Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
New Frontiers in Projection-Free Methods for Continuous Optimization (ProFreeOpt)

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: Israel
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2029-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1785000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1785000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Efficient algorithms for continuous and in particular convex optimization have revolutionized science and engineering in the past decades, providing the engine that drives numerous key technical and computational practices used across almost every scientific and engineering discipline. In particular, it is one of the main pillars of the ongoing data science and AI revolution. For many important large scale optimization problems that include constraints that are complex yet highly-structured, the algorithmic weapon of choice are so-called projection-free methods, which are mostly based on the classical Frank-Wolfe method. Despite vast interest and progress in recent years on scaling up projection-free methods, their optimization oracle complexity remains significantly inferior to their projection-based counterparts. This shortcoming prevails throughout almost every optimization paradigm of interest and is often the bottleneck in further scaling-up this important family of optimization methods. The overarching goal of this project is the foundational and systematic study of the landscape of continuous optimization with computationally efficient (projection-free) optimization oracles. My goal is to develop an understanding, across a variety of central optimization paradigms, of how far can we push methods that rely only on simple and efficient optimization steps towards matching the complexities of state-of-the-art projection-based methods (that rely on computationally-expensive optimization steps). I envision that the novel algorithmic and methodological results that will come out of this research will lay the foundations to a new generation of far more advanced algorithms for continuous optimization with structured constraints. These will allow to tackle on a practical scale a much richer variety of optimization settings, and will be built to leverage, in a more specialized fine-grained manner, favorable and plausible structure of optimization problems.

Keywords: continuous optimization,convex optimization,projection free optimization,frank wolfe algorithm,conditional gradient method,large scale optimization,structural optimization
Decentralized platform for fair creative content distribution empowering creators and communities though new digital distribution models based on digital tokens (DAFNEplus)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Culture, creativity and inclusive society
Theme: Culture, creativity and inclusive society
Destination: Innovative Research on the European Cultural Heritage and the Cultural and Creative Industries
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Italy,Luxembourg,Greece,Belgium,France,United Kingdom,Estonia
Call: Cultural and creative industries as a driver of innovation and competitiveness (HORIZON-CL2-2021-HERITAGE-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-07-01
End date: 2025-06-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3658175.0
EU funding (EUR): 3658175.0
Participants: 11
Project status: SIGNED

A growing trend in the field are NFTs or non-fungible tokens. “Non-fungible” is a relevant feature in the creative industries as it is unique and can’t be replaced by anything else. Transactions using NFTs over blockchains allow audiences to easily acquire unique content from the artists, users and creators take part in a cultural and artistic distributed community or gamify the experience with creative content. DAFNE+ will use this technologies to focus on the definition of novel revenue and business models to the cultural and creative industries, improving their global reach and open up new distributions channels without the imposed rules by intermediaries - even controlling the artists revenues- which is many cases are not based on EU (e.g YouTube). Therefore, DAFNE+ aims to create new distributed autonomous organizations / communities (DAO) around digital tokens and NFT, with a decentralized governance where cultural and creative industries (CCI), as be a driver of innovation and competitiveness, can play a role in the community governance and deciding on the rules of the community. DAFNE+ will provide novel services and tools for intuitive and simple content creation by developing new applications (in case of absence or closed approach) that will enable users to produce and ingest new content which can be directly valued and distributed. DAFNE+ will also aim at increasing the legal transparency around the creation, online distribution, and sharing of existing and novel forms of artistic content via blockchain technologies and involving smart contracts NFTs and other digital tokens. Towards this objective, DAFNE+ will map and analyse the relevant IP legal framework in the EU, and in particular the copyright regulatory framework, in order to identify and assess specific legal requirements, opportunities as well as barriers stemming from the identified IP framework which may impact the use of blockchain technologies in online content creation and sharing.
Technology based impact assessment tool foR sustaInable, transparent Deep sEa miNing exploraTion and exploitation (TRIDENT)

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: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Portugal,Israel,France,Netherlands,Italy,Spain,Ireland,Norway,Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: Monitoring and supervising system for exploration and future exploitation activities in the deep sea (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 11845429.48
EU funding (EUR): 11845429.48
Participants: 25
Project status: SIGNED

TRIDENT aims to contribute to a sustainable exploitation of seabed mineral resources, by developing a reliable, transparent and cost-effective system for prediction and continuous environmental impact monitoring of exploration and exploitation activities in the deep sea. This system will develop and integrate technology and novel solutions to operate autonomously in remote areas under extreme conditions, and provide real-time data to permitting and supervising authorities. The effective monitoring and inspection system to be developed will comply with international and national legal frameworks. TRIDENT will identify all relevant physical, chemical, geological and biological parameters to be measured at the sea surface, mid-water and seabed. The project will also identify gaps in existing data sets and develop solutions to address them. These are essential steps to develop statistically robust environmental baselines, establish reliable indicators of good environmental status and define thresholds for significant impact, enabling the standardization of tools and methods. The project consortium will subsequently develop and test an integrated system of static and mobile observatory platforms equipped with the latest automatic sensors and samplers to measure environmental parameters on mining and reference areas at representative spatial and temporal scales. To support quick actions for preventing serious harm to the environment, the system will implement high-capacity data handling pipelines able to collect, transmit, process and display monitoring data in near real time. Finally, we will provide technological and systemic solutions for forecasting potential environmental impacts of using the developed monitoring and mitigation methods.
Representative, Reliable and Reproducible in vitro Models of the Human Testes (RE3MODEL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Materials Engineering
Panel description: Advanced materials development: performance enhancement, modelling, large -scale preparation, modification, tailoring, optimisation, novel  and combined use of materials, etc.
Countries involved: Ireland
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499980.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499980.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Western society is on the brink of a fertility crisis, whereby human sperm counts have dropped by 59% over the past four decades and are projected to reach zero by 2045. Treatments for the primary causes of male infertility have no scientific basis, with urologists relying on ineffective empirical medical strategies (guess work). Identifying effective male fertility treatments requires appropriate preclinical models of the sperm-producing testes that can establish a mechanistic basis for treatment choice, dosage and duration. Preclinical models must accurately represent the organ-specific tissue and be amenable to high-throughput experimentation with automated analysis to ensure that they provide representative, reliable and reproducible data. However, current models necessitate manual low-throughput methods and do not accurately represent testicular tissue as the pertinent tissue properties are unknown. The urological field therefore lacks an appropriate model of the testes upon which to evaluate male infertility treatments. The applicant will address this gap by characterising the relevant properties of human testicular tissue, and establishing their effects on resident cell function. The resulting data will inform the development of a hydrogel material with properties tailored to match those of the native tissue. Microspheres of the representative hydrogel, containing primary testicular cells arranged to mimic the native tissue structure, will be fabricated using a high-throughput platform and analysed using an automated Raman spectroscope, thereby forming the first representative, reliable and reproducible model of the human testes. The RE3MODEL system will be validated against established in vitro models and used to determine the therapeutic mechanisms of current empirical medical strategies, while also identifying and optimising the most promising treatment approaches as an exemplar application.

Keywords: male infertility,in vitro model,testicular tissue,mechanical properties,transport properties,hydrogel,raman spectroscopy,spermatogenesis
Maintenance of platelet homeostasis by tyrosine phosphatases and vascular heparan sulfates (MENTOR)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Molecules of Life: B iological  Mechanisms , Structures  and Functions
Panel description: For all organisms : Molecular biology , biochemistry, structural biology, molecular biophysics , synthetic and chemical biology, drug design, innovative methods and modelling
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2030-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2519500.0
EU funding (EUR): 2519500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Platelets are highly reactive fragments of megakaryocytes (MKs) that have been implicated in all major pathophysiological processes, but the molecular mechanisms controlling the number and reactivity of platelets in the circulation remain incompletely defined. The prevailing thinking is that mechanical forces are the primary drivers of platelet production, but the logic is flawed and the evidence contradictory. What is glaringly overlooked are intrinsic inhibitory mechanisms and extrinsic cues providing a break system and directionality to MKs. Central to this model is the concept of an MK/platelet checkpoint and gatekeeper preventing platelet production in a haphazard manner, which has never been applied to this fundamental physiological process. Based on pioneering work from my laboratory, I hypothesize that protein-tyrosine phosphatase (PTP)-linked receptors and vascular heparan sulfates (HS) are critical regulators of platelet production, and that these receptors can be harnessed through the use of synthetic heterobifunctional molecules to regulate the threshold of MK/platelet activation and function in health and disease. Critical components of this mechanism, include the co-inhibitory receptor G6B that signals via the non-transmembrane PTPs Shp1 and Shp2, is regulated by vascular HSs, and is the primary gatekeeper of the MK/platelet checkpoint; and the receptor-type PTP CD148 that is regulated by vascular HS proteoglycans and extracellular matrix proteins, and is a master regulator of Src family kinases and the threshold of MK/platelet activation. Findings from this proposal will revolutionize MK/platelet biology and pioneer a novel class of tools and therapeutics for investigating and treating MK/platelet-based pathologies.

Keywords: platelet homeostasis,tyrosine phosphatases,vascular heparan sulfates,synthetic heterobifunctional molecules
Vibrations of viral particles scatter light (VIRUSong)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Pathfinder
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: France,Spain,Netherlands,Germany,Türkiye
Call: EIC Pathfinder Open 2022 (HORIZON-EIC-2022-PATHFINDEROPEN-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 6069304.0
EU funding (EUR): 6069304.0
Participants: 9
Project status: SIGNED

Viruses are nanoparticles with well-defined size, shape and elasticity in which acoustic waves are confined. This leads to the appearance of new vibration modes that correspond to the vibration of the virus particle as a whole object. The VIRUSong project aims at implementing and realizing a simple and radically new way to identify viral particles on the basis of these vibrations. Inelastic light scattering spectroscopy (Raman and Brillouin) is usually a tool of choice to measure these vibrations, but for viruses, the effective scattering cross section is small. To overcome this drawback, the VIRUSong project will mainly focus on a few viruses of different size and structure and two parallel strategies will be explored. (a) the coupling of viruses with nanoparticles of hard materials which are very simple nano resonators (NPRs). The project VIRUSong project aims at using them as antennas to collect and amplify the song of the virus particles (i.e. the vibrations of the virions). (b) the use of Stimulated low-frequency inelastic spectroscopy that will allow the label-free detection of any type of virus. To achieve these objectives, the project will analyze each selected familly of viruses to determine their composition, size, shape and mechanical properties. Finally, all this information will be correlated using artificial intelligence to identify a given virus based on its vibrational spectra. By pushing the current limits of stimulated inelastic light scattering spectroscopy, designing nanoparticle resonators (NPRs) and implementing efficient artificial intelligence models, this project aims to develop the proof of concept of a new technology capable of identifying viral particles by light in a few minutes, while achieving high selectivity (specific vibrational signature) and high sensitivity (down to the single viral particle).

Keywords: nanoparticle vibration inelastic light scatterings spectroscopy virus mechanical properties artificial intelligence
Quantum entanglement with ultrashort charge wavepackets (UltraWave)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Condensed Matter Physics
Panel description: Structure, electronic properties, fluids, nanosciences, biological physics
Countries involved: France,United Kingdom
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2024-ADG, 2024)
Start date: 2026-03-01
End date: 2031-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2488810.0
EU funding (EUR): 2488810.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

A significant challenge in quantum nanoelectronics is accessing the internal characteristic timescales, typically a few picoseconds, that dictate the quantum dynamics of nanoelectronic quantum devices. These timescales are currently beyond our reach. If achieved, this will open new path for studying the dynamic aspects of quantum mechanics. ULTRAWAVE will overcome this challenge by leveraging advances in THz photon production and utilizing innovative photon-to-electron conversion devices to engineer THz electronic charge pulses for use in quantum nanoelectronics. We will integrate highly efficient photoconductive switches on-chip within a very low-temperature setup creating the first platform that merges time-resolved THz physics with milli Kelvin temperature. This breakthrough will enable us to achieve unprecedented time scales, granting access to the quantum regime of nanoelectronic conductors. We will develop a new quantum material platform for quantum nanoelectronics based on germanium heterostructures to elevate the field to unprecedented levels. The recently demonstrated exceptional quantum coherence properties of this material will enable us to develop the long-thought single-charge detector for propagating wave packets. Overall, ULTRAWAVE will establish a novel approach for performing in-flight quantum manipulations at unprecedented timescales, resulting in a major breakthrough in the study of quantum entanglement and introducing a new type of quantum information processing with propagating quantum states. The ability to reach these unprecedented timescales will pioneer a new area of research in quantum nanoelectronics for both fundamental science and applications in quantum technology.

Keywords: quantum nanoelectronics,entanglement,single electron detectors,quantum phenomena,quantum information and quantum technology,thz electronics,molecular beam epitaxy
Planetary space simulations based on the particle description for electrons and ions. (TerraVirtualE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Universe Sciences
Panel description: Astro -physics/ -chemistry/ -biology; solar system; planetary systems; stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy; cosmology; space sciences; astronomical instrumentation and data
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2022-ADG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2025-05-31
Duration (months): 21.0
Total project cost (EUR): 518233.21
EU funding (EUR): 518233.21
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The question about how solar storms impact a planet has both fundamental scientific importance and great social impacts for protecting our infrastructure from the most powerful solar storms. At present, models rely on a fluid description of the electrons due to algorithmic and computational challenges. Our goal is to develop a model of the space environment around a planet based on a particle description of both ions and electrons. We plan to use the particle in cell (PIC) model where both ions and electrons retain their nature as particles. This PIC model will allow us to investigate the critical role of energetic electrons participating in the energy and matter transfer from the solar wind to the planet inner space. What makes this goal now possible is the Energy Conserving semi implicit method (ECsim), developed by the PI. The ECsim conserves energy exactly, a critical element in the investigation of energy flow from the solar wind. In addition, the energy conservation leads to enhanced numerical stability, which in turn greatly augment ECsim’s capability to simulate very large systems such as planet atmospheres while treating electrons as particles rather than fluid. We will start from this new development and introduce two critical innovations. First, we will implement adaptive spatial and temporal resolution for finer resolution closer to the planet and in selected areas of interest. Second, we will implement CPU-GPU algorithms for the new heterogeneous supercomputers developed by EuroHPC. These innovations will increase the capability of ECsim by more than an order of magnitude making it possible to model a region as big as the Earth space environment with the computers available within the next 3-5 years. If successful, we will have the first PIC model to describe a planetary space environment where the correct particle nature of the electrons is considered with all its implication for the energy and matter transport.

Keywords: space weather,planetary space environment,heterogeneous supercomputers