Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Sweet Sorghum : an alternative energy crop (SWEETFUEL)

Framework: FP7 — Cooperation
Programme: Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology
Destination: Life sciences, biotechnology and biochemistry for sustainable non-food products and processes
Action type: Collaborative project
Countries involved: France,India,Brazil,Germany,Germany,Italy,South Africa,Mexico,Germany
Call:  (FP7-KBBE-2008-2B, 2008)
Start date: 2009-01-01
End date: 2014-06-30
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5120946.2
EU funding (EUR): 2967975.0
Participants: 10
Project status: CLOSED

Increasing world market prices for fossil fuels, driven by limited reserves, growing demand and instability in producing regions, now render renewable fuels economical. Such fuels are also a pathway to reducing GHG emissions and mitigating climate change. Bio-ethanol from crop plants is a promising, partial solution to sustainably satisfy the energy demand for road transport. The success of bio-ethanol from sugarcane in Brazil demonstrates proof of concept but cannot be transferred to water-limited or temperate environments. Sweet sorghum, as a source of either fermentable free sugars or lignocellulosics, has many potential advantages, including: high water, nitrogen and radiation use efficiency; broad agro-ecological adaptation; rich genetic diversity for useful traits; and the potential to produce fuel feedstock, food and feed in various combinations. Fuel-food crops can thereby help reconciling energy and food security issues. This project will breed for improved cultivars and hybrids of sorghum for temperate, tropical semi-arid and tropical acid-soil environments by pyramiding in various combinations, depending on region and ideotype, tolerance to cold, drought and acid (Al-toxic) soils; and high production of stalk sugars, easily digestible biomass and grain (WP 1-3). Molecular-genetic and physiological breeding support is given by WP4, and agro-ecological adaptation and sustainable practices are developed by WP5. Other WPs (6, 7, 8) provide for integrated technology and impact assessments including economics, dissemination and coordination. The Consortium is composed of 10 members from France (leader), Italy, Germany, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa, including a seed company. Research involves structured participation of stake holders, including policy makers. Project outcomes will be new germplasm, sustainable practices and commodity chain concepts adapted to each target region. The duration of the project is 5 years.

Keywords: sweet sorghum,bio-ethanol,breeding,cold adaptation,drought and poor soils adaptation,fuel-food crop,sustainability
Valorizing Andean microbial diversity through sustainable intensification of potato-based farming systems (VALORAM)

Framework: FP7 — Cooperation
Programme: Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology
Destination: Sustainable production and management of biological resources from land, forest, and aquatic environment
Action type: Collaborative project
Countries involved: Belgium,Austria,Ireland,Germany,Belgium,Peru,Ecuador,Bolivia, Plurinational State of
Call:  (FP7-KBBE-2008-2B, 2008)
Start date: 2009-02-01
End date: 2014-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3854973.0
EU funding (EUR): 2977386.0
Participants: 8
Project status: CLOSED

VALORAM aims at exploring and valorizing Andean soil microbial diversity for the development of alternative, efficient technologies and crop management practices to improve the sustainability and productivity of Andean cropping systems benefiting rural farming households. The project will focus on potato because of its global importance for small-scale farmers in the central Andean highlands. The participants will use metagenomic, genomic, proteomic and metabolomic analysis to identify novel traits of microorganisms and characterize beneficial soil microbial communities, to achieve the objective. The project specific aims are to (1) explore the agro-ecosystem functions of soil microbes in potato-based cropping systems and preserve the components of this microflora in international culture collections, (2) elucidate the role of rhizosphere microorganisms and communities in promoting plant growth, suppressing soil borne disease and priming plant biotic defenses, developing eco-efficient technologies/products for sustainable crop production systems, (3) develop applied technologies and knowledge-based systems to improve the sustainability and resilience of potato based cropping systems for the benefit of the indigenous farmers and (4) promote the exchange of scientific knowledge and technologies among partners and the LA scientific community to impulse research in this area and support the continuous development of crop production technologies. The strategy for VALORAM implementation is to engage LA and EU partners in developing and further stengthening collaborative research activities in order to sustainably improve potato-based systems. This is supported by a multidisciplinary team of experts with highly complementary skills and based on a robust management structure with an efficient workshop and communication programme. The results will directly benefit the local partners and may also contribute to increase the productivity of organic potato production in the EU.

Keywords: potato - metagenomics - metabolomics - metadiversity - culture collection - sustainable agriculture - rhizosphere - endophytes - arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi - pgpr - ecologicla impact
Visionary Space Systems: Orbital Dynamics at Extremes of Spacecraft Length-Scale (VISIONSPACE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Products and process engineering
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2008-AdG, 2008)
Start date: 2009-02-01
End date: 2014-09-30
Duration (months): 68.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2012038.0
EU funding (EUR): 2012038.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This ground-breaking project will deliver radically new approaches to orbital dynamics at extremes of spacecraft length-scale to underpin new space-derived products and services for Europe. These include levitated geostationary orbits for large gossamer spacecraft to massively increase space telecommunications capacity, new displaced polar orbits for continuous environmental monitoring of the arctic and swarms of interacting micro-spacecraft for revolutionary new commercial and science applications. To pursue these ambitious goals, resources of order ¬2M are requested for 3 postdoctoral research assistants for 5 years to establish a European Research Council funded Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory. The University of Strathclyde will provide resources for a further 3 PhD students (¬250k) and a custom suite of offices to host the laboratory. Through extensive European and international links, the work of the laboratory will build on the demonstrated capability of the Principal Investigator to devise and effectively transfer radical new space concepts from academia through to industry and to influence policy-making at the highest levels. Dissemination will be through an international network of collaborators (e.g. ESA, NASA, Tsinghua University) and a public outreach project to stimulate debate on visionary, large-scale space engineering ventures. The project will underpin revolutionary new space technologies and applications and will champion the role of European space engineering as a venture at the forefront of technological and social advancement.

Keywords: orbital dynamics,space systems engineering
Exploration of strains in synthetic nanocrystals (NANOSCULPTURE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2008-AdG, 2008)
Start date: 2009-01-01
End date: 2013-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

I plan to grow nanometre-sized crystals in confined geometries to examine the strain distributions that result. The crystal growth will employ lithographic processing techniques, made possible by the local expertise in the central clean room facilities of the London Centre for Nanotechnology. My group is world-leading in developing a method called Coherent X-ray Diffraction (CXD). Our CXD strain images of a Pb nanocrystal were published in Nature in 2006. CXD is sensitive to strain because the X-ray diffraction pattern surrounding a Bragg peak can be decomposed into symmetric and antisymmetric parts. To a good approximation, the symmetric part can be considered to come from the real part of the electron density, while the antisymmetric part is a projection of the strain field. The phasing of the data is a critical step that uses a computer algorithm, developed by us, which acts like the lens of a 3D X-ray microscope. CXD works best for nanocrystal sizes between 40nm and 5µm, for crystals strongly attached to substrates and for isolated, fiducialised arrays of crystals that can be cross-referenced with other techniques. To create nanocrystals in this size range, we will use both a bottom-up self-assembly of materials deposited onto templated substrates, designed to introduce strain, and a top-down nanosculpture approach will use lithography techniques to create strain patterns in crystalline materials associated with shapes that are carved into them. The interpretation of the images is the main intellectual output of the project. This will be compared with finite element analysis, and the deviations interpreted as unique properties attributable to the nanoscale. All project participants will work in a design, creation, analysis, interpretation, update cycle that will reveal the new basic principles of nanocrystal structure. In the long run we will transfer CXD technology to Europe: beamline I-13 at Diamond will be ready for CXD in 2011.

Keywords: 3d imaging,strain mapping
Preparation of polyfunctional organometallics: new key intermediates for synthetic organic chemistry (NEW ORGANOMETALLICS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2008-AdG, 2008)
Start date: 2008-12-01
End date: 2014-11-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2061000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2061000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The use of organometallic reagents in the last decades completely changed synthetic organic chemistry. These reactive intermediates made now available new materials with outstanding physical properties, novel drugs with excellent activity spectra, modern highly efficient and ecologically benign agrochemicals. The goal of this work is the development of new synthetic routes and a practical access to polyfunctional organometallic reagents using affordable and non-toxic metals such as Mg, Al, Ti, Ca, Mn, and Fe. These new types of organometallics will find an extremely broad range of applications in contemporary organic synthesis. New advanced approaches to these reagents will be based on the recently discovered beneficial influence of environmentally friendly salts such as LiCl on the preparation of these reactive intermediates. Our experience will allow us to design organometallic reagents bearing practically all important functional groups used in organic synthesis. This work will lead to ground-breaking advances in main-group synthetic chemistry and make a broad range of completely novel organometallic compounds available for applications in industry. The availability of such intermediates will revolutionize from the point of view of economy and environmental impact the syntheses of important drugs, modern agrochemicals, as well as perspective compounds with new groundbreaking physical properties for sophisticated electronics and adjacent applications. We plan to study the applications of these new reagents in the field of pharmacology, natural product synthesis, and life and material sciences. The new approach will concentrate on ecologically friendly organometallics of low toxicity and finding the novel synthetic ways in order to minimize the environmental impact of the synthetic intermediates.

Keywords: organometallic chemistry,organic synthesis,new synthetic methods,material science,medicinal chemistry
Association of European Marine Biological Laboratories (ASSEMBLE)

Framework: FP7 — Capacities
Programme: Research Infrastructures
Destination: Support to existing research infrastructures
Action type: Combination of CP & CSA
Countries involved: Sweden,United Kingdom,France,Italy,Portugal,Israel,Chile,Germany
Call:  (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2008-1, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-01
End date: 2014-10-31
Duration (months): 68.0
Total project cost (EUR): 12400864.9
EU funding (EUR): 8700000.0
Participants: 8
Project status: CLOSED

Europe has a very long and distinguished history in Marine Biology and its coastal marine biological stations are the oldest in the world. For example, Stazione Zoologica in Naples (SZN), Station Biologique in Roscoff (SBR) and Kristineberg Marine Research Station in Fiskebäckskil (KMRS) were all established in the late 19th Century. They began an enviable tradition as marine biological research stations that acted, even at that time, as international infrastructure sites to serve, enhance and develop collaborative marine research worldwide. Now, however, they have become a new breed of marine research station, developing and applying new technologies and facilities that allow a higher quality of service, not only to the marine biologist community but also to the increasing numbers of scientists that are turning to marine organisms as models with which to investigate fundamental questions in biology. Building upon this enviable tradition ASSEMBLE seeks to create a network of key marine biological research stations around the European coastline including the sub-tropical station at Eilat (IUI). Uniquely, we also include a Pacific site in Chile (PUC) that provides access to one of the most important upwelling sites in the world. We aim to develop an integrated infrastructure that will make possible for biologists in Europe to study a range of unique coastal ecosystems and a wide variety of marine organisms using the most advanced approaches in modern biology. It will be based on the existing hosting capacities, sea-going facilities and research background of these marine stations, which, as noted above, already have a long experience in hosting students and visiting scientists. This infrastructure will focus on key marine ecosystems and biological models, making possible both the enhancement of existing infrastructures and the introduction and development of new technologies. These include, for example, indoor and outdoor equipment for the cultivation/raising/study o

Keywords: marine research stations,model organisms,ecosystems,genomics
SEISMIC ENGINEERING RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES FOR EUROPEAN SYNERGIES (SERIES)

Framework: FP7 — Capacities
Programme: Research Infrastructures
Destination: Support to existing research infrastructures
Action type: Combination of CP & CSA
Countries involved: Greece,France,Italy,France,Türkiye,North Macedonia,European organisations area,France,Portugal,Romania,United Kingdom,Slovenia,Italy,Germany,Italy,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,Austria,Italy
Call:  (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2008-1, 2008)
Start date: 2009-03-01
End date: 2013-07-31
Duration (months): 53.0
Total project cost (EUR): 10715218.39
EU funding (EUR): 8700000.0
Participants: 23
Project status: CLOSED

European seismic engineering research suffers from extreme fragmentation of research infrastructures (RI) between countries and limited access to them by the S/T community of earthquake engineering, especially that of Europe’s most seismic regions. A 23-strong Consortium of the key actors in Europe’s seismic engineering research (including 3 industrial partners) addresses these problems in a sustainable way via a 4-year programme of activities at an annual cost to the Commission less than 1.35% of the total present value (€190m) of the RIs’ material resources. The scope covers all aspects of seismic engineering testing, from eight Reaction Wall Pseudodynamic (PsD) facilities and ten Shake Table labs, to EU’s unique Tester of Bearings or Isolators, its two major Centrifuges and an instrumented Site for wave propagation studies. Transnational Access is offered to a portfolio of world class RIs: EU’s largest PsD facility, four diverse Shake Tables and the two Centrifuges. Networking sets up a public distributed database of past, present and future test results, installs distributed testing capabilities at all PsD labs, fostering development of up-and-coming ones at Europe’s most seismic regions, drafts and applies protocols for qualification of RIs and engages the entire European community of earthquake engineering via the best possible instances: the European Association of Earthquake Engineering, EU’s seismic code makers and their national groups, the European Construction Industry, as well as all relevant S/T associations or networks. Joint research engages all labs, exploring and prototyping novel actuators (combination of electro-dynamic and hydraulic ones) for better control of fast tests or special applications, new sensing and instrumentation systems, data assimilation in equipment-specimen models for better test control and optimisation of testing campaigns, as well as experimental studies of soil-structure interaction at all types of testing facilities.

Keywords: seismic testing,earthquake engineering,seismic engineering,testing facilities
Deep Earth Elastic Properties and a Universal Pressure Scale (DEEP)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Earth system science
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2008-AdG, 2008)
Start date: 2009-02-01
End date: 2014-07-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2079888.0
EU funding (EUR): 2079888.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Knowledge of the physical and chemical state of the Earth s inner silicate mantle is central to our understanding of plate tectonics, mantle convection, magma generation and the composition of the Earth as a whole. The key to this knowledge is the ability to interpret studies of seismic wave velocities through the deep Earth using laboratory measurements of mineral sound velocities at high pressures and temperatures. Scientists have for many years measured these properties as a function of pressure but due to the experimental difficulties the majority of studies have been performed only at room temperature. Large extrapolations of these data to mantle temperatures are required to link seismic velocity observations with physical and chemical properties of mantle rocks, resulting in large uncertainties that obscure firm conclusions. An additional uncertainty arises because there is currently no primary scale for accurately measuring pressure at high temperatures. In this study mineral sound velocities and densities will be measured in the diamond anvil cell at simultaneous high pressures and high temperatures to at least 50 GPa and 1300K. This will be possible by a pioneering combination of Brillouin scattering spectroscopy, to measure sound velocities, and single crystal X-ray diffraction determinations of density. By making both types of measurements on the same sample while it is maintained at a constant pressure and temperature, the pressure can be independently measured. These absolute pressure determinations will be used to derive a new universal pressure scale for use at high temperatures. Sound velocities of the major mantle minerals will be determined at high temperatures and absolute pressures thereby drastically decreasing the uncertainties in velocity calculations for rock assemblages at deep mantle conditions. The resulting data will be employed to finally interpret a host of seismic observations made at both global and local scales.

Keywords: brillouin spectroscopy single crystal x ray diffraction diamond anvil cell seismic discontinuities seismic velocities mantle high pressure minerals primary pressure scale
Synthetic Molecules that Walk Down Tracks: The First Small-Molecule Linear Motors (WALKINGMOLS)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Materials and Synthesis
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2008-AdG, 2008)
Start date: 2009-01-01
End date: 2013-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2256401.0
EU funding (EUR): 2256401.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The goal of this research project is to make the first synthetic small-molecule structures that can walk down tracks, mimicking the types of movement exhibited by the biological motor proteins myosin, kinesin and dynein. We propose to construct the first synthetic, mechanically processive, chemical systems from first principles; i.e. to design, synthesize, operate and characterize wholly synthetic small molecule structures that progressively advance directionally along a molecular track in response to stimuli. Different principles ( passing leg and inchworm mechanisms) for processive mechanical molecular-level motion will be developed and experimentally explored. With some designs it is envisaged that the walker units will be able to change direction or switch between pathways as a result of external signaling or the nature of the environment and, ultimately, be able to transport a cargo from one place to another on a surface. Sequential processive movement is unprecedented for wholly synthetic molecular structures and is the key requirement for making translational/linear motors that can perform tasks (transport cargoes from place to place or progressively exert a force) at the molecular level. Its successful demonstration would be a landmark accomplishment and mark a major new direction for synthetic supramolecular chemistry and molecular nanotechnology.

Keywords: synthetic molecular motors,artificial molecular machines,coordination chemistry,dynamic covalent chemistry