Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : REALNANO (Horizon 2020, appel 2018, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Entité participante : University of Antwerp — Pays : Belgique — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UAntwerp
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

The properties of nanomaterials are essentially determined by their 3D structure. Electron tomography enables one to measure the morphology and composition of nanostructures in 3D, even at atomic resolution. Unfortunately, all these measurements are performed at room temperature and in ultra-high vacuum, which are conditions that are completely irrelevant for the use of nanoparticles in real applications! Moreover, nanoparticles often have ligands at their surface, which form the interface to the environment. These ligands are mostly neglected in imaging, although they strongly influence the growth, thermal stability and drive self-assembly. I will develop innovative and quantitative 3D characterisation tools, compatible with the fast changes of nanomaterials that occur in a realistic thermal and gaseous environment. To visualise surface ligands, I will combine direct electron detection with novel exit wave reconstruction techniques. Tracking the 3D structure of nanomaterials in a relevant environment is extremely challenging and ambitious. However, our preliminary experiments demonstrate the enormous impact. We will be able to perform a dynamic characterisation of shape changes of nanoparticles. This is important to improve thermal stability during drug delivery, sensing, data storage or hyperthermic cancer treatment. We will provide quantitative 3D measurements of the coordination numbers of the surface atoms of catalytic nanoparticles and follow the motion of individual atoms live during catalysis. By visualising surface ligands, we will understand their fundamental influence on particle shape and during self-assembly. This program will be the start of a completely new research line in the field of 3D imaging at the atomic scale. The outcome will certainly boost the design and performance of nanomaterials. This is not only of importance at a fundamental level, but is a prerequisite for the incorporation of nanomaterials in our future technology.

Mots-clés : 3d characterisation,nanomaterials
Projet ERC : MULTILING-HIST (Horizon 2020, appel 2020, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Cape Town — Pays : Afrique du Sud — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : UCT
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 134785.0 €

The proposal addresses the complex, multi-level dimensions of historical and contemporary multilingualism: (1) the presence of individual multilingualism in local and regional settings; (2) the characteristics and dynamics of such multilingual settings, in other words, societal multilingualism. The fundamental aim of the project is to reconstruct, explain and better understand the mechanisms and causality of the processes behind the emergence, continuity, reduction and loss (as well as possible re-emergence) of multilingualism in differing historical, geographical, social, political and cultural contexts. These goals address not only essential gaps in the state of knowledge, but also significant questions about the past and the present of human development. The project will embrace historical and contemporary multilingual milieux from four regions relevant for understanding the causal frameworks underlying multilingual trajectories: selected historical multilingual hotspots from Central-Eastern Europe, Mesoamerica, South Africa and the Archipelago of Vanuatu. They represent a diversity of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts, ensuring a meaningful comparison. The case studies also offer a novel possibility to study the ‘invisibility’ of multilingualism and uncover its neglected history(ies). The research will focus on a broad range of rural communities and a smaller amount of urban contexts, thus permitting comparative insights into urban multilingualism. A multidisciplinary approach will combine in novel ways historical and present data, qualitative and quantitative methods as well as mathematical modeling, data-driven mapping and GIS mapping. Its expected results will provide informed diagnoses and predictions with huge potential for improving existing language policies and educational strategies oriented toward the preservation of linguistic-cultural diversity and sustainable multilingualism.
Projet ERC : AdaSmartRes (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Proof of concept grants)
Entité participante : University of Kent — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 149300.0 €

The proposal refers to a patented adapter that can transform a commercial grade digital camera or the camera in a smart phone into a depth resolved imaging instrument. Several adapters will be assembled, making use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology protected by some other of PI’s patents. The activity takes advantage of recent progress in commercial grade cameras in terms of their modes of operation as well as in terms of parameters of their devices, such as sensitivity and speed of their photodetector arrays. Three versions of low cost functional OCT systems will be assembled as proof of concepts responding to needs of three possible markets that can be addressed by such an adapter: 1. En-face depth resolved, high transversal resolution microscope; 2. Fast cross sectioning imager. 3. Swept source volumetric analyser. Industrial input comes from a company involved in professional eye imaging systems, a company already selling adapters for smart phones to perform medical imaging, a company specialised in digital photographic equipment and a company efficient in prototyping photonics equipment and handling medical images. Clinical input is provided by two specialists in the two highest potential medical imaging markets of the adapter serving ophthalmology and ear, nose and throat speciality.

Mots-clés : optical coherence tomography,adapter,smart phone,digital camera,depth resolved imaging
Projet ERC : SOLVe (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Universe sciences
Entité participante : Max Planck Society — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : MPG
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1443000.0 €

The proposed project aims at answering four general questions of high scientific importance: - How typical is the Sun as active star? - What is the solar role in climate change? - What are the limitations for detectability of Earth-type planets in habitable zones? - Can the solar paradigm help us to explain variability of other stars and to better detect and characterize exoplanets? These exciting questions can now be addressed thanks to recent progress in solar and stellar physics. On the observational side, the unprecedented precision of broadband stellar photometry achieved with the CNES CoRoT and the NASA Kepler satellites initiated a new era in studying stellar photometric variabilities. Recent surveys with ground-based automated telescopes have significantly increased the number of stars observed over their activity cycles. On the theoretical side, solar irradiance models have matured to reproduce solar brightness variability in great detail. The enormous progress in magnetohydrodynamic simulations of solar and stellar atmospheres as well as the development of new computationally efficient radiative transfer schemes makes it finally possible to extend physics-based solar irradiance models to other stars, thus opening an entirely new horizon for solar-stellar and solar-terrestrial connection studies.

Mots-clés : solar stellar connection,solar terrestrial connection
Projet ERC : GermanSlavery (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : University of Bremen — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1939111.0 €

The proposed project analyses slavery in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in the long 18th century.

Mots-clés : slavery,germany
Projet ERC : BETWEEN THE TIMES (Horizon 2020, appel 2017, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : The study of the human past
Entité participante : Tallinn University — Pays : Estonie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TLÜ
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1425000.0 €

The proposed project offers a new, pan-European intellectual history of the political imagination in the interwar period that places the demise of historicism and progressivism – and the emerging anti-teleological visions of time – at the center of some of its most innovative ethical, political and methodological pursuits. It argues that only a distinctively cross-disciplinary and European narrative can capture the full ramifications and legacies of a fundamental rupture in thought conventionally, yet inadequately confined to the German cultural space and termed “anti-historicism”. It innovates narratively by exploring politically and theoretically interlaced reinventions of temporality across and between different disciplines (theology, jurisprudence, classical studies, literary theory, linguistics, sociology, philosophy), as well as other creative fields. It experiments methodologically by reconstructing the dynamics of political thought prosopographically, through intellectual groupings at the forefront of the scholarly and political debates of the period. It challenges the sufficiency of the standard focus in interwar intellectual history on one or two, at most three (usually “Western” European) national contexts by following out the interactions of these groupings in France, Britain, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania – groupings whose members frequently moved across national contexts. What were the political languages encoded in the reinventions of time, and vice versa – how were political aims translated into and advanced through theoretical innovation? How did these differ in different national contexts, and why? What are the fragmented legacies of this rupture, disbursed in and through the philosophical, methodological and political dicta and dogmas that rooted themselves in post-1945 thought? This project provides the first comprehensive answer to these fundamental questions about the intellectual identity of Europe and its historicities.

Mots-clés : history of political thought,international history,european inter war period,history of humanities and social sciences,progressivism,history of theology and religious studies
Projet ERC : LaDIST (Horizon 2020, appel 2014, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : University of Warwick — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : Partner
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 674195.05 €

The proposed project seeks to introduce novel methods to analyze and approximate large graphs and other discrete structures and to apply the developed methods to solve specific open problems. A need for such methods comes from computer science where the sizes of input structures are often enormous. Specifically, the project will advance the recently emerged theory of combinatorial limits by developing new insights in the structure of limit objects and by proposing a robust theory bridging the sparse and dense cases. The analytic methods from the theory of combinatorial limits will be used to analyze possible asymptotic behavior of large graphs and they will be applied in conjunction with structural arguments to provide solutions to specific problems in extremal combinatorics. The obtained insights will also be combined with methods from discrete optimization and logic to provide new algorithmic frameworks.

Mots-clés : combinatorial limits,discrete mathematics,extremal combinatorics,graph theory
Projet ERC : RandomZeroSets (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Tel Aviv University — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : TAU
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1658750.0 €

The proposed research is focused on zero sets of random functions. This is a rapidly growing area that lies at the crossroads of analysis, probability theory and mathematical physics. Various instances of zero sets of random functions have been used to model different phenomena in quantum chaos, complex analysis, real algebraic geometry, and theory of random point processes. The proposal consists of three parts. The first one deals with asymptotic topology of zero sets of smooth random functions of several real variables. This can be viewed as a statistical counterpart of the first half of Hilbert's 16th problem. At the same time, it is closely related to percolation theory. In the second and third parts, we turn to zero sets of random analytic functions of one complex variable. The zero sets studied in the second part provide one of few natural instances of a homogeneous point process with suppressed fluctuations and strong short-range interactions. These point processes have many features, which are in striking contrast with the ones of the Poisson point process. One of these features is the coexistence of different Gaussian scaling limits for different linear statistics. The third part deals with zeroes of Taylor series with random and pseudo-random coefficients. Studying these zero sets should shed light on the relation between the distribution of coefficients of a Taylor series and the distribution of its zeroes, which is still "terra incognita'' of classical complex analysis.

Mots-clés : complex analysis,real and harmonic analysis,probability theory,quantum chaos,mathematical physics
Projet ERC : HyperMu (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Fundamental constituents of matter
Entité participante : Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology — Pays : Suisse — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : ETH Zurich
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1378994.75 €

The proton radius extracted from the measurements of the 2S-2P energy splitting in muonic hydrogen (μp) has attracted great attention because of a 7σ discrepancy with the values extracted from electron scattering and hydrogen (H) spectroscopy. Hundreds of publications have been devoted to the so called “proton radius puzzle” ranging from studies of physics beyond the standard model, to reanalysis of electron scattering data, refinements of bound-state QED calculations, new theories describing the proton structure, and proposals for new scattering and H spectroscopy experiments. As next step, I plan two new (i.e., never before attempted) measurements: the ground-state hyperfine splitting (1S-HFS) in both μp and μ3He+ with 1 ppm relative accuracy by means of pulsed laser spectroscopy. From these measurements the nuclear-structure contributions (two-photon-exchange) can be extracted with a relative accuracy of 100 ppm which in turn can be used to extract the corresponding Zemach radii (with a relative accuracy of 0.1%) and polarizability contributions. The Zemach radii can provide magnetic radii when form-factor data or models are assumed. These radii are benchmarks for lattice QCD and few-nucleon theories. With the polarizability contribution they impact our models of the proton and of the 3He nucleus. Moreover, the μp measurement can be used to solve the discrepancy between the magnetic radii values as extracted from polarized and unpolarized electron scattering and to further test bound-state QED predictions of the 1S-HFS in H. These two experiments require a muon beam line, a target with an optical cavity, detector, and laser systems. As weak M1 transitions must be probed, large laser-pulse energies are needed, thus cutting-edge laser technologies (mainly thin-disk laser and parametric down-conversion) need to be developed. Laser schemes of potentially high industrial impact that I have just patented will be implemented and refined.
Projet ERC : BOPNIE (Horizon 2020, appel 2015, Consolidator grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : KTH Royal Institute of Technology — Pays : Suède — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : KTH
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 2000000.0 €

The purpose of this project is to develop new methods for solving boundary value problems (BVPs) for nonlinear integrable partial differential equations (PDEs). Integrable PDEs can be analyzed by means of the Inverse Scattering Transform, whose introduction was one of the most important developments in the theory of nonlinear PDEs in the 20th century. Until the 1990s the inverse scattering methodology was pursued almost entirely for pure initial-value problems. However, in many laboratory and field situations, the solution is generated by what corresponds to the imposition of boundary conditions rather than initial conditions. Thus, an understanding of BVPs is crucial. In an exciting sequence of events taking place in the last two decades, new tools have become available to deal with BVPs for integrable PDEs. Although some important issues have already been resolved, several major problems remain open. The aim of this project is to solve a number of these open problems and to find solutions of BVPs which were heretofore not solvable. More precisely, the proposal has eight objectives: 1. Develop methods for solving problems with time-periodic boundary conditions. 2. Answer some long-standing open questions raised by series of wave-tank experiments 35 years ago. 3. Develop a new approach for the study of space-periodic solutions. 4. Develop new approaches for the analysis of BVPs for equations with 3 x 3-matrix Lax pairs. 5. Derive new asymptotic formulas by using a nonlinear version of the steepest descent method. 6. Construct disk and disk/black-hole solutions of the stationary axisymmetric Einstein equations. 7. Solve a BVP in Einstein's theory of relativity describing two colliding gravitational waves. 8. Extend the above methods to BVPs in higher dimensions.
Projet ERC : CAPABLE (Horizon 2020, appel 2016, Advanced grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Systems and communication engineering
Entité participante : Institute of Photonic Sciences — Pays : Espagne — Rôle : Partner
Acronyme de l'entité : ICFO;ICFO-CERCA
Type d'entité : Recherche
Financement ERC de l'entité : 250000.0 €

The quantum technology revolution promises a transformational impact on the society and economics worldwide. It will enable breakthrough advancements in such diverse fields as secure communications, computing, metrology, and imaging. Quantum photonics, which recently received an incredible boost by the use of integrated optical circuits, is an excellent technological platform to enable such revolution, as it already plays a relevant role in many of the above applications. However, some major technical roadblocks needs to be overcome. Currently, the various components required for a complete quantum photonic system are produced on very different materials by dedicated fabrication technologies, as no single material is able to fulfil all the requirements for single-photon generation, manipulation, storage and detection. This project proposes a new hybrid approach for integrated quantum photonic systems based on femtosecond laser microfabrication (FLM), enabling the innovative miniaturization of various components on different materials, but with a single tool and with very favourable integration capabilities. This project will mainly focus on two major breakthroughs: the first one will be increasing the complexity achievable in the photonic platform and demonstrating unprecedented quantum computation capability; the second one will be the integration in the platform of multiple single-photon quantum memories and their interconnection. Achievement of these goals will only be possible by taking full advantage of the unique features of FLM, from the possibility to machine very different materials, to the 3D capabilities in waveguide writing and selective material removal. The successful demonstration and functional validation of this hybrid, integrated photonic platform will represent a significant leap for photonic microsystems in quantum computing and quantum communications.

Mots-clés : femtosecond laser micromachining
Projet ERC : NEXTER (Horizon 2020, appel 2019, Proof of concept grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Molecules of Life: Biological Mechanisms, Structures and Functions
Entité participante : Weizmann Institute of Science — Pays : Israël — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 150000.0 €

The rapid emergence and spread of Multi-drug Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), alongside the negligible efforts of the major pharmaceuticals companies in the development of new antibiotics, result in a major global concern of modern medicine. Moreover, the currently clinically used antibiotics contaminate the environment and may harm the human microbiome, causing unpredictable health concerns. We discovered that by targeting species-specific ribosome unique structural motifs, identified by us, using our designed degradable novel synthetic lead compounds, it is possible to inhibit protein biosynthesis in bacteria. Our approach should enable distinction between pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria and between bacterial and human ribosome. This drug selectivity should decrease resistance, preserve the beneficial microbiome and allow usage of lower antibiotics dozes. Furthermore, the designed degradable lead compounds should prevent additional environmental contamination. Hence, our approach allows designing innovative powerful selective antibiotics that escape the existing resistance mechanisms. Several of the primary designed compounds shown to stop the growth of the multi-resistant S. aureus human pathogen were delivered into the bacterial cells by attaching specific chemical moieties to them. In this PoC we plan to design similar compounds for other human pathogens, such as Enterococcus and Pseudomonas species, where revolutionary effective antibiotic drugs against their resistant strains is desperately needed. In addition to the technological PoC in this project, we will attempt pre-commercialization studies aiming at perfecting the commercialization strategy, protecting the IP and strengthen the network for best possible commercialization outcome. The general objective is to establish at least one strategic partnership with a pharma company which has the capacity to further test, develop and commercialize antibiotics that exploit ribosomal novel unique targets.

Mots-clés : multi drug resistance,eco friendly,microbiome,antibiotics,ribosome,protein synthesis,staphylococcus aureus