Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
MARine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning leading to Ecosystem Services (MARBEFES)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Poland,Spain,Norway,Romania,Germany,Italy,Finland,Greece,Belgium,France,United Kingdom,Netherlands,Lithuania,Estonia,Ireland
Call: Understanding and valuing coastal and marine biodiversity and ecosystems services (HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 12915069.56
EU funding (EUR): 12915068.04
Participants: 24
Project status: SIGNED

The European Union and its Member States (MSs) have a fundamental need to understand how biodiversity and ecosystem functioning must be maintained to ensure that they deliver ecosystem services, goods and benefits, which in turn must be sustainably used by society. Central to this, and as the raison d’ȇtre of this call, the MSs need to value these natural and social capital aspects of ecosystems. The overall aim of MARBEFES is to determine the links between the biodiversity and functioning of coastal and marine ecosystems and the resulting ecosystem services and societal goods and benefits. In this it will achieve ecological and socio-economic valuation through a validated set of innovative tools in a distributed toolbox (TRL 6) to enhance policy and governance to secure benefits for current and future generation. We will progress substantially beyond the current state-of-the-art understanding of the causes and consequences of the maintenance, loss and gain of biodiversity and ecological and economic value and the repercussions of this for the management and governance of European seas. Involving 23 highly experienced partners, the project outputs and outcomes are based on developing and validating a set of ecological, economic and socio-cultural valuation tools using existing and new information and data in 12 Broad Belt Transect case studies. These cover the breadth of European marine biodiversity, from the Arctic to semi-tropical areas, across dominant habitats and iconic species, and from shallow to deep areas and encompass a range of socio-economic contexts. As such, and through stakeholder co-creation for policy relevance, MARBEFES shows the tools to value different natural capital resources and inform planning from financial allocations to management and with monetary and non-monetary benefits. In this, the project advances our knowledge through linking marine biodiversity and its ecological structure and functioning to ecological and economic valuation.
Minimally-Invasive Soft-Robot-Assisted Deep-Brain Localized Therapeutics Delivery for Neurological Disorders (SoftReach)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Pathfinder
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Greece,Cyprus,Germany,United Kingdom
Call: EIC Pathfinder Open 2022 (HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDEROPEN-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-02-01
End date: 2026-07-31
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2158000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2158000.0
Participants: 5
Project status: SIGNED

Robotics and imaging can revolutionize healthcare by overcoming limitations of existing practice and enabling the clinical translation of emerging treatments. Along this direction, SoftReach focuses on improving the treatment of neurological disorders (NDs), a major unmet healthcare challenge. Despite the devastating impact of NDs to millions, existing treatments have poor efficacy. SoftReach aims to radically improve treatments by providing localized delivery of therapeutics in deep-brain regions involved in ND pathophysiology. The proposed platform can enhance the efficacy of pharmaceutical treatments by bypassing limitations of systemic delivery, and provide means to implement promising cell therapies. Our paradigm-shifting ambition will be realised through two major innovations: 1) a submillimeter soft-growing steerable robotic platform, the first of its kind, which will utilize real-time MRI feedback to navigate through the spine subarachnoid space and the Ventricular System (VS), where it will attach μl-sized payloads (carriers of therapeutics) at specific locations. 2) Novel μl-sized tissue construct payloads (TCPs), built around precisely microfabricated deployable porous scaffolds so that they can attach stably on VS walls and deliver therapeutic factors to adjacent brain regions. The platform will be demonstrated via two parallel efforts. 1) The ability of the soft-growing robot to extend via the VS and safely deliver TCPs under real-time MRI feedback will be demonstrated in high-fidelity phantoms of the human VS. 2) TCP-mediated localised delivery of treatments (compounds, cells) via the VS will be demonstrated stereotactically in mice. By providing minimally-invasive access to deep-brain regions of major clinical importance that lie beyond the reach of existing procedures, SoftReach can revolutionize the clinical practice of ND treatments and provide disrupting tools that can impact multiple fields such as gene therapy, neurosurgery and oncology.

Keywords: medical robots,soft robots,mri,neuroengineering,mechatronics,scaffolds,drug delivery,neurodegenerative disease
REGENeration of neighbourhoods towards a low-carbon, inclusive and affordable built environment. (REGEN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Energy
Destination: Efficient, sustainable and inclusive energy use
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: B4P (co-programmed)
Countries involved: Luxembourg,France,Ireland,Spain,Italy,Netherlands
Call: Solutions for the sustainable, resilient, inclusive and accessible regeneration of neighbourhoods enabling low carbon footprint lifestyles and businesses (Built4People) (HORIZON-CL5-2022-D4-02, 2022)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 8845138.56
EU funding (EUR): 7489390.97
Participants: 23
Project status: SIGNED

REGEN will pave innovative pathways for the decarbonisation of European neighbourhoods and cities, tackling urgent socioeconomic, climate and built environment challenges by designing a multifaceted Toolbox leveraging cutting-edge digital technologies and life cycle sustainability assessments while engaging citizens and influencing behavioural change. The proposed holistic methodology and framework (Assessment Framework for Urban Regeneration) will validate a catalogue of 50 urban regeneration interventions. This framework will be able to estimate the current revitalisation potential of urban infrastructure, with monitoring using digital twins and evaluation based on sustainability methodologies, facilitating the benchmarking and selection of appropriate intervention strategies. Additionally, the REGEN solutions will be applied with the end-users and all stakeholders in mind, being complemented by social and humanities studies, citizen science, participative design approaches and living labs. The indicators chosen for the assessments will rely on proven life cycle methods, extended to social and economic impacts. This will achieve a holistic sustainability approach, with the end-user being an active participant in the evaluation and validation. REGEN will apply this in 4 demonstration sites where individual buildings, streets and districts are to be constantly monitored for their energy, mobility and circularity. The net benefits of applied interventions will be monitored and assessed on an individual basis. The results will be upscaled at city level, informing key policy orientations already in place and paving the way for broader deployment. An additional 10 virtual regeneration projects will be used to replicate the regeneration interventions and assess their applicability across the EU. This will strengthen the credibility of the interventions catalogue and provide indispensable for knowledge transfer on delivering resilient urban regeneration.

Keywords: urban regeneration,urban planning,urban digital twins,ecological urban regeneration,decarbonization,participatory processes,life cycle sustainability assessment
Plasmonic nanoparticle enhanced heterojunction (PATCH)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Physics
Countries involved: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-12-01
End date: 2027-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 242260.56
EU funding (EUR): 242260.56
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Water pollution has become a critical global challenge with serious environmental and health consequences, driven by rapid industrialization, poor waste management, and ineffective sewage systems. Addressing this critical issue requires innovative and efficient water treatment technologies. Among such technologies, photoelectrocatalysis (PEC) combines photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, showing great promise for pollutant degradation. While PEC has primarily been explored for hydrogen production, its application in water decontamination is increasingly important, highlighting the need for advanced materials to enhance PEC performance. BiVO4, a well-studied n-type semiconductor, offers potential for PEC due to its narrow band gap and low cost. However, its performance is limited by poor charge separation and high recombination rates. To overcome these challenges, this project focuses on developing a CuO/BiVO4 heterojunction, which improves charge separation through the creation of a p-n junction, leading to enhanced photocatalytic performance. The inclusion of plasmonic nanoparticles, especially gold (Au), will further improve PEC activity by increasing light absorption, boosting charge transfer, and facilitating more efficient redox reactions, resulting in effective pollutant degradation. Synthesis challenges, such as scalability and purity, will be tackled using pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL), an environment-friendly and efficient technique for fabricating nanomaterials. PLAL offers advantages in controlling nanoparticle size, ensuring strong interfacial contact, and producing high-quality materials. Through the development of a plasmonic nanoparticle-enhanced CuO/BiVO4 heterojunction for PEC pollutant degradation, this project aims to deliver a scalable, efficient, and environmentally sustainable solution for water purification, contributing to cleaner water and a healthier planet.

Keywords: photoelectrocatalysis,pulsed laser ablation in liquid,pollutant degradation
Single-Atom Photocatalysts Enhanced by a Self-Powered Photonic Glass Reactor to Produce Advanced Biofuels (GlaS-A-Fuels)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Pathfinder
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Greece,Czechia,Germany,Italy
Call: EIC Pathfinder Open (HORIZON-EIC-2023-PATHFINDEROPEN-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-03-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2995840.0
EU funding (EUR): 2995840.0
Participants: 5
Project status: SIGNED

The increasing energy demand and the depletion of fossil-fuel reserves, threatening our energy security and the environment, have aroused intense global concern. To mitigate this, the EU aims to become climate-neutral by 2050, by targeting at the next-generation of biofuels from non-land and non-food competing bio-wastes. Butanol (BuOH), heavier alcohols and hydrogen (H2), if produced from bio-ethanol, are promising advanced biofuels due to their high energy content, long shelf-life and, in case of BuOH, compatibility with the current engines and fuel distribution infrastructure. However, their production faces challenges due to the low yields and selectivities during ethanol reforming. GlaS-A-Fuels envisions a holistic approach to transform bio-ethanol to advanced biofuels employing recyclable and cooperative catalysts from earth-abundant elements. The concept is based on the engineering of a light-trapping and light-tuning photonic glass reactor, self-powered by a thermoelectric module, and tailored to amplify the effectiveness of photo-amplified single-atom catalysts. GlaS-A-Fuels aims to harness the full power of the light-activated carriers of photoactive supports by channeling this energy to the surface-exposed transition metal-cation single atom sites. There, via the effective coordination with the reactants and energy matching with their frontier orbitals, solar energy to fuel conversion can be maximized. Metal-metal and metal-support cooperativity, charge transfer phenomena and strongly polarized oxidations states can further contribute to the required enhanced catalytic performances and difficult-to-achieve key reaction intermediates. To develop efficient processes for the production of advanced biofuels, GlaS-A-Fuels will leverage in a concerted way the key expertise of five partners in materials science for solar and thermal energy harvesting, catalysis, laser technologies for tuning light-matter interactions, intelligent process-control systems.

Keywords: biofuels production,green hydrogen,photonic glass reactor,light trapping micro patterns,luminescent perovskites,thermoelectric module,photocatalytic processes,single atom catalysis
Protect Your Peerless Artwork with Innovative Nanoengineered Technology (PYPAINT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS2 (ERC-2022-POC2, 2022)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 162857.14
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The art market has always had to deal with an endemic problem: counterfeiting. All art is historically at risk of being copied and sold fraudulently by counterfeiters. A report by the Swiss Fine Art Expert Institute estimates that over half of all the artwork in circulation is fake. All this creates an incalculable loss of value for the entire market, including artists, auction houses, insurance companies and of course the end buyers, who often find themselves spending considerable sums of money only to end up with worthless pieces or even get into legal trouble. Works of art are generally not protected with dedicated security devices that uniquely identify the work itself. The problem historically originates from the requirement not to visibly alter the artwork itself and from the relative lack of security of existing non-invasive solutions. Our team at Politecnico di Milano aims to develop a printable new anti-counterfeiting system (PYPAINT) based on carbon-based nanostructures with a specific optoelectronic response, which makes it possible to create an artwork's unique identifier code that is invisible to the human eye. Thanks to the invisibility of inks, it is possible to print them directly on the artwork, or on a transparent label. The inks will be printed through an inkjet printer forming a pattern of spots able to create almost infinite codes readable using a special optical reader. Without the need for heavy metals or toxic compounds, PYPAINT is environmental-friendly. The verification of PYPAINT allows access to a remote database to guarantee not only its authenticity but also its history and relationship with the rest of the artist's works, creating a true digital reliable medium, available to the owner. It only takes a few seconds to identify and retrieve all the information of interest through a multi-level security protocol. With PYPAINT we aim at contributing to securing the extreme value of artworks in Europe and worldwide.
Transforming Radiology with Artificial Intelligence to Fight Abdominal Cancer (TRAIFAC)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: European innovation ecosystems
Theme: Elevating the scalability potential of European business
Destination: Elevating the scalability potential of European business
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Spain
Call: Women TechEU (HORIZON-EIE-2022-SCALEUP-02, 2022)
Start date: 2023-06-01
End date: 2023-11-30
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 107142.86
EU funding (EUR): 75000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Abdominal malignant tumours represent one of the groups of oncological pathologies with the highest prevalence and mortality. Annually, new cancer cases related to organs in the abdomen (pancreas, liver, kidney, etc.) are diagnosed globally, representing more than 1.4 million annual deaths worldwide. Particularly, pancreatic cancer is the fourth cause of death by cancer in Europe, but it has the lowest 5-year survival rate among the common cancers. Sycai Technologies S.L. (SYCAI) is a deep-tech company that has developed an Artificial Intelligence digital tool to assist radiologists to detect and classify abdominal lesions through imaging. Currently, our tool prevents the abdominal lesions from progressing to pancreatic cancer with an accuracy superior to the standard identification procedures. By integrating this assistant in the workflow of radiologists with our “0-clicks” approach, the information will be easily accessible by professionals to accelerate the identification of precursor lesions, avoiding invasive tests, surgeries, and patient complications. At SYCAI we have the vision to provide non-invasive tools to assist in the early-stage diagnosis of any type of abdominal cancer. We aim to impact our society positively, contributing to improving the quality of life of patients with abdominal lesions with a low probability of evolving towards malignant lesions. Additionally, our solutions will improve the dedication of resources to patients needing prioritisation in cancer care according to the status of lesions. Therefore, SYCAI contributes to public expenditure savings for a sustainable and resilient European healthcare system. Sara Toledano, CEO and Julia Rodríguez, CSO, apply to the Women TechEU programme since they are eager to improve their leadership skills to face the challenge of market entrance in Europe and to be prepared for sales, operations and team growth.

Keywords: cancer,artificial intelligence,pancreatic cancer,cystic pancreatic lesion,abdominal tumours,medical imaging,early diagnosis,neural networks,differentiable neural architecture search,dnas
RI services to promote deep digitalization of Industrial Biotechnology - towards smart biomanufacturing (BIOINDUSTRY 4.0)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Research infrastructures
Theme: Research infrastructures
Destination: Technology and infrastructures
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: France,Greece,Austria,Italy,Germany,Netherlands,Finland,Spain,Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: R&D for the next generation of scientific instrumentation, tools and methods (HORIZON-INFRA-2022-TECH-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2026-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 9439569.25
EU funding (EUR): 9439568.25
Participants: 25
Project status: SIGNED

Industrial Biotechnology (IB) is a Key Enabling Technology for the circular bio-economy, industrial renewal and European manufacturing autonomy. Its development forms a vital part of EU’s strategy to become climate neutral in 2050. For IB to become a major manufacturing technology, it must widen its use of advanced digital technologies. These will improve R&D efficiency, reducing time-to-market and costs. Moreover, for manufacturing, advanced digital technologies will drive distributed, autonomous and highly adaptable production systems. To support digitalization of IB, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 will create new services delivered by European research infrastructures (RI). These services will address several challenges, focusing on the acceleration of bio-process development pipelines. Drawing on the complementary skills of its consortium, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 will develop data-driven approaches, exploiting AI to empower novel decision support systems and digital twins, the latter being to better design bio-processes and enable their real-time online control. To complete these services, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 will also develop data and metadata standards to generate high quality, interoperable multi-scale bio-process data, the technical basis for trusted data networks and process analytical devices to provide real-time online monitoring of bio-processes. Once deployed, these RI services will provide Users with access to cutting-edge technologies that can be used singly or in an integrated way, covering whole R&D pipelines. Integrated services will be delivered by a distributed RI, conferring Europe with a unique R&D test-bed for bio-process development and a competitive advantage with respect to global competition. To succeed, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 brings together 6 EU RIs, 1 global company, 2 innovative EU SMEs and several research teams around an ambitious 4-year workplan that will be implemented in consultation with IB stakeholders, using a co-design strategy to specify goals.

Keywords: industrial biotechnology bio process artificial intelligence digital twins decision support systems trusted data networks process analytical technology industry 4 0
LNP-DECODE: Broadening the therapeutic window of LNP-based vaccination (LNP-DECODE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2023-POC, 2023)
Start date: 2024-06-01
End date: 2025-11-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The recent success of ionizable lipid nanoparticles (iLNPs) as vehicles for mRNA (mRNA-iLNP) as a safe and highly effective vaccine in the protection against SARS-CoV-2 pushed the lipid nanoparticle technology to the forefront of medicine and launched worldwide interest in their potential as a therapeutic vaccine against numerous pathogens or tumor antigens. Still, their mode of action remains largely a black box. One of the most remarkable properties of mRNA-LNPs is that they do not require any additional adjuvant, explaining for a large part their success. Current belief poses that their adjuvant activity originates from the ionizable lipids without any need for mRNA components. Our data challenge this belief as we found that empty, non-mRNA containing LNPs induce homeostatic, not immunogenic dendritic cell (DC) maturation. This observation has far-stretching clinical implications as it suggests that if one finds a reliable manner to incorporate antigens in a non-immunogenic fashion in LNPs, i.e. as peptides or non-immunogenic mRNA molecules, we can broaden the scope of LNPs from inducers of protective immunity to inducers of tolerance. The current project aims to explore this idea by testing the induction of tolerance against allergens and auto-immune antigens incorporated as peptide cargo within LNPs. In addition, we developed a unique toolbox with a set of biomarkers that distinguish tolerogenic from immunogenic mature DCs. In the current project, we want to validate whether we can use these biomarkers to monitor in vivo the effect of different types of LNPs on DCs and predict their capability to induce tolerance or immunity. We believe that these findings will be highly valuable to help rational design of the future generation of LNPs, guarantee a safer use in the clinic and potentially broaden their scope to inducers of tolerance.