Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Nanostructures and nanoelectromechanical devices for precise control of topological defects/matter in superfluid helium (N2PCON)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Finland,United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-08-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Duration (months): 25.0
Total project cost (EUR): 199694.4
EU funding (EUR): 199694.4
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

Since Richard Feynman's famous talk There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom in 1959, the following decades saw the booming of nanotechnology. One of the fields in which nanotechnology can never be ignored is the development of scientific instruments. Scientific instruments based on nanotechnology have revolutionized many research fields. However, using current instruments to study superfluid He is still challenging, especially for the topological defects (TDs) and topological matter (TM) because the scale of the coherence length of the interesting objects in 3He is just tens of nanometers. The N2PCON (Nanostructures and Nanoelectromechanical devices for Precise CONtrol of topological defects/matter in superfluid He) project will offer a nanotechnology solution to precisely control and study TDs and TM. In this action, I will work in the OtaNano (Finnish national infrastructure for nanoscience and nanotechnology) at Aalto University, with the supervision of Dr. Sami Franssila (Department of Chemistry and Materials Science) and Dr. Vladimir Eltsov (Department of Applied Physics). At the same time, I will also work with my secondment institutes, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK and Lancaster University, UK, to boost this action. The action will produce nanoscale instruments (NEMS, nanostructures) that surpass the current state-of-the-art devices, in both performance and dimension, to reach the quantum world of TDs and TM. N2PCON is expected to provide new tools for superfluid research and also add general knowledge to MEMS/NEMS and cosmology. In the long term, it will boost the MEMS/NEMS research and industry in the EU.

Keywords: nems,nanostructures,nanofabrication,high sensitivity force sensors,quantum vortices
Configurational Mechanics of Soft Materials: Revolutionising Geometrically Nonlinear Fracture (SoftFrac)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Products and Processes Engineering
Panel description: Product and process design, chemical, civil, environmental, mechanical, vehicle engineering, energy processes and relevant computational methods
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2021-ADG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2494538.0
EU funding (EUR): 2494538.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

SoftFrac will revolutionise geometrically nonlinear fracture mechanics of soft materials (in short soft fracture) by capitalising on configurational mechanics, an unconventional continuum formulation that I helped shaping over the past decades. Mastering soft fracture will result in disruptive progress in designing the failure resilience of soft devices, i.e. soft robotics, stretchable electronics and tissue engineering applications. Soft materials are challenging since they can display moduli as low as only a few kPa, thus allowing for extremely large deformations. Geometrically linear fracture mechanics is well established, nevertheless not applicable for soft fracture given the over-restrictive assumptions of infinitesimal deformations. The appropriate geometrically nonlinear, finite deformation counterpart is, however, still in its infancy. By combining innovative data-driven/data-adaptive constitutive modelling with novel configurational-force-driven fracture onset and crack propagation, I will overcome the fundamental obstacles to date preventing significant progress in soft fracture. I propose three interwoven research Threads jointly addressing challenging theoretical, computational and experimental problems in soft fracture. The theoretical Thread establishes a new constitutive modelling ansatz for soft in/elastic materials, and develops the transformational configurational fracture approach. The computational Thread provides the associated novel algorithmic setting and delivers high-fidelity discretisation schemes to numerically follow crack propagation driven by accurately determined configurational forces. The experimental Thread generates and analyses comprehensive experimental data of soft materials and their geometrically nonlinear fracture for properly calibrating and validating the theoretical and computational developments. Ultimately, SoftFrac, for the first time, opens up new horizons for holistically exploring the nascent field soft fracture.

Keywords: geometrically nonlinear fracture mechanics,soft materials,continuum modelling,computational simulation,experimental testing and characterisation
Cryptography for Second Layer Blockchain Protocols (CRYPTOLAYER)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Computer Science and Informatics
Panel description: Informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2021-COG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1984800.0
EU funding (EUR): 1984800.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Blockchain technologies offer an exciting new alternative for centralized platform providers. They distribute trust over a large number of parties, thereby promising major benefits in terms of security, freedom and efficiency. Unfortunately, due to their inherent distributed nature, state of the art blockchains suffer from a multitude of shortcomings. In contrast to centralized platforms, they are restricted in terms of scalability, confidentiality and functionality, and thus cannot power large scale applications. The ambitious goal of CRYPTOLAYER is to overcome this situation by building decentralized systems that can compete with centralized platforms. We will achieve this goal via building off-chain technologies that form a secure second protocol layer on top of the underlying blockchain. The first component of CRYPTOLAYER builds a family of secure protocols for off-chain transaction systems. These protocols move the massive amount of transactions to a second layer, thereby offering nearly unlimited scalability and instantaneous transaction processing. Our solutions will support smart contracts - complex programs that can handle money - and offer strong privacy guarantees by relying on tools from cryptography. The second component of CRYPTOLAYER leverages advanced cryptographic building blocks to construct secure off-chain services for confidentiality and access to real-world data. This will enable rich classes of applications to run over decentralized infrastructures. Finally, since secure protocol design is highly involved and error-prone, we will build upon the formal framework of theoretical cryptography. We will develop formal security models using the universal composability framework, and carry out a rigorous security analysis using mathematical proofs. With our overarching treatment of off-chain technologies, our vision is to establish this field as a central part of the rapidly evolving research on blockchain technologies.

Keywords: blockchain,cryptographic protocols,distributed ledger,multiparty computation,smart contracts,cryptographic models
DC for European Union (DC4EU)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Energy
Destination: Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Belgium,France,Denmark,Austria
Call: Support action to the SET Plan IWG on HVDC & DC Technologies (HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-01, 2023)
Start date: 2023-11-01
End date: 2026-10-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 599987.8
EU funding (EUR): 599987.25
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

Climate neutrality requires the cost-effective and reliable integration of large amounts of renewable energy sources in the power system, leading to the need of wheeling large amounts of power over long distances. HVDC and DC technologies are the most suitable choice to flexibly integrate remote energy sources in a reliable and cost-effective manner. To boost the development of DC technologies, the SET Plan Implementation Working Group on HVDC and DC technologies (DC IWG) has been established, with the goal of delineating a roadmap for the growth and deployment of HVDC and DC technologies over the coming years, through identifying the research and innovation priorities and enhancing the cooperation, collaboration, and coordination between the SET Plan countries. The current organisational support to the DC IWG is based on voluntary work from the members. DC4EU coordination and support action is designed to facilitate the work of the DC IWG and achieve its outcomes and to ensure the information exchange with the SET Plan. To accomplish this, DC4EU will provide organizational and administrative support to the DC IWG, as well as coordinate and communicate with relevant parties, stakeholders, and initiatives. Moreover, DC4EU aims to disseminate and exploit the outcomes of the DC IWG for wider adoption of the IWG outcomes. Additionally, the project seeks to initiate societal engagement to raise the awareness about the significance of DC technologies. By doing so, DC4EU will results in: (1) updating the implementation plan for HVDC and DC technologies to meet the future requirements/needs, (2) enhancing coordination between DC IWG members and between the DC IWG and the SET Plan office, (3) learning from first movers, which refers to the ability of gaining insights and knowledge from early adopters of DC technologies, (4) coordinating national and European research activities, and (5) communicating research and innovation needs of DC technologies to a wide audience.

Keywords: hvdc and dc technologies
6G Intelligent Connectivity And inteRaction for Users and infraStructures (6G-ICARUS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Staff Exchanges
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Greece,United States,Brazil,Australia,United Kingdom,Germany,Italy,Cyprus,Bulgaria,Romania,Netherlands
Call: MSCA Staff Exchanges 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-SE-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-03-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 598000.0
EU funding (EUR): 501400.0
Participants: 22
Project status: SIGNED

In the context of modern technologies, the transition to 6G networks faces numerous challenges; therefore, novel solutions must be discovered, combined, and tested in order to achieve distributed smart connectivity, imperceptible latency, virtually infinite capacity, improved security/privacy, smart/adaptive networking, and energy efficiency. The 6G-ICARUS project will investigate, combine, and improve on current technologies in order to address numerous obstacles that 6G networks will face in order to define the future wireless networks (FWNs). 6G-ICARUS is focused on FWNs capable of meeting a variety of targets, resulting in better geographic coverage, particularly in urban areas, higher transmission rates, lower latency, provision of diverse services, processing of information generated from a massive volume of heterogeneous sources, inherent resilience to counter potential security threats, and making intelligent decisions. 6G-ICARUS is founded on three pillars: (i) Effective utilisation of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces suitably controlled by artificial intelligence software; (ii) Channel modelling for mmWave/subTHz communications; (iii) Multi-connectivity solutions for 6G mobile communications. The project will generate novel research results as well as novel original hardware supported by innovative software (techniques, algorithms) based mostly on machine learning and deep learning. Hardware and software will be combined and examined in real-world settings to fulfill certain situations, all of which are matched with real-world applications. There will be separate Proof of Concept studies to validate the technologies and methodologies under consideration.

Keywords: future wireless networks,mm wave,sub terahertz frequencies,metamaterials,artifical intelligence,neural networks
In-Operando characterizatioN of anti-ambipolar mIxed Conductors (IONIC)

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: Sweden,Switzerland
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-04-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 206887.68
EU funding (EUR): 206887.68
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

This proposal concerns the fundamental properties of mixed ion-electron conducting polymers. These materials are biocompatible and conduct both ions and electrons, making them excellent candidates for bioelectronic applications interfacing with living tissue. The conductivity of these materials increases under bias by injecting ions and concerted doping of the semiconducting polymer. However, upon high doping the conductivity can no longer increase but rather decrease. The exhibited maximum, where any voltage change lowers the conductivity, amounts to an anti-ambipolar response which finds applications in biorealistic artificial neurons. The underlying mechanisms, however, remain unknown in part because of the inherent instability of highly doped polymer semiconductors. Without understanding the fundamentals of these materials, targeted optimization and development are inhibited. Additional complications arise from the complex environment in which they operate, consisting of ions and water. Their characteristics and response to doping are highly different in these conditions compared to ex-situ measurements, making in-operando characterization absolutely crucial. In-operando characterization is however not straightforward and requires specialized equipment. In this IONIC proposal, a research plan is described to investigate the fundamentals underlying anti-ambipolarity by designing and building novel in-operando measurement tools, and applying them to a uniquely stable ladder-type polymer. This unprecedented approach allows for characterizing, for the first time, the doping interactions throughout the anti-ambipolar regime. Project IONIC marks a major breakthrough in understanding organic semiconductor doping in electrolytes. The resulting general structure-property relations uncovered by the research described in this proposal will enable an intelligent design of material systems for exciting applications in bioelectronic interfacing and biomimicking circuitry.

Keywords: conducting polymers,electrochemical doping,in operando characterization,mixed ion electron conductors
Hands-on Materials Science for Education (HANDSOME)

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: Germany
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2023-POC, 2023)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2025-03-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Crystalline materials are indispensable to modern life, and the development of crystal growth processes for novel materials remains an important challenge in materials science and engineering. However, the knowledge about these processes is limited to very select, specialist communities. Researchers from different fields often use crystals just as "products" without being aware of the exciting multi-disciplinary background of their production processes. The HANDSOME project aims to facilitate the integration of this topic in educational curricula at various levels. We will adopt a macroscopic perspective on crystal growth, starting with heat transfer phenomena and phase changes between solid and liquid states, which can be related to many aspects of everyday life such as cooking or weather. A modular hands-on setup (EduCrys) will be developed to demonstrate the growth of tin crystals from melt using a process very similar to the industrial production of silicon crystals for microelectronics. Various sensors will be utilized to measure the temperature or power consumption. In the HANDSOME project, we envision EduCrys as a unique, innovative educational product for both schools and universities. We will follow the principles of open hardware with low-cost components and open source control software to maximize accessibility and customizability. The EduCrys setup will allow the transfer of knowledge from high-tech industries and specialized research labs to the classroom while preserving the possibility of hands-on experience and therefore increasing interactivity in science education. The HANDSOME project aims to reach a new level of awareness in the society about the challenges of modern materials science, in particular the production processes of crystalline materials, their energy-efficiency, and their environmental impact.
Engineering Synthetic Cells for Artificial Phagocytosis with Superselectivity (enCAPS)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-12-01
End date: 2026-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165312.96
EU funding (EUR): 165312.96
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

enCAPS will produce the first Phagocytic Synthetic Cell capable of superselective artificial phagocytosis. Artificial phagocytosis aims to mimic the complex mechanisms used by cells to internalize materials in minimal engineered systems, achieving a major milestone in the construction of advanced synthetic cells. This endeavour faces two main challenges: the energy barriers to particle internalization upon membrane bending, and the lack of selectivity. Previous approaches using liposomes or polymersomes did not sufficiently address these two challenges, since liposomes lack stability and polymersomes have rigid membranes. To go beyond the state-of-the-art, I will use a new class of membrane-forming polymers: ionically linked comb polymers. They self-assemble in i-combisomes with high stability and flexibility, providing an ideal platform for phagocytic synthetic cells. By carefully designing the molecular structure and the statistic composition of the polymers, I will dissect how structural variations in the molecular composition can serve to store potential energy that can be released to facilitate the engulfment. Subsequently, I will seek to introduce principles of superselectivity to particle interactions with i-combisomes, achieving an ON/OFF type response. Here I will unveil the interplay of binding strength, receptors mobility, and clustering on the membrane using supported bilayers. This will be translated to free-standing i-combisomes, generating a superselective synthetic cell that can bind and internalize particles with specific surface decorations. To demonstrate the flexibility of this approach, several colloidal systems will be internalized. Thus, enCAPS will yield general design principles for superselective artificial phagocytosis. Due to its deep interdisciplinary, enCAPS will impact several fields, providing the blueprint for new nanocarriers, theragnostic devices, and advanced synthetic cells.

Keywords: bottom up synthetic biology,artificial phagocytosis,biomembranes,biomimetics,bioinspired materials
International, interdisciplinary and intersectoral career-oriented PhD program in Bordeaux (3I-COP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Countries involved: France,Switzerland,Canada,Germany,Portugal,Italy
Call: MSCA COFUND 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-COFUND-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2029-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2016000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2016000.0
Participants: 7
Project status: SIGNED

The Neuroscience program 3I-COP (International, Interdisciplinary and Intersectoral Career-Oriented PhD program) stems from several observations: 1) The existence of a gap between public and private sectors, which do not sufficiently feed into each other; 2) The need to reduce the distance between fundamental discoveries and the development of clinical tools; 3) The necessity to educate students on emerging themes in Neuroscience, a rapidly evolving discipline; 4) The urgent need to improve communication between scientists and the general public; 5) The necessary improvement in the areas of equity/inclusivity; 6) The need for a strong alumni network to rely on and which actively engages in our training/institutions. To address these significant challenges, 3I-COP implements: 1) 3 tracks (R&D, translational, fundamental research) supported by a specific and tailored training offer, Implementing and Associated Partners; 2) The use of a visiting scholars system to educate students on hot topics in Neuroscience; 3) Close collaboration with the professors of the Master's program in Scientific Communication at the University of Bordeaux; 4) The development of targeted tools to facilitate the growth and increased participation of our alumni network in 3I-COP activities; 5) Heightening awareness of inclusivity and equity issues at all levels of the program and in all partner institutions. This ambitious and innovative program is made possible because PhD fellows (20 to be recruited) will integrate strong and world-class scientific communities and institutions, all recognized in their respective fields. 3I-COP not only aims to accelerate research in Neuroscience in all its dimensions (fundamental, translational, and applied), thus contributing to the significant scientific and societal challenge of treating brain diseases, but also to instill in the new generations of young talents a whole new mindset that will serve as fertile ground for tomorrow's ground-breaking research.

Keywords: neuroscience,nanocoding,memory,inhibitory transmission,neurotechnologies,nutrition,neurodegenerative neurological diseases,private randd track,translational randd track,advanced research track