Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Time-varying Horizons with Electron-spin Interaction in Altermagnets (THEIA)

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: United Kingdom,United States
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 280258.68
EU funding (EUR): 280258.68
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Nanophotonics are being revolutionized by the study of time-varying media, where abrupt changes of a system’s optical properties unlock new forms of control of light. Using nonlinear optics, one can switch-on optical properties of various materials on femtosecond time scales, but the switch-off time scales remain too slow and significantly constrain technological applications. To overcome this barrier, this project proposes to explore a new promising family of materials, altermagnets. Their unique crystal structure gives them a strong potential for nonlinear optics and time-varying photonics, as their switching using nonlinear optics will exhibit both fast spin dynamics and slower electron dynamics. This is due to their electronic bands being separated in energy by spin in the absence of magnetic fields, and being reliant on this altermagnetic phase. This will go beyond the state of the art in the field, as materials currently in use have slow switch-off times and fewer degrees of freedom to leverage. For example, transparent conductive oxides are known to have high switching contrast but slow electron-phonon relaxation. Semiconductors show higher speeds but low switching contrast, and the use of long-lived resonant metasurfaces to enhance this contrast only results in a slow switch-off speed. This project aims at performing a first linear and nonlinear optical characterisation of altermagnetic materials, and establishing them as a prime platform for time-varying nanophotonics. I will first determine the individual role of electron and spin dynamics by decoupling them through Z-scan measurements. Then, I will demonstrate another key properties, optical isolation, in a nonreciprocal pump-probe experiment. The final part of the project will accurately measure the dynamics of the materials with few-femtosecond pulses, and use these new dynamics to create a synthetic motion device which will control pulses in momentum and frequency by mimicking relativistic effects.

Keywords: time varying photonics
Catalytic Light-induced Deracemization (CALIDE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Panel description: New materials and new synthetic approaches, structure -properties relations, solid state chemistry, molecular architecture, organic chemistry
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2029-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2447299.0
EU funding (EUR): 2447299.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Molecules are chiral if they exist in two forms, called enantiomers, which behave like image and mirror image. In many applications, e.g. in medicine, nutrition, and crop protection, chiral molecules are required as a single enantiomer (enantiomerically pure compound) but not as a mixture (racemate). The market for enantiomerically pure compounds exceeds 100 billion € annually and continues to grow rapidly. Despite significant recent advances in asymmetric catalysis, many chiral compounds are for cost reasons prepared as racemates and separated thereafter. If only one enantiomer is required, the other enantiomer remains as waste. The aim of the CALIDE project is to provide for the first time a comprehensive set of methods for the quantitative conversion of racemates into single enantiomers employing exclusively light and a photocatalyst. The process includes the light-induced formation of short-lived achiral intermediates which decay to the starting materials on a thermal reaction channel. By employing two intrinsically different channels for formation and decay, the transformation overcomes issues of microscopic reversibility which render related thermal deracemization reactions impossible. The photocatalyst interacts with the racemic substrates and enables the destruction and reformation of the stereogenic element. A first objective (work package I) is to identify suitable binding motifs to achieve the required proximity in the energy transfer step for compounds displaying an axis or plane of chirality. The second objective (work package II) aims at a deracemization of compounds with a stereogenic carbon center via a reversible cleavage of carbon-carbon or carbon-heteroatom bonds. The bond cleavage can be initiated by energy or electron transfer. The third objective (work package III) tackles substrates with a carbon-hydrogen bond at the stereogenic carbon atom. Bond fission by hydrogen abstraction from the catalyst is proposed as the key feature of this method.

Keywords: enantiomerically pure compounds,enantioselectivity,deracemization
Digital Modelling and Simulation for Design, Processing and Manufacturing of Advanced Materials (DiMAT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Industry
Destination: Increased Autonomy in Key Strategic Value Chains for Resilient Industry
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Greece,Spain,Germany,Italy,Romania,Ireland,France,Cyprus,Switzerland
Call: Optimised Industrial Systems and Lines through digitalisation (IA) (HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2025-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5709052.5
EU funding (EUR): 4999916.0
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

European materials industry is considered a key enabler for industrial development and the EU has a historically strategic position in this sector. However, there is a low uptake in European materials industry for digital technologies. Hereby, it is crucial to provide all stakeholders of the EU with advanced digital technologies to evolve towards an agile European materials industry with intelligent enterprises that maximise and integrate the utility of digital materials sciences knowledge. DiMAT will develop Open Digital Tools with a set of advanced technologies for offering European SMEs and Mid-Caps an affordable (in terms of cost, implementation and usability) full modelling, simulation and optimisation system in each stage of the material value chain (design, processing and manufacturing) for improving quality, sustainability, effectiveness, and competitiveness of materials. DiMAT will deploy 3 integrated Suites: 1) DiMAT Data and Assessment Suite: digital technologies for storing, sharing, representing and assessing materials data; 2) DiMAT DiMAT Modelling and Design Suite: digital technologies for material design, in terms of their internal structure, properties and performance, in order to predict the material behaviour before manufacturing; 3) DiMAT Simulation and Optimisation Suite: digital technologies for creating efficient materials manufacturing simulation processes and determining the behaviour of the material mechanical characterization models to be used in the AI training and prediction. The DiMAT Suites will be demonstrated in 4 Pilots of European designers and producers of different materials: textile, composite, glass and graphite.

Keywords: materials data and assessment,materials modelling and design,materials simulation and optimisation
Revealing the physics of switching mechanism in 2D materials based memristor devices (2DMEM) (2DMEM)

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: Ireland
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 199694.4
EU funding (EUR): 199694.4
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

One of the most promising non-volatile memory devices and a building block of brain-inspired neuromorphic computing architectures is memristors. The advent of two-dimensional materials (2DMs) has opened a plethora of opportunities in realizing ultra-scaled device dimensions for future logic and memory applications. Despite different hypotheses proposed in the literature, mainly based on analytical models, significant debate is still ongoing, demonstrating the need for a systematic and atomic-scale study. 2DMEM aims to reveal the fundamental physics lying behind each step of device functionality, e.g., SET and RESET. 2DMEM builds on the complementarity of my strengths on investigating the electronic properties of 2DMs, and simulation expertise and infrastructure at the Host Institution, Tyndall, where access to a large interdisciplinary suite of experimental data on the fabricated 2DM memristors is uniquely available. 2DMEM’s specific objectives are to exploit the experimental data of 2DM properties, and to incorporate ‘realistic’ material and device features into crossbar structures by employing an advanced simulation platform. My career development will benefit from the supervision of Dr Lida Ansari, with the mentorship of Profs Paul Hurley, Stephen Fahy and Dr Farzan Gity, who are established research leaders at Tyndall and at Ireland’s materials research center (AMBER). Through this Fellowship, I will develop my scientific, transferable, and management and leadership skills. These skills are essential for achieving my primary career objective of developing into an independent research leader, and will increase my employability in the academic sector. This MSCA Fellowship also creates a unique starting point for me to directly interact with INTEL, who have expressed great interest in this project, through their R-in-R at Tyndall. This will open up additional possibility of leading impactful research projects and fostering industry-academia collaborations.

Keywords: 2d materials,carrier transport mechanism,crossbar memristor,first principles simulations,locally strained film,tmds,vertical field induced vacancy and metal ion mobility
European Raw Materials Academy - Equipping Europe's Raw Materials Sector with the Skills for Tomorrow's Challenges (ERMAcademy)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
Theme: other EIT
Destination: other EIT
Action type: Knowledge and Innovation Communities
Countries involved: Germany
Call: European Raw Materials Academy (HORIZON-EIT-2024-ERMA-EAMA-IBA, 2024)
Start date: 2025-01-15
End date: 2028-01-14
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 14848358.75
EU funding (EUR): 9799916.78
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The European Raw Materials Academy (ERMAcademy) is a transformative initiative addressing the critical skills gap in the EU raw materials sector. Its mission is to provide European industry with required skills for today and tomorrow needs of its enhanced capacities covering the entire raw materials value chain, including SMEs. Also, ERMAcademy aims to empower the workforce, in particular workers and competent public authorities in Europe, to drive green and digital transitions through a comprehensive, industry-aligned education and training ecosystem. Utilizing advanced technologies like AI-driven skills analytics and a cutting-edge virtual learning environment, ERMAcademy focuses on offering competitive learning programmes to address skills, sustainability, and strategic autonomy in response to changing labour market conditions. The ERMAcademy offers advanced certification programs, personalized learning journeys, and workforce intelligence tools tailored to professionals, SMEs, and large organisations in the raw materials value chain. By addressing the lack of upskilling opportunities, especially for SMEs, it provides an accessible portfolio of industry-relevant courses while engaging stakeholders—industry professionals, academic institutions, policymakers, and the public—to drive awareness and adoption. Aiming to establish itself as the "Skills Hub" in the sector, ERMAcademy’s scalable and user-friendly platform facilitates continuous learning and growth. As a self-sustaining institution, it aspires to become Europe’s premier hub for upskilling and reskilling in raw materials, driving sustainable economic growth, strategic resource management, and Europe’s leadership in global clean technologies.

Keywords: skills,skills gap,digital,raw materials,supply chain,critical raw materials,extraction,minerals,mining,metals,processing,recycling,economy,strategy,eu,europe,net zero,industry,ai
Drug-loaded nanobots for transmucosal delivery to mucinous tumours (MucOncoBots)

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: Spain
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: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Mucus is a defensive barrier that protects the underlying cells from pathogens and toxic compounds, although it also hinders the delivery of drugs whenever they are administered locally. There are different types of mucus-secreting tumours, such as pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP), that could benefit from more efficient transmucosal delivery of anti-cancer drugs. PMP is a rare disease and the most mucinous tumour type, thus it will be used as a proof of concept for this project. In fact, it is characterised by the production of abundant mucus in the peritoneal cavity and is treated with cytoreductive surgery combined with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, usually Mitomycin C. This approach has extended patient survival, but there is a significant proportion of recurrence, most probably due to the shielding effect of mucus. Therefore, there is an urgent need to offer new therapeutic strategies to PMP patients. Recently, Dr. Palmer’s lab has established a collection of PMP patient-derived organoids and xenografts and has shown that some PMP patients present oncogenic BRAFV600E mutations, introducing a new druggable targeted mutation. In this proposal, Dr. Sánchez’s lab (IBEC), in collaboration with Dr. Palmer’s research group (VHIO), aims to use nanobots able to overcome the mucus barrier that will be loaded with Mitomycin C or Encorafenib (BRAF inhibitor) to treat PMP. A comparative study will be performed to assess the treatment’s efficacy compared to the standard of care, and medical advice will be received from Dr. Élez (VHUH) to ensure the translation of the results to the clinic. We believe that using this all-in-one system will certainly enhance the delivery and efficacy of the active therapeutic compound, thus potentially improving current treatments.
Interactions among Coherent Objects and the Origin of Collectivity in QCD at Colliders (AntScat)

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: Spain
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): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

The surprising findings of collective effects in nucleon-nucleus and nucleon-nucleon collisions (and very recently even in electron-positron collisions), previously thought to be exclusive to large systems such as nucleus-nucleus collisions, pose an important challenge to the particle physics community. Both from the heavy-ion and the high-energy communities, intense efforts are devoted to gain a better understanding of the origin of collectivity in QCD. This project revolves around the theoretical study of the interactions among coherent objects and their phenomenological implications. So far, these type of interactions have been absent in the respective state-of-the-art descriptions of the dynamical evolution of QCD at colliders adopted by both communities. The first goal of this project will be to compute the cross-sections for a new set of processes, ranging from the interaction of on-shell particles with colored dipoles to the interactions among dipoles with other dipoles. As a result of these interactions, broadening and stimulated radiation can take place. The features of the dipoles, such as their mass, are imprinted in the scattered object due to the phenomenon of color and quantum interference. These physics translate in the appearance of non-trivial correlations among these objects. A second aspect of the project will consist in the phenomenological modeling that these correlations can have in a) QCD parton showers, the natural scenario from the high-energy front, where interactions among parton and multi-parton objects will be added to the typical splitting processes and b) QCD effective kinetic theory, the natural scenario from the heavy-ion front, where the inclusion of the coherent objects can be modeled by considering them as unstable particles. A detailed study of the observable effects that these new correlations can induce will shed light on the role played by the physics of quantum interference in describing the origin of collectivity in QCD.

Keywords: qcd,quantum interference,collectivity,color dipoles,parton showers,effective kinetic theory
The syntax and prosody of post-verbal constituents in Basque (SP-PVCB)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Spain,France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-06-15
End date: 2025-06-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 2
Project status: TERMINATED

Languages vary regarding the basic word orders that they allow in a sentence – e.g., whether direct objects in them precede or follow the verb: English is a VO (Verb-Object) language and Turkish is an OV (Object-Verb) language. OV languages typically place verbs clause-finally, but, in fact, vary widely with respect to what material, if any, is allowed after the verb, and under what conditions. Surprisingly, the post-verbal clausal domain of OV languages remains severely understudied. I propose that the restrictions on post-verbal clausal constituents in OV languages can only be explained through the understanding of the role that prosody plays in them. According to this prosody-centric hypothesis, the availability and types of post-verbal constituents in OV languages are regulated by their prosodic properties (e.g., accented vs. unaccented). This approach is recent but has already produced fruitful results. I will test this hypothesis on Basque, a minority OV language of Europe, surrounded by majority VO languages, Spanish and French. Basque is a uniquely fitting testbed for the prosody-centric approach: Basque dialects differ from each other in their prosodic properties and availability and frequency of post-verbal material. Neither the correlation between these two facts, predicted by the prosody-centric hypothesis, nor the interconnections between the syntactic, prosodic, and information-structural properties of post-verbal material in Basque or the role of contact with VO languages in shaping them have yet been investigated. I will collect and analyze syntactic and prosodic data in Basque and compare them to those in other OV languages. Pursuing this research is critically important for linguistic theory: without it, our understanding of basic clausal syntax, and the changes it can undergo, is woefully incomplete. The societal impact – raising the awareness of minority language speakers’ about the workings of their native language – is also significant.

Keywords: syntax,phonology,prosody,prosodic phonology,syntax prosody interface,verb final languages,ov languages,post verbal constituents,basque,language contact
Mechanics of the Membrane-Cortex Attachment (MechMCA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Physics
Countries involved: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2026-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 195914.88
EU funding (EUR): 195914.88
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The interaction between the cell membrane and the underlying actomyosin cortex is vital for various cell functions and survival. This project aims to delve deeper into the intricate mechanics that govern the interaction between the plasma membrane and the cortex, which collectively constitute the cell surface in many cell types. Despite the prevailing view that the cortex completely dominates cell surface mechanics due to its increased tension, this research project aims to challenge that notion. A fundamental aspect influencing cell surface mechanics is the binding strength and dynamics between the membrane and the cortex, facilitated by membrane-cortex junction proteins (MCAs), such as ERM proteins. MCA distribution is influenced by local cortical contractions and protrusions, driven by cortical flows, which in turn may affect membrane tension and MCA dynamics. This project aims to build a comprehensive theoretical framework for cortex-membrane interaction. The framework will include several key physical elements, such as membrane and cortex mechanics, junctional dynamics, interaction with surrounding fluids, and thermal fluctuations, so that it can be applied to multiple cell types and processes. In addition, the physical model will be implemented numerically using phase field methodology to achieve accurate predictions, being open source. These predictions will be used to guide experimental measurements to better understand cell migration in neutrophils through a collaboration. This framework and simulations will help us discover new biomechanical loops essential for the emergence and migration of cell polarity. This research project is expected to have a lasting scientific impact on the field of mechanobiology by proposing a clear and generic biophysical picture of the membrane-cortex interaction and help propel my career path to become a leader in the physical modeling of the cellular mechanics.

Keywords: cell surface mechanics theoretical biophysics membrane physics actomyosin cortex membrane cortex attachment phase field simulations cell migration mechanobiology