : jester,fool,dwarf
Projet ERC : CellPrism (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Physical and Analytical Chemical Sciences
Entité participante : Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CEA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1587287.0 €

The brain is plastic: it constantly adapts to its environment thanks to numerous cell-types with varied functions. Brain cell-types fall into two broad categories: neurons and glial cells. These are further subdivided into multiple subtypes with specific functions tightly linked to their morphology. For example, astrocytes and microglia, two types of glial cells, respond very differently to brain inflammation: astrocytes increase in size and their morphology becomes more complex, whereas microglia become rounder and less complex. Gold-standard methods for assessing brain cell morphology are highly invasive. They are rarely applied in humans and cannot be used for repeated assessments over time, which is essential to understanding evolving processes and diseases. Magnetic resonance imaging can non-invasively image brain structure and function, but it cannot currently differentiate cell-type-specific changes.  I will build a non-invasive brain cell-type decoder, to extract cellular composition and morphometry for a range of cell subtypes in physiological and pathological conditions, akin to a non-invasive biopsy. To achieve this I propose a novel paradigm built upon diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance spectroscopy (dMRS), a technique that is sensitive to the displacement of intracellular metabolites. I aim to enhance dMRS to achieve cell-subtype specificity and go beyond the glial/neuronal dichotomy. CellPrism’s strategy integrates prior knowledge about cell-types and encompasses the wealth of information available in dMRS in an integrated manner. CellPrism will be validated using causal pharmacological and genetic manipulations in mice. Translation to humans will be conducted at high field, whilst establishing sensitive protocols at accessible clinical fields. Finally, CellPrism will be piloted in patient populations where cellular mechanisms are well described in animal models and post-mortem analyses.

Mots-clés : non invasive,imaging,mri,diffusion,mrs,brain cell types,brain cell morphology,brain disorders
Projet ERC : MULTIview-CELL (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1285938.0 €

The introduction of high-throughput single-cell sequencing has produced a flood of data at the resolution of the single cell, including spatiotemporal information and different molecular facets of a cell, a.k.a. multi-omics. Their integration through MultiModal Learning (MML), aimed at combining multiple complementary views, offers great promise to understand the spatiotemporal phenotypic evolution of a cell and its molecular regulators. However, integrating multi-omics data across space and time is a huge computational challenge requiring radically new MML approaches.  MULTIview-CELL will infer multimodal spatiotemporal phenotypic cell trajectories by combining back-translation, to allow the unsupervised dimensionality reduction of multimodal data, with a new Optimal Transport distance, allowing the spatiotemporal pairing of cells (Aim1). MULTIview-CELL will then pinpoint the molecular regulators of such trajectories by combining new Graph Convolutional Networks with topological evolutions and Heterogeneous Multilayer Graphs, allowing the integration of graphs inferred from multimodal data (Aim2). Finally, all developed methods will be implemented in open-source software, with an emphasis on GPU-friendly scalable computations, a unique feature among existing single-cell tools (Aim3).  These core contributions will impact Machine Learning, but more importantly, will have profound biological implications. The application of the tools developed to cutting-edge single-cell data from muscle stem cells will lead to new biological hypotheses on their heterogeneity and crosstalk, to be validated through wet-lab experiments (Transversal Tasks). In addition, by allowing to answer longstanding questions on the spatiotemporal phenotypic evolution of a cell, MULTIview-CELL will catalyze the generation of crucial knowledge in fundamental biology and it will be key to preventing disease onset or therapy resistance, thus impacting health, society and economy.

Mots-clés : multimodal machine learning,optimal transport,graphs,single cell,multi omics
Projet ERC : MIRRORS (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe Sciences
Entité participante : Université de Maastricht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2497138.0 €

The first detection of gravitational waves, and in particular the observation of merging black holes, which otherwise appear 'dark', has been one of the most exciting scientific achievements of the last decades. With the next generation of even more sensitive detectors, we plan to be able to see gravitational waves from objects as far away as the edge of the observable universe. However, a major limitation to the sensitivity of these detectors is the thermal noise of their core components: the highly-reflective coated interferometer mirrors. The use of cryogenic temperatures will be a major step forward in thermal-noise reduction. However, with current coating technology, the sensitivity goals of next generation detectors cannot be met, not to mention further upgrades or future detector generations: (a) All amorphous coating materials, identified so far, with low thermal noise at low temperatures, show too high optical absorption. (b) Single-crystalline coatings can show both low thermal noise and low absorption, but come with different obstacles such as limitations on the size and material combinations, or different noise mechanisms e.g. from bonding the coating to the mirror. I plan to explore a completely new path to realize coating-free mirrors: The use of ion implantation to create a highly-reflective multilayer structure directly inside the silicon mirror substrate. My main hypothesis is that the implantation procedure preserves the excellent optical and thermal-noise properties of crystalline materials, which cannot be met by amorphous coatings, while not imposing the limitations of single-crystalline coatings. A successful realization of such mirrors will solve the coating thermal noise issue in gravitational-wave detection entirely, allowing for an unhindered view into the Universe.

Mots-clés : mirrors,thermal noise,gravitational waves,precision metrology
Projet ERC : O-Causal (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Entité participante : Université de Maastricht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499500.0 €

Ostracism—being ignored or excluded— manifests in many forms in everyday life, such as ghosting, bullying, microaggressions, and cancel culture. For decades, psychologists have examined its real-world impacts, including depression, suicide risk, violence, extremism, societal divides, and inequalities. However, much of this evidence is not causal due to the absence of tools for quantifying the causal effects of naturally occurring exposures in psychological science. Relying on the existing approach will continue to distort scientific conclusions, impede theory advancement, and misguide policies. Re-thinking the current causal approach is critical and overdue. The O-Causal project aims to address this gap by applying the causal inference framework—a principled and well-established approach for causality—to ostracism research. This project will advance the field in four key ways: 1) establishing a fundamental understanding of the prevalence and distribution of lived ostracism experiences in real-life settings; 2) quantifying the time-varying ostracism effects across a wide range of outcomes in behavioral, economic, health, and wellbeing domains; 3) uncovering inequalities in ostracism and identifying at-risk populations; and 4) reformulating causal questions to generate insights that inform public policies aimed at fostering positive social change. To achieve these goals, I will construct a comprehensive, population-based dataset by integrating large longitudinal panel data, daily diary entries, and ecological momentary assessments. Using advanced causal inference techniques and innovative causal estimands, this project will reveal how everyday experiences of ostracism can escalate into serious societal issues, identify vulnerable groups, and provide a foundation for policy development. Ultimately, this project will reorient ostracism research and psychological science toward a more rigorous causal approach toward scientific rigor and real-world impact.

Mots-clés : causal inference
Projet ERC : BACK2FUTURE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Entité participante : Université de Maastricht — Pays : Pays-Bas — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499750.0 €

Our brain processes multitudes of signals based on recurrent network activity involving feedforward and feedback interarea communication. To funnel information efficiently between areas, low-frequency rhythmic neural activity patterns couple to each other. It is an unresolved question how early sensory cortex (SC) can couple efficiently to both feedforward sensory information flow and feedback information flow arriving from higher order regions such as prefrontal cortex (PFC). Since PFC and sensory input lack direct coupling and operate with their own temporal dynamics, SC decouples from the sensory input when PFC couples to SC. It is therefore not possible to achieve efficient multi-area coupling in currently proposed feedback-driven coupling schemes. In search of a mechanism to address this problem I resort to a dynamical systems process called anticipated synchronization (AS). During AS, a receiving system (PFC) sends a copy of its own activity as delayed feedback to itself, allowing this system to - paradoxically - anticipate the dynamics of the driving system (SC). During AS, information from PFC is sent back to SC arriving at the right time in the future, while SC maintains sensory coupling. My goal in the next 5 years is to provide evidence of interarea AS coupling by creating a biophysical model of AS, empirically testing its predictions using ECoG data, psychophysics and EEG. By validating the use of tACS to control coupling, I will experimentally induce AS in a new closed-loop set-up that stimulates PFC with its own delayed activity. The proposed research will settle a critical theoretical debate on temporal coordination of interarea brain communication and will provide the computational basis for the hitherto unexplained excess of local feedback loops in the brain. The findings will inform new closed-loop treatment approaches and can improve biologically-inspired artificial intelligent systems that currently disregard the exact timing of information flow.

Mots-clés : temporal processing oscillations coupling sensory processing
Projet ERC : MultiPhaseXtrM (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : École polytechnique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : X
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2416978.0 €

Efficient power generation/absorption will remain a crucial aspect of disruptive technology in a society with rising energy demands for sustenance (e.g., power generation) to scientific curiosity (e.g., space exploration). Multi-functional shape memory alloys (SMAs) form the core of many such technological breakthroughs. The multi-functionality of SMAs originates from solid-solid phase transformations, i.e., changes in the atomic lattice structure, driven by local mechanical, thermal or magnetic fields. Project MultiPhaseXtrM identifies a radically different and unexplored regime for the operation of SMAs — large, multiaxial dynamic impact and shock stresses (up to 10 GPa) within short time scales (down to nanoseconds), referred to as “extreme dynamic environments”. Exploiting multi-physical coupling in SMAs under these extreme conditions could scale up their power conversion capabilities by orders of magnitude. Two broad scientific questions form the core of Project MultiPhaseXtrM: (1) How do thermodynamic states evolve in SMAs under extreme dynamic environments and coupled thermal/magnetic fields? (2) How do these states drive the evolution of phase transformations at short time scales? Dynamic impact experiments and high-speed instrumentation, developed in house, will probe this multi-scale behavior in single-crystal SMAs under carefully-controlled strain rates and multi-axial stress states, while advancing experimental science towards resolving short length and time scales, simultaneously. Multi-scale data sets will be analysed within continuum theoretical frameworks to discover the kinetic laws for phase transformations across the range of multi-physical conditions explored. The impact of this program will extend beyond, from designing multi-ferroic SMAs with programmable multi-functionality under these extremes, to understanding the role of stress-induced phase transformations in dynamic material strength, material synthesis and extreme geological events.

Mots-clés : mechanics and materials,dynamic behavior of materials,shape memory alloys,phase transformations,experimental mechanics,extreme conditions
Projet ERC : LINK4DEV (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Entité participante : London School of Economics and Political Science — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : LSE
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498010.0 €

Less developed countries compete to attract multinational corporations (MNCs), often seen as growth engines. Meanwhile, domestic firms, workers, and consumers express concerns that MNCs may offer weak trickle-down benefits while increasing their vulnerability to global shocks. This tension is not new: the debate on the trade-offs associated with MNC-led development strategies is long-standing yet unresolved.  LINK4DEV will break new ground in three ways. First, the program will examine the impact of MNCs and their linkages on development through a wide (inside-the-firm) micro to (cross-country) macro lens. Second, it will combine “big data” and causal-inference methods with novel theory. Third, it will partner with governments from four continents, maximizing cross-country learning and impact. LINK4DEV consists of four interconnected projects. Project 1 will examine whether MNCs foster linkages with local firms or operate in silos, increasing inequality. It will provide a first-time anatomy of MNC linkages in the production networks of four economies at different development stages: Uganda, Costa Rica, Turkey, and Belgium. Project 2 will examine whether technology transfers from MNCs to local suppliers are socially optimal in the same four economies. It will then estimate the associated aggregate economic gains and identify policies to increase them. Project 3 will study why MNCs source a large share of inputs globally, focusing on the role of centralized decision-making in MNCs. Attracting MNCs with global sourcing undermines efforts to promote local linkages. This project will merge detailed transaction records from Costa Rica with global supplier and survey data for MNCs. Project 4 will assess how far-reaching the effects of an international trade shock are and how central MNCs are to these effects. It will leverage a cyberattack on Costa Rica’s customs system and a new economy-wide mapping of all firm-to-firm, firm-to-worker, and firm-to-consumer interactions.

Mots-clés : multinational corporations,economic development,inclusive development,production networks,technology transfers,organizational structure
Projet ERC : FourIntExP (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Centre national de la recherche scientifique — Pays : France — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : CNRS
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1158000.0 €

In 2006 Cohn and Kumar have conjectured that the A2 lattice is universally optimal, meaning that it has the lowest potential energy among all configurations of the same density for all completely monotone potentials. This conjecture has several very important corollaries. Among other consequences, it is known that it implies a positive solution to the 2D crystallization problem, a major unsolved problem coming from materials science, and it also implies a conjecture on the emergence of the triangular lattice of Abrikosov vortices in the Landau-Ginzburg theory of superconductivity.  Recently, the 8 and 24-dimensional cases of the Cohn-Kumar conjecture have been positively resolved using novel interpolation formulas for radial Schwartz functions. This formula recovers a radial function from the data of it and its Fourier transform on a discrete set of radii, and its construction uses classical modular and quasi-modular forms.  In this project we will prove a significant generalization of these interpolation formulas with a view towards applications in extremal problems in Fourier analysis. To prove these formulas we will develop new analytic and numerical techniques for solving certain types of functional equations in one complex variable. Finally, based on these proposed interpolation formulas we will give a refinement of the Cohn-Kumar conjecture in dimension 2 and use it to attack the full conjecture in this case.