Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Trust & Reciprocity: neural and psychological models of social cooperation (NEUROCOOPERATION)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-03-01
End date: 2018-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1451927.0
EU funding (EUR): 1451927.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Novel interdisciplinary approaches offer an exciting avenue to study interactive decision-making by combining the methods of behavioral experiments, functional neuroimaging, and formal economic models. This project employs this approach to explore decision-making related to trust, reciprocity, cooperation and fairness in social interactive scenarios. These processes are vital for the successful functioning of society, but there have been relatively few studies of the mechanisms involved. This proposal will examine in detail the psychological and neural mechanisms behind these processes. Project 1 will investigate how we place trust in others, by using behavioral, neuroimaging, and computational modeling. The aims are to explore the influence of both automatically processed cues as well as the cognitive processes of learning from experience. Project 2 will investigate how we reciprocate trust, in particular the role of positive and negative emotions in this decision. The aim is to construct detailed, neurally-inspired models of this process, and test competing theories of reciprocation. Project 3 will explore the factors underlying cooperation between individuals and groups, particularly with relevance to the roles of reward, punishment and agency. Finally, Project 4 will investigate how our expectations of the world shape our responses to social situations. Social norms can have a large impact on our decisions, and we will build models that incorporate expectations and explore their neural correlates. Overall, this project can greatly enhance our knowledge of decision-making in social interactive contexts, with both theoretical and practical relevance. The innovative approach has the potential to advance our knowledge of existing theoretical accounts by constraining models based on the underlying neurobiology, and the knowledge gleaned can have a real impact on questions of public policy.

Keywords: decision-making,cognitive neuroscience
The Evolution of Case, Alignment and Argument Structure in Indo-European (EVALISA)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: Belgium
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2018-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1498744.0
EU funding (EUR): 1498744.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Alignment and argument structure lies at the heart of all current theoretical models in linguistics, both syntactic models and research within typology. In spite of that, no large-scale comprehensive study of the historical development of case marking and argument structure has been carried out in modern times, using modern linguistic approaches and frameworks, and covering an entire language family from its first documentation until modern times. The project EVALISA aims to investigate case marking and argument structure from a historical perspective, or more precisely non-nominative case marking of subjects, focusing on its development through the history of the Indo-European languages. One of the products emerging from the project is an electronically searchable database of predicates taking non-nominative subject marking, available to the research community at large, for further research on the topic. Another product is a typology of grammaticalization paths of non-nominative case marking of subjects. This is a timely enterprise given that non-nominative subject marking is extremely common in the languages of world. A third product is a methodology for reconstructing syntax and grammar, based on the tools of Construction Grammar. The theoretical framework of Construction Grammar is easily extendible to syntactic reconstruction, due to the basic status of form–meaning pairings in that model, and hence the more lexicon-like status of the grammar. This creates a natural leap for Construction Grammar from synchronic form–meaning pairings to historical reconstruction, based on form–meaning pairings. This methodology is of importance for scholars within anthropological linguistics, working on the history of oral or less-documented languages.

Keywords: non-canonical subject marking,historical-comparative linguistics,construction grammar,alignment,argument structure,historical semantics,historical syntax,language change
Socioeconomic Status and Health: Disentangling causal pathways in a life course perspective (SESANDHEALTH)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Environment and society
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-02-01
End date: 2017-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 928631.14
EU funding (EUR): 928631.14
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

People with lower income or lower educational level have worse health and higher mortality. This project addresses the two basic underlying questions for this finding: How does your socioeconomic status determine your health? And how does your health determine your socioeconomic status? The project aims at studying life courses of persons aged 50+ at the time of the interview who were surveyed prospectively, and also retrospectively for their entire life history starting at childhood. We will use data from the Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) from 30,000 individuals in 14 European countries, and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) that offers the same data for more than 7,000 persons. This data contains exact information on periods and events of ill health and periods and events of change in socioeconomic status. In addition, there is explicit information on the consequences of poor health in childhood in terms of schooling, or, later in life, in terms of working hours or career perspectives. Life histories from childhood to old age are the ideal basis for disentangling causality between SES and health because confounding of the key variables prior to measurement is minimal. By applying simultaneous equation models for hazards (survival analysis) the correlated processes of health deterioration (influenced by SES) and the development of SES (influenced by health) can be disentangled. This will produce unbiased estimates of the effect sizes for both causation directions and answer the question of causation and selection in a life course perspective taking into account endogeneity and confounders. We will also reveal if common background factors are influencing both SES and health and we will identify possible differences in the causation direction between life stages. This study will provide important new insight into the dual relationship between SES and health and will help to understand and to tackle social differences in health.

Keywords: socioeconomic status,health,causality,reverse causation,life course
The Architecture of Consciousness (ARCHOFCON)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The Human Mind and its complexity
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-03-01
End date: 2018-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1477483.0
EU funding (EUR): 1477483.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The nature of consciousness is one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. Although the global research effort dedicated to explaining how consciousness arises from neural and cognitive activity is now more than two decades old, as yet there is no widely accepted theory of consciousness. One reason for why no adequate theory of consciousness has yet been found is that there is a lack of clarity about what exactly a theory of consciousness needs to explain. What is needed is thus a model of the general features of consciousness — a model of the ‘architecture’ of consciousness — that will systematize the structural differences between conscious states, processes and creatures on the one hand and unconscious states, processes and creatures on the other. The aim of this project is to remove one of the central impediments to the progress of the science of consciousness by constructing such a model. A great many of the data required for this task already exist, but these data concern different aspects of consciousness and are distributed across many disciplines. As a result, there have been few attempts to develop a truly comprehensive model of the architecture of consciousness. This project will overcome the limitations of previous work by drawing on research in philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, and cognitive neuroscience to develop a model of the architecture of consciousness that is structured around five of its core features: its subjectivity, its temporality, its unity, its selectivity, and its dimensionality (that is, the relationship between the levels of consciousness and the contents of consciousness). By providing a comprehensive characterization of what a theory of consciousness needs to explain, this project will provide a crucial piece of the puzzle of consciousness, enabling future generations of researchers to bridge the gap between raw data on the one hand and a full-blown theory of consciousness on the other

Keywords: phenomenal consciousness,unity of consciousness,awareness,temporal experience,levels of consciousness,contents of consciousness,disorders of consciousness,mechanisms of consciousness
Health Resilience and Economic Shocks: Analysis of Quasi-Natural Experiments Using Multi-Level Modelling (HRES)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Environment and society
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-10-01
End date: 2019-09-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1358013.0
EU funding (EUR): 1358013.0
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

One of the greatest contemporary challenges for the social sciences is to understand the human costs of the ongoing financial, economic, and debt crises that began to emerge in Europe in 2007. While much attention has focused on the economic dimensions of recessions in Europe, very little work is being done to analyse the consequences of these events for health and well-being. There are widespread concerns that losses of housing, jobs, and income will have damaging effects on public health. Curiously, however, a growing body of social science research suggests that economic recessions may reduce death rates at a population level, such as by lowering the number of road-traffic injuries, alcohol-related deaths and hospital admissions. Hence, although there is universal agreement that economic shocks will affect health, there is considerable confusion about what the direction of this relationship is. This project aims to understand two interrelated questions: How will the recent economic downturns affect health in Europe? What can be done to mitigate potential negative consequences for health from these economic shocks? To answer these questions, the proposed research will draw on a secondary analysis of longitudinal household datasets and country-level economic and health data to estimate how job loss, poverty, debt, and housing foreclosures affect health. Then, drawing on a conceptual model of ‘resilience’, the project will seek to understand why certain groups have experienced better or worse health outcomes than others in the context of recession. These studies will extend the authors’ initial case studies of mortality in Europe revealing a rapid increase in suicide rates, albeit with marked variations across countries, linked to the financial crises of 2007. The research will have important implications for policymakers seeking to protect health from ongoing economic risks and budget cuts, especially as recovery is projected to evolve slowly over the next decade.

Keywords: resilience,welfare,economic shocks
Gender Differences: A Macroeconomic Perspective (GENDERMACRO)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Individuals, institutions and markets
Countries involved: Germany
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-02-01
End date: 2019-01-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1133301.71
EU funding (EUR): 1133301.71
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Throughout history and in most societies, women and men have been specializing in different parts of the economy. Empirical evidence shows that women and men differ in a number of dimensions. However, gender differences are largely ignored in macroeconomic models. The starting point for my research is the hypothesis that gender roles and the interaction between men and women have an important impact on aggregate outcomes. To analyze this hypothesis, I build dynamic macro style models with explicit gender differences. The emphasis is on non-cooperative models of spousal interactions. Using game theory to model family behavior allows the analysis of topics for which cooperation in the family seems questionable (e.g. domestic violence). I will introduce these new models of spousal interaction into macroeconomic models and study a series of applied research questions. (i) Political Economy of Laws to Protect Women: Why were laws that restricted female labor force participation introduced in the beginning of the 20th century and what led to their eventual abolishment? (ii) Domestic Violence over the Business Cycle: Does domestic violence fluctuate over the business cycle? Taking domestic violence into account, what is the cost of business cycles? (iii) Fertility Distribution by Gender: To what extent do fertility outcomes differ for men and women? (iv) Footbinding in China: What was the economic role of footbinding and why has it disappeared over time? (v) Optimal Taxation with Families: How do optimal taxation results change when gender differences are explicitly taken into account? (vi) Female Empowerment as Development Policy: Is giving money to women a good development policy? (vii) Women and HIV: What policies should be implemented to reduce the spread of HIV in Africa?

Keywords: female empowerment,domestic violence,women's rights,hiv,fertility
Shadows of Slavery in West Africa and Beyond. A Historical Anthropology (SWAB)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: The study of the human past
Countries involved: Italy
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-05-01
End date: 2018-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 935100.0
EU funding (EUR): 935100.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Though the colonial abolition of West African slavery and slave trade is well researched, the aftermath of slavery still deserves attention. What does it mean to be of slave descent today? How does the legacy of slavery and the slave trade overlap with harsh contemporary forms of marginality and exploitation? Moreover, what do we see when these questions are raised in a much broader comparative perspective? This project looks at the follow up of the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, a global process that invested the world at different times with a rich and complex variety of outcomes. Most historical research has stopped at the early colonial period, a very well documented phase of world history. Here, the analysis expands up to the present, and beyond the boundaries West African studies. Four regions of the world, which are under scrutiny for trafficking and contemporary slavery, will be studied comparatively. These are Eastern Senegal (West-Africa), Libya (North Africa), Coastal Madagascar (Indian Ocean), and North Afghanistan (Central Asia). The ambition is to link the micro-study of lived experience, cultural meanings and practices with the analysis of linkages and broader historical processes. To get results, there is need of a dialogue with human rights, legal theory, studies of gender and racial discrimination as well as scholarly insights on globalization and neo-liberalism. The ultimate objective of the project is an analytically integrated study of the aftermath of slavery that captures both the variety of concrete case-studies and the larger history of linkages between different parts of Africa and the world, Europe included. Innovation stands at the crossroad of chronological, geographical and disciplinary boundaries.

Keywords: slavery,abolition,legacy of slavery,contemporary slavery,africa
Red Revolution: The Emergence of Stem Cell Biotechnologies in India (RED REVOLUTION)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-02-01
End date: 2018-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1497476.0
EU funding (EUR): 1497476.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The biotechnological landscape in India can be conceptually demarcated as green and red. The post-independence, state supported, rise of ‘green, agricultural, biotechnologies’ - heralding the fabled ‘green revolution’ - is well documented. Less well understood is the recent rise of ‘red biotechnologies’ and moves to engineer a ‘red revolution’ of health care based on human tissues and biogenetic substance. The proposed project analyses the interplay between state, citizens/consumers and emerging markets in human stem cell technologies in India. These developments pose profound bioethical and political questions. The research examines the emerging research/therapy interface with a view to explicating the ‘high risk and high gain’ production of stem cell biotechnologies in India. The study will produce an in-depth multi-sited ethnographic mapping of the stem cell terrain in India. The main objective of this research is to critically understand the agential and structural processes authoring unprecedented new developments in stem cell research and therapeutics in India. These processes are captured under four interlaced research themes: (1) promissory health: state, citizens and stem cell biotechnologies (2) therapeutic mobility: global travel for stem cells (3) bioeconomy and biotechnology: public health or private wealth? (4) ethics of governance, governance of ethics. These important nodes are entry points into the world of science, clinic, economy, policy and polity. Together these sites will enable an ethnographic mapping of the disparate assemblages of actors, local and across the globe, which the red revolution is currently forging.

Keywords: india,stem cell,biotechnology
From Forest to Farmland and Meadow to Metropolis: What Role for Humans in Explaining the Enigma of Holocene CO2 and Methane Concentrations? (COEVOLVE)

Framework: FP7 — Ideas
Programme: European Research Council
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: Support for frontier research (ERC)
Panel: Environment and society
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call:  (ERC-2012-StG_20111124, 2012)
Start date: 2013-05-01
End date: 2018-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

The Holocene record of atmospheric CO2 and methane concentrations is an enigma. Concentrations of both gases increased from the beginning of the epoch 11,700 years ago to about 10,000 BP, then declined for several thousand years, but by 6000 BP, concentrations of both gases were steadily increasing again. This mid-late Holocene rise in greenhouse gases is unusual; similar patterns are not observed during previous interglacials. While various mechanisms have been proposed to explain these changes in Holocene CO2 and methane, there is one undisputed feature of this epoch that we know is different from the rest of Earth history: the existence of behaviorally modern humans. How humanity could have influenced the Holocene increase in CO2 and methane concentrations is the subject of the COEVOLVE project. In an interdisciplinary study that combines the social and natural sciences, we will reconstruct anthropogenic CO2 and methane emissions over the Holocene using a state-of-the-art model of terrestrial biogeochemistry and earth surface processes. The novelty of our approach is to develop a geodatabase of anthropogenic activities derived from historical and archaeological observations to drive our model, and to evaluate our simulations against a new, comprehensive global reconstruction of past land cover. COEVOLVE is organized around three activities: 1) synthesis of observations of past land cover change from paleoecological archives, 2) development of a spatial database of the spread of technology, industry, culture, and trade that influenced global land use and resource consumption patterns and 3) informed by parts 1 and 2, modeling of terrestrial biogeochemical cycles and land surface processes including deforestation, soil erosion, and fire. With a new perspective on preindustrial environmental impact, the COEVOLVE project will make a breakthrough in our understanding of the influence of humans on greenhouse gas concentrations and global climate during the Holocene.

Keywords: holocene,human-environment interactions,land use change,deforestation,land degradation,methane,carbon dioxide,history of technology,human population,urbanization and trade,greenhouse gases