Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-erc-participations-et-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Projet ERC : SAML (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Computer Science and Informatics
Entité participante : Université de la Sarre — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499845.0 €

To date, the design of ethical machine learning (ML) algorithms has been dominated by technology owners and remains broadly criticized for strategically seeking to avoid legally enforceable restrictions. In order to foster trust in ML technologies, society demands technology designers to deeply engage all relevant stakeholders in the ML development. This ERC project aims at responding to this call with a society-aware approach to ML (SAML). My goal is to enable the collaborative design of ML algorithms, so that they are not only driven by economic interests of the technology owners but are agreed upon by all stakeholders, and ultimately, trusted by society. To this end, I aim to develop multi-party ML algorithms that explicitly account for the goals of different stakeholders---i.e., owners, those experts that design the algorithm (e.g., technology companies); consumers, those that are affected by the algorithm (e.g., users); and regulators, those experts that set the regulatory framework for their use (e.g., policy makers). The proposed methodology will enable quantifying and jointly optimizing the business goals of the owners (e.g., profit); the benefits of the consumers (e.g., information access); and the risks defined by the regulators (e.g., societal polarization). The SAML project involves a high-risk/high-gain paradigm shift from an owner-centered to a society-centered (multi-party) ML design. On the one hand, it will require significant and challenging methodological innovations at every stage of the ML development: from the data collection all the way to the algorithm learning. On the other hand, it will impact how ML technologies are deployed in society by enabling an informed discussion among different stakeholders and, in general, by society about these new technologies. The results of this project will provide the urgently needed methodological foundations to ensure that these new technologies are at the service of society.

Mots-clés : machine learning,ethical and trustworthy machine learning,fairness and interpretability of machine learning,societal impact of machine learning,fairness in algorithmic decision making,societal polarization in algorithmic recommendations on online social media
Projet ERC : SYNNEURON (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Materials Engineering
Entité participante : Université Christian Albrecht de Kiel — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1767048.0 €

The long-term objective of my lab is the construction of “synthetic” neural networks from biological matter. In this way, we not only will understand how to build sustainable computing architectures but also provide a novel bottom-up approach towards understanding biological neural networks. To make progress in this direction, I ask: What is the minimal assembly of biological components that allows for bio-realistic electrical information processing? Clearly, voltage-sensitive ion channels form the molecular basis for electrical spiking activity in neuronal networks. However, spatial propagation of spikes is not a property inherent to individual ion channels but rather emerges from the arrangement of ion channels along a tubular lipid membrane, the axon. While the reconstitution of functional ion channels outside of living cells has been well established, the propagation of an action potential along a lipid bilayer nanotube has not yet been shown. Similarly, the physical realization of larger, non-living spiking networks using biological matter remains elusive. Here, I propose to move forward from the state-of-the-art by a) Studying action potentials propagating along lipid nanotubes and demonstrating their electrical cable and spiking characteristics b) Understanding the coupling between membrane elasticity and electrical characteristics and how electromechanical coupling remodels and reshapes membranes and nanotube networks. c) Exploiting these remodeling, reshaping, and self-healing abilities for biomimetic molecular mechanisms of information processing. This research is a challenge of enormous complexity. In this proposal, I argue that this challenge can be overcome using recent methodological advances. My preliminary data and my research experience combing electrical engineering, biophysics and synthetic biology will enable this leap in our understanding and design of biological neural networks.

Mots-clés : bottom up synthetic biology lipid nanotubes guv neuromorphic computing
Projet ERC : TolleConverter (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Stuttgart — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499177.0 €

Electrical energy is typically converted four times between source and load, by over 100.000 GW installed converters. Over 99% efficiency is already reality, e.g., in PV inverters, however in a trade-off with power-density and complexity. Thus, most converters stay below the technical performance limits. Incremental advances in semiconductor technology will continuously push these limits’ values, but does not fundamentally change it. This project takes a disruptive approach, investigating partial-power-processing (PPP): Recently, we operated a 99%-efficient 2-level half-bridge in a multilevel topology, increasing the external capacitive-load charging voltage and power 6-times, while keeping the inner losses almost constant. From 2 to 7 level operation monotonically improved the system efficiency from 99% to over 99.7%. A global maximum was not yet reached. PPP theoretically reduces the losses by a factor of N, if only 1/N of the power is converted by a lossy converter while most power is delivered directly to the load by almost-lossless bypass switches from energy buffers. The question is: "How can electrical conversion efficiency be further increased with partial-power-processing, targeting 99.9% for selected loads?” To approach this “lossless” energy conversion, we will (1) theoretically further investigate PPP and many-level converter topologies, semiconductor devices, and operation parameters, (2) design and characterize converters with two cascaded stages of internally already PPP converter-submodules in a novel way to further improve the system efficiency 3 times (to 99.9%). We will investigate (3) low-voltage (< 100 V), medium-voltage (< 1000 V) and high-voltage (< 10 kV) PPP converters, and cascade them to multiply their benefits. (4) Application to selected, initially capacitive-load applications (electrocaloric heat-pump, pyroelectric harvester, dielectric actuators). The project will push electrical energy conversion further towards the “lossless” limit.

Mots-clés : electrical efficiency,power electronics,dc dc converters,energy conversion,power semiconductors,circuit topologies
Projet ERC : EVIL (Horizon Europe, appel 2024, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de Bristol — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499589.0 €

Evaluative adjectives—words like ‘good’, ‘ugly’, ‘tasty’ and ‘elegant’—have interpretations that appear to depend on the context. If you describe a knife, a bear or an act of charity as ‘good’, you do not seem to be saying that it has some fixed property of goodness. Rather, the context in which you are speaking affects the interpretation of ‘good’. Evaluative adjectives are closely linked to concepts of central importance in philosophy, such as moral goodness, beauty, and value. Hence their apparent context-dependence has troubling consequences for many philosophical debates. For example, an act of charity could count as ‘good’ when we are talking about it in one context and as ‘not good’ when we are talking about it in another context, due to different interpretations of ‘good’. This startling conclusion is difficult to reconcile with most ethical theories. While philosophers and linguists have shown increasing interest in evaluative adjectives, a full analysis has remained out of reach for several reasons. First, philosophical and linguistic investigations often proceed in isolation from each other. Second, the scope of analyses can be overly specific, by virtue of focusing on a single case-study, or overly general, by focusing on features that supposedly unify all evaluative adjectives. Third, the predictions that emerge from different analyses are rarely subjected to empirical assessment.  The project aims to give an account of the meaning of the word ‘good’ and other evaluative adjectives, along with the nature of goodness and other forms of value. It will be the first fully integrated analysis, by incorporating philosophical and linguistic perspectives, generalisations about evaluative adjectives and particular case-studies, along with empirical results. The novelty of the project lies in this integrative and interdisciplinary aspect. The results will resolve central and long-standing issues in both philosophy and linguistics.

Mots-clés : evaluative adjectives gradable adjectives value meta ethics philosophy experimental linguistics
Projet ERC : CAPCAM (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Mathematics
Entité participante : Université de la Ruhr à Bochum — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1444860.0 €

Knot theory has seen extraordinary developments over the past decades. The arrival of modern homological knot invariants has had far-reaching implications beyond low-dimensional topology, giving insight into old problems through deep ties between knot theory, algebraic geometry, representation theory, Floer theory, and physics.  My ERC project aims to establish a new perspective on knot homology theories using a new type of invariants, so-called multicurves. As objects of Fukaya categories of simple surfaces, these multicurve invariants make local versions of knot homology theories amenable to essentially combinatorial techniques. Thanks to their exceptional geometric and gluing properties, multicurves are ideally suited to implement the divide-and-conquer principle for attacking hard open problems. In fact, I have not only been directly involved in the definition of three of these invariants, but I have also applied them to resolve several open conjectures in the field already.  The purpose of my research programme is to investigate fundamental open problems in low-dimensional topology that require a deeper understanding of the new technology of multicurves. To this end, I will pursue the following four lines of basic research: I will investigate the topological properties of the new invariants and their relation to classical invariants. I will explore the existence of local versions of various spectral sequences that are known to relate knot homology theories. I will make the invariants more computable. Finally, I will apply the generic principles that underlie the definition of multicurves to other settings.

Mots-clés : low dimensional topology heegaard floer theories khovanov theories fukaya categories quantum invariants
Projet ERC : ALIVE (Horizon Europe, appel 2023, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Social Sciences and Humanities
Panel : Texts and Concepts
Entité participante : Université de la Ruhr à Bochum — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1311770.46 €

Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) is among the most influential philosophers in history and the most important philosopher of the Islamic tradition. He is described as a Mozart-type Wunderkind, who very early had completed his education and perfected his understanding of reality. Yet, throughout his life, Avicenna was also an eager student of his teachers or himself a dedicated teacher to his students – leading to the key-question of ALIVE: to what extent have Avicenna’s personal relations with his peers influenced the formation and formulation of his own philosophy? Did he reform or reformulate his thoughts in light of his personal interactions? Modern scholarship on Avicenna has often evaded these questions, frequently referring to his autobiography, according to which he supposedly never added anything to his views after his eighteenth birthday. What is more, scholars appear either unaware of the existence of sources that allow the examination of Avicenna’s potential indebtedness to and interaction with his peers or deterred by the challenges involved in exploring them systematically. As a result, the immediate context of Avicenna’s intellectual formation remained a surprisingly understudied area of research in defiance of its enormous potential for new insights not only into particular parts of his oeuvre but into his philosophy as a whole. ALIVE offers a radically new way of approaching Avicenna by studying four unique source texts that enable us to “circle in” on his intellectual upbringing and development, thereby providing an entirely novel paradigm for all future investigation in the field. At the same time, ALIVE will make an important contribution to the Digital Humanities by furnishing an online platform that will facilitate the study of diverse and difficult textual corpora for both ALIVE and future projects sharing these challenges.

Mots-clés : arabic islamic philosophy,digital humanities,avicenna
Projet ERC : Distort-to-Grasp (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Condensed Matter Physics
Entité participante : Université de la Ruhr à Bochum — Pays : Allemagne — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499536.0 €

When electrons in a solid interact strongly, they can form novel states of matter with fascinating technological possibilities and intriguing intellectual challenges. They might realize the macroscopic quantum state with dissipationless transport – superconductivity – or spontaneously lose spherical symmetry – an electronic nematic state. Surprisingly, more and more nematic superconductors, combining both, have recently been discovered. Such observations suggest a fundamental link between nematicity and superconductivity that is not yet understood. Progress is hindered by an acute lack of systematic data on the nematicity-superconductivity interaction, due to the absence of routine high-resolution probes of nematicity that are applicable in the superconducting state. Accurately determining lattice distortions and elastic moduli would be suitable, but the corresponding classic techniques are not possible or practical for many novel materials.  To relieve this scarcity of knowledge, I propose to establish a novel “distortiometry” approach based on measuring a material’s elastic response to anisotropic stress. Taking full advantage of established capacitance dilatometry and recent advances in strain-tuning techniques, the approach will be at the center of a specialized program based on distortions to get a grasp of nematic superconductivity. Having confirmed the new method’s versatility, resolution and reliability, I will study several platform materials where nematicity and superconductivity interact in the context of quantum criticality, investigate novel topological materials whose superconductivity appears to be nematic itself, and explore new nematic superconductors. Thus, I will gain new insights into mechanisms of unconventional superconductivity and its multiple degrees of freedom. My new widely applicable techniques will be a powerful addition to the arsenal of experimental solid state physics and material science.

Mots-clés : nematicity,unconventional superconductivity,quantum criticality
Projet ERC : PLEIADES (Horizon Europe, appel 2025, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Entité participante : Université de Bristol — Pays : Royaume-Uni — Rôle : PI
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1499162.0 €

Plasmids are self-copying genetic elements that can move between bacterial species. They frequently carry antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes, making understanding the factors that affect their spread through bacterial communities an urgent challenge. Exploiting bacteria’s natural defence systems to block plasmid spread is an exciting possibility. Recent years have seen a huge increase in the known number of ‘anti-phage’ systems that stop bacterial viruses (phage) from gaining a foothold in the cell. Some of these systems also defend against incoming plasmids, but the pace of discovery has outstripped the ability to experimentally test all relationships. We need computational approaches: by developing new methods, PLEIADES will bridge the gap and give us new insights into plasmid evolution.  The central hypothesis of PLEIADES is that selective pressure from ‘anti-phage’ defence systems also shapes the genomic architecture of plasmids. To better understand plasmid evolution we need to explore how variation in plasmid content and structure is linked to defence systems. We will tackle three objectives. First, we will build statistical models that relate the diversity of defence systems and plasmids across bacteria, controlling for other factors to deliver a systematic understanding of their relationship. Second, we will investigate the modular evolution of plasmids, which evolve by frequent rearrangements, using new computational frameworks that capture this plasticity together with tools to predict functions for plasmid proteins (the majority of which are currently unknown). Third, we will explore the role of defence systems in plasmid competition, investigating diverse plasmids from metagenomes to build a data-driven theory of their coevolutionary dynamics. By combining cutting-edge computational analysis with evolutionary theory, PLEIADES will advance our understanding of plasmid evolution, paving the way for new experimental efforts to address the threat of AMR.

Mots-clés : antibiotic resistance,antimicrobial resistance,microbial evolution
Projet ERC : REACT-DC (Horizon Europe, appel 2022, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Life Science
Panel : Prevention,  Diagnosis and T reatment of Human Diseases
Entité participante : Université de Pérouse — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1500000.0 €

Owing to an increased appreciation of the potential for immunotherapy in neoplasia, much attention has been focuing on a greater understanding of the immune, bidirectional intricacies involving the Tumor MicroEnvironment (TME). Recent work has demonstrated that TME elicits environmental changes, metabolic in nature, in the host’s immune cells, that dampen their ability to REACT against tumors. Manipulating the biology of oncometabolites can strengthen an antitumor immune response as well as circumvent therapy resistance. Here I propose innovative modalities to tackle this problem. The Aryl hydrocarbon Receptor (AhR), best known as the receptor for dioxins, has recently been shown to be one "central node" for communication between host's cells and its ligands, disparate as the nature and source. I have recently found that selective AhR deletion in a subset of antigen presenting cells triggers the rejection of an otherwise progressive fibrosarcoma tumor in vivo. I thus hypothesize that, AhR, expressed in orchestrators of immune responsiveness, represents a key sensor of TME composition, influencing the outcome of an immune reaction against tumors. The main objective of this project is to identify AhR-activating metabolites in TME and disclose their impact on tumor rejection or progression. In parallel, I aim at developing novel advanced strategies, with a high degree of translatability to human cells, to specifically inhibit AhR or AhR-dependent programs in selected APCs. I will combine state-of-the-art technology with new and powerful technologies, including advanced single-cell analysis, promoter gene-editing approaches and computational chemistry. The potential of such a project is very high, because such metabolites may be predictors of immune activation or suppression in TME, and the downstream targets of those immunesuppressive oncometabiltes may represent druggable targets to inhibit tumor escape mechanisms.

Mots-clés : dendritic cells,tme,oncometabolites,ahr,soft tissue sarcomas
Projet ERC : HELIOS (Horizon Europe, appel 2021, Starting grants)
Domaine scientifique : Physical Sciences and Engineering
Panel : Products and Processes Engineering
Entité participante : Université de Pérouse — Pays : Italie — Rôle : PI
Acronyme de l'entité : UniPG
Type d'entité : Enseignement supérieur ou secondaire
Financement ERC de l'entité : 1498125.0 €

From their early origins urbanization has produced both benefits and penalties due to the generated anthropogenic stress. Documented overheating such as urban heat island (UHI) compromises human wellbeing in cities, where 60% of the world population lives and is exposed to the related health risks and vulnerability. An urgent solution is much needed here and now, since classic passive cooling techniques showed to slowly mitigate UHI. A disruptive improvement must be dedicated to eradicate the problem by conducting a ground-breaking multidimensional and multidisciplinary research. That is the key motivation of HELIOS, which aims at holistically developing the resilient urban skin of the future. This skin will take advantage of the combination of successful radiative cooling in the atmospheric window(8-13μm) and high solar reflectance integrated for the first time to photoluminescence in the short wave(0.25-2.8μm) thanks to the breakthrough lead-free halide perovskites. HELIOS will develop novel radiative cooling structures into temperature responsive carriers (eg phase change-oxides, thermonastic shape-memory alloys) and albedo adaptive photoluminescent finishing, with the twofold purpose to tailor radiative supercooling performance enough to minimize winter penalties and to give the desired colour finishing, finally allowing the sustainable upscaling of this research frontier. This approach would radically change the building physics paradigm, with the ambition of rethinking built environment into a fully-dynamic resilience, as only Nature can do. HELIOS will indeed analytically and experimentally identify the thermal-radiative physics of such skin, assessing its performance for indoor-outdoor human comfort and energy-efficiency. HELIOS bio-inspired radiative and photoluminescent skin will be indeed tailored and optimized for each dynamic boundary, as demonstrated through a disruptive building physics experimentally-validated balance and urban canopy model worldwide.

Mots-clés : urban heat island passive cooling energy efficiency smart building material building envelope smart pavement radiative cooling perovskite environmental comfort urban resilience