Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
CorPack - Turnkey building block for scaling novel wave energy technology into competitive utility-scale wave farms (CORPACK)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Challenges
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: Renewable energy sources and their whole value chain including materials development and recycling of components (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-02, 2024)
Start date: 2025-07-01
End date: 2027-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3571427.14
EU funding (EUR): 2499999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Global electricity demand is set to double by 2050, with 90% expected to be generated by RES. Solar PV, wind, and storage are essential but will be insufficient alone to achieve net-zero. With 60% of the global electricity generation today being still dependent on fossil fuels, accelerating the transition to net-zero requires a RES diversification able to supply 24/7 demand for electricity with 100% clean power. Wave energy could supply 10% of the world’s electricity demand, playing a crucial role in a balanced and cost-effective RES mix. However, this potential remains untapped. Historically, wave technologies have either broken in the harsh ocean conditions or have been too large and costly compared to their power output. This has resulted in setbacks related to perceived risk and bankability. Informed by 40 years of hydrodynamic research, CorPower Ocean developed and proven at TRL 7 a unique Wave Energy Converter (WEC) technology that makes devices naturally protected in storms and uses novel control technology that strongly amplifies the power capture in regular waves. This allows to deliver more than 5x as much power per amount of equipment compared to the previous state-of-the-art. High structural efficiency enables simple installation and effective O&M methods, providing a very competitive LCOE-curve to make wave energy a mainstream energy source in the coming years. We design, manufacture, and deliver our technology as CorPack wave clusters with 10-30MW capacity. CorPacks are building blocks that are laid out side-by-side to form utility-scale wave farms (100s of MW to GW-scale). Now, we seek blended support from the EIC to standardize our core WEC technology so it can scale up into wave farms and to develop the engineering package of the CorPack product. The EIC will help us become a turnkey supplier of wave energy systems, reach FID on our first wave farm projects, and support CorPower’s ambitious target of installing 600MW of clean wave energy by 2032.

Keywords: wave energy,wave energy converter,wave energy farm,ocean energy,offshore energy
Metallic Thermoelectrics: High Thermoelectric Performance through Tuning of Electronic Scattering (METHEL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Austria
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2025-COG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-02-01
End date: 2031-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2960146.0
EU funding (EUR): 2960146.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Thermoelectric (TE) materials directly transform thermal into electrical energy and vice versa, making them promising for a plethora of applications in refrigeration or power generation. However, state-of-the-art semiconductors in the focus of current research did not make the leap into broad applications due to low power density and poor mechanical properties. Metallic systems would be superior in this regard, but remained largely neglected by the TE community over the past decades due to their small TE effect. This fundamental research project focuses on realizing high TE performance in metals via tuning of electronic interband scattering – an innovative enhancement principle cardinally different from those applied so far in semiconductors. Using this paradigm, we want to realize - unprecedented TE power factors - metallic TE with superior functional properties from highly abundant, cheap materials - tight control of energy-dependent electronic transport by scattering off topological flat bands Despite enormous efforts for decades, largely focusing on a reduction of thermal conductivity in semiconductors, these intriguing research issues remain unsolved calling for a novel concept. We tackle these issues by focusing on metals, where the lattice thermal conductivity is irrelevant compared to the electronic contribution (Wiedemann-Franz law), thus confining the multi-parameter optimization problem to a sole enhancement of the Seebeck coefficient S. The latter we achieve by selectively reducing the mobility of holes (or electronic carriers) by interband scattering from localized states, leveraged by tuning of electronic bandwidth and geometrical frustration – concepts introduced from correlated electron physics. Promoted by the PI’s versatile expertise in studying charge transport in solids, METHEL explores high-performance metallic TE by the synergistic combination of synthesis, spectroscopy, microscopy and high-throughput computational materials screening.

Keywords: thermoelectricity interband scattering bandwidth tuning topological flat bands electronic structure calculations optical spectroscopy nuclear magnetic resonance
Island biogeography of species interaction Networks. (IslandNet)

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: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-06-01
End date: 2026-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165312.96
EU funding (EUR): 165312.96
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Islands hold ca. 20% of the global biodiversity but have suffered disproportionally high extinction rates and many extant species are threatened. The vulnerability of island biodiversity is linked to drivers of global change like habitat degradation, invasive species, and also climate change. The loss of biodiversity is problematic, since it affects crucial ecosystem functions, such as animal-mediated pollination and seed dispersal, and increases the risk of emerging diseases. However, despite their importance, islands remain largely understudied compared to mainland counterparts. Specifically, there is a lack of empirical studies investigating the effects of insularity and environmental factors, such as climate, on the structure of interaction networks and the underlying ecosystem functions. Furthermore, while parasite infections influence population dynamics, their impact on ecosystem functions has been overlooked. IslandNet will take a crucial step forward by analysing the first empirical dataset on bird-mediated ecosystem functions, in combination with data on functional traits and parasite infections across the islands of the East Caribbean. Combining network theory, functional ecology, island biogeography and parasitology, will allow to disentangle effects of insularity, environmental factors, functional diversity and parasite infections on network structure and underlying ecosystem functions across an entire archipelago. By contributing better insight into the mechanisms driving network structure across islands, IslandNet will provide essential knowledge allowing to plan conservation measures to prevent future biodiversity loss. During this fellowship, I will receive crucial training by leading experts in the fields of biotic interactions and island biogeography at outstanding institutes. This experience will pace my way towards establishing my independence as a researcher in the fields of community ecology and global change with a focus on island ecosystems.

Keywords: islands,island ecology,functional traits,frugivory,seed dispersal,pollination,birds,ecosystem functions
Wafer scale dielectrics on two-dimensional semiconductors for high-performance field effect transistors (Dielectrix)

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: United Kingdom
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2024-POC, 2024)
Start date: 2025-04-01
End date: 2026-09-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The current semiconductor market – dominated by field effect transistors (FETs) is valued at $607.40 billion per year (projected to reach $980.80 billion by 2029). A significant portion of this market involves applications such as in high-performance sensing/detection. FETs based on atomically thin body (ATB) semiconductors such as molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) have tremendous potential for ultra-sensitive sensors and detectors in the near term. FETs for these applications can be integrated in back end of the line (BEOL) processes where the materials and integration requirements are less stringent – compared to FETs for processor chips. However, commercialization of MoS2 FETs has been slowed by the lack of stable and reproducible device operation that gives rise to poor signal to noise ratios. This has led to poor scalability, difficulty in achieving consistent electrical characteristics, and integration challenges with existing technology which has hindered the widespread adoption of MoS2 FETs for sensing and detection. Therefore, there is an urgent need to overcome these challenges to realize the full market potential of MoS2 FETs. Research supported by the PI’s ERC Advanced Grant has led to a transformative breakthrough in developing a high quality zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) dielectric that forms an utra-clean interface with MoS2 so that highly stable and consistent FETs can be realised. This discovery has demonstrated the feasibility of high-performance, reliable MoS2 FETs with the potential for industrial-scale production – which has the potential for revolutionise the sensor/detection FETs market. This Proof of Concept aims to take the necessary commercial and technical steps to bring this innovation to market: demonstrate wafer-scale fabrication of MoS2 /ZrO2 FETs, validate their high performance, conduct a critical market assessment to develop a business plan, and engage with industry and end-users to establish a clear route to commercialization.
Untangling the biologic and social causes of low fertility in modern societies (BIOSFER)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Synergy grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Germany,Norway,Denmark
Call: ERC Synergy Grants (ERC-2022-SYG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-03-01
End date: 2029-02-28
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 14000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 14000000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

High-income countries are experiencing both unprecedentedly low and increasingly polarized fertility with growing social gradients in childbearing. Key theories on fertility patterns are based on the empirical observation that until recently fertility remained comparatively high in gender-egalitarian countries with strong support for families. Since 2010 many of the countries that provided evidence for such theories have reached record-low fertility. This confronts the scientific paradigm of the key drivers of fertility. BIOSFER investigates how social, biological and psychological factors work together to produce the observed patterns, levels and variation in fertility among young adults, and to what extent the fertility decline and the related polarization can be attributed to social vs. biomedical factors. Our multi-theory approach leverages ideas from several disciplines and proposes that the existing theories must be complemented with concepts of risk aversion and information, intergenerational transmission of fecundity, epigenetics and beyond, in order to understand modern fertility behaviour. We develop theoretically informed, falsifiable hypotheses that we test against the two richest population-based longitudinal pregnancy and pubertal cohorts in the world, MoBa in Norway and the DNBC in Denmark. We offer a uniquely integrative life-course-based approach that is neither social or biomedical, but combines central ideas from both, and evaluates the biosocial determinants of the key transition points from fetal life through puberty and partnering into planned, unplanned, partnered and unpartnered childbearing. We study the social, biomedical and psychological forces, their interactions, and intergenerational forces as they operate throughout the life-course to produce the modern low-fertility landscape. The results will help to provide a novel, bio-social framework for understanding the life-course processes that drive contemporary fertility patterns.

Keywords: reproductive health,fecundity
Full spectrum SOLar Direct Air Capture & conversion (SolDAC)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Energy
Destination: Cross-sectoral solutions for the climate transition
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Italy,Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: Direct atmospheric carbon capture and conversion (HORIZON-CL5-2021-D2-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2073781.25
EU funding (EUR): 2073781.25
Participants: 8
Project status: SIGNED

Ethylene is the chemical industry’s primary building block. SolDAC’s ambition is to reinvent the ethylene industry by proving (TRL4) an emerging breakthrough technology for producing technically and economically competitive, socially desirable and climate-neutral (sustainable) ethylene and co-product ethanol (C2 products) from solar energy and air. The project features a photo-electrochemical conversion (PEC) unit, being electrochemistry the only possible route for direct conversion of carbon dioxide into ethylene. The PEC exploits bandwidth-selected light from a solar collector (FSS) that splits the solar spectrum for electricity and heat generation at efficiency higher than standalone PV modules and standalone solar thermal collectors. Heat is used in an innovative direct air capture (DAC) unit at ultralow temperature (~60°C), fostering the eventual circular integration with heat networks. The DAC unit removes carbon dioxide from the air, concentrates it to 95+% and compresses it to feed the PEC stack and a pipeline for carbon dioxide storage. This allows the carbon footprint of the whole sun-to-chemicals process to be offset and enables gain in carbon credits, opening an opportunity to exceed climate-neutrality and produce carbon-negative C2 products. The process is energetically self-sufficient, economically viable and carbon-negative on the condition that each unit (DAC, PEC, FSS) reach new targets in efficiency. That is exactly the high-risk/high return outcome expected in the project. The research is balanced to overcome technical, early-stage social and market barriers by exploiting the expertise of its 8 partners (SMEs in the renewable technology field, leading EU research institutions and one networking NGO). This project performs all the necessary groundwork for the full deployment of the process before 2050 through activities that build up a new ecosystem of stakeholders, making Europe the first circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy.

Keywords: zero carbon,solar energy,air mining,negative emission technologies net,direct air capture dac,photo electrochemical conversion pec,full spectrum solar collector fss
Hybrid-Electric Regional Architecture (HERA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Clean Aviation
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: CLEAN-AVIATION (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Italy,France,Spain,Ireland,Czechia,Israel,Romania,Germany,Netherlands,Belgium,Greece,Poland,Portugal,United Kingdom
Call: Aircraft architectures & technology integration for aircraft concepts ranging from regional to short-medium range applications (HORIZON-JU-Clean-Aviation-2022-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2026-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 44441578.55
EU funding (EUR): 34979288.98
Participants: 52
Project status: SIGNED

HERA will identify and trade-off the concept of a regional aircraft, its key architectures, develop required aircraft-level technologies and integrate the required enablers in order to meet the -50% technology-based GHG emission set in SRIA for a Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft. The HERA aircraft, having a size of approximately of 50-100 seats, will operate in the regional and short-range air mobility by mid-2030 on typical distances of less than 500 km (inter-urban regional connections). The aircraft will be ready for future inter-modal and multi-modal mobility frameworks for sustainability. The HERA aircraft will include hybrid-electric propulsion based on batteries or fuel cells as energy sources supported by SAF or hydrogen burning for the thermal source, to reach up to 90% lower emissions while being fully compliant with ICAO noise rules. The HERA aircraft will be ready for entry into service by mid-2030, pursuing to the new certification rules, able to interact with new ground infrastructure, supporting new energy sources. This will make HERA aircraft ready for actual revenue service offering to operators and passengers sustainable, safe and fast connectivity mean at low GHG emissions HERA will quantitatively trade innovative aircraft architectures and configurations required to integrate several disruptive enabling technologies including high voltage MW scale electrical distribution, thermal management, new wing and fuselage as well as the new hybrid-electric propulsion and related new energy storage at low GHG. To support this unprecedented integration challenge, HERA will develop suitable processes, tools and simulation models supporting the new interactions, workshare in the value chain and interfaces among systems and components. HERA will also elaborate on the future demonstration strategy of a hybrid–electric regional aircraft in Phase 2 of Clean Aviation to support the high TRL demonstration required for an early impact for HERA solutions.

Keywords: hybrid electric,aircraft,disruptive,hybrid electric propulsion,sustainable
Skyrmionic Artificial Neural Networks (SkyANN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Digital
Destination: Digital & Emerging Technologies for Competitiveness and Fit for the Green Deal
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: France,Greece,Austria,United Kingdom
Call: Low TRL research in micro-electronics and integration technologies for industrial solutions (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2023-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-CNECT, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2750140.14
EU funding (EUR): 2750140.14
Participants: 6
Project status: SIGNED

The Skyrmionic Artificial Neural Network (SkyANN) presents a groundbreaking paradigm for neuromorphic computing, closely emulating brain neurophysiology by combining skyrmionic quasiparticles, which mimic neurotransmitters and facilitate complex computations at the synapse level, with electrical CMOS connections that simulate the propagation of action potentials among neurons for rapid and dense inter-layer connectivity. Our innovative magneto-electric devices aim to achieve energy consumption four orders of magnitude lower than CMOS technology and double the bandwidth for the same device footprint, enhancing edge inference and learning capabilities. This approach challenges contemporary neural networks implemented with CMOS digital, mixed-signal, and emerging in-memory computing technologies, which are limited by lower energy efficiency and reliability. Building on preliminary results from SkyANN partners, we plan an ambitious endeavor to develop a first-of-its-kind magneto-electric neural network, showcasing the promising potential of this novel technology. Along the way, we will refine materials, processes, design methodologies, and architectures to prepare the European micro- and nano-electronics ecosystem for the future, while supporting the EU's Green Deal vision. Our well-balanced consortium brings together complementary expertise and extensive knowledge, spanning from device physics to circuits and architectures across multiple layers of design abstraction. As a result, the SkyANN consortium is poised to facilitate the rapid transfer of fundamental discoveries to relevant industrial stakeholders, accelerating impact and reinforcing European strengths in the economically, geopolitically, and socially vital semiconductor sector.

Keywords: artificial neural networks,skyrmions,neuromorphic computing,spintronics,artificial intelligence,skyrmionics
polyMOFs as promising drug delivery systems for antimicrobial therapy (BioPolyMOF)

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,Norway,United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2025-06-30
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 226441.2
EU funding (EUR): 226441.2
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

The combination of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and polymers is highly desirable since both contribute with outstanding features (high and defined porosity and crystallinity as well as tunable mechanical and chemical properties, respectively). In particular, they represent an appealing strategy in the field of drug delivery systems (DDS): i) the polymer can increase the chemical and colloidal stability of the DDS; ii) the polymer can present itself biological activity (e.g. antimicrobial) and stimuli response (e.g. pH, temperature); iii) the metal centers of the MOFs can exhibit intrinsic bioactivity (e.g. Zn2+, Cu2+, Fe3+) and iv) the MOF porosity can adsorb and progressively release exceptional cargoes of complementary active ingredients. Mostly associated as composite or core-shell, the coordination of the polymer as a building block to the metallic part of the MOF (polyMOF) is almost unexplored. Until now, only 10 polyMOFs (over 90,000 MOFs) have been reported, and all of them being in the exploratory phase, with no demonstrated potential applications. In this sense, highly robust polyMOFs will be here prepared based on polymers-containing polycomplexant ligands (instead of molecular polydentate ligands) and bioactive cations, stablishing a platform for the development of a library of polyMOFs with innovative combined antimicrobial properties. As proof of concept, the in vitro safety and potential activity of these novel polyMOFs will be evaluated for the challenging antimicrobial therapy. Finally, the scale-up and potential technology transfer of the most promising prototypes will be assessed within an industrial placement at Immaterial Ltd.

Keywords: mof,polymers,polymof,drug delivery systems,antimicrobial therapy