Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
The Ecology of Italian Science Fiction (EcoSF)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Global Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Italy,United States
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-10-01
End date: 2023-09-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 251002.56
EU funding (EUR): 251002.56
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

EcoSF investigates the prominence and distinctive representation of ecological issues in Italian science fiction (1952-2019). The project, which provides one of the very first extensive academic studies dedicated to this genre in Italy, examines the debate surrounding its cultural status and traces its evolution in relation to Italian history and culture. An ecocritical perspective is adopted, interrogating the relationship between literary imagination and the environment. Through such approach, EcoSF shows how literature is important to generate awareness of ecological issues and explore literary responses to the current ecological crisis. The cognitive estrangement raised by the imaginative effort of science fiction is central to the necessary re-thinking of current cultural and epistemological paradigms based on anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, and ecophobia. Furthermore, by interrogating our current relationship with the environment, and imagining known environments after ecological catastrophes, science fiction can provide a tool to investigate our cultural heritage. Combining the innovative critical tools of ecocriticism and the speculative imagination of science fiction, EcoSF offers an alternative genealogy of our understanding of the environment outside an ecophobic perspective. The dissemination of the research will adapt dystopian imagination to the case of Venice, thus employing the theoretical categories of the project to reflect on local communities and landscapes.

Keywords: science fiction,italian literature,environmental humanities,ecocriticism,ecology
Memory B cell dynamics in the gut mucosa (GUT-MBC)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: France
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2022-08-01
End date: 2024-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 184707.84
EU funding (EUR): 184707.84
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Salmonellosis is one of the most common and widespread food-borne diseases worldwide. This disease, caused by the gram-negative bacteria Salmonella, affects millions of people every year, leading to more than one hundred thousand deaths around the world. Currently, there is no licensed vaccine against Salmonella to face out this health issue. At present, most licensed human vaccines rely on the induction of long-lived memory lymphocytes. Memory B cells are a key part of this strategy, as they can rapidly differentiate into antibody-secreting cells and neutralize pathogens in case of future exposures. Despite their protective role, we have very limited knowledge on the dynamics of memory B cells in the context of gastrointestinal infection. GUT-MBC aims to unravel the developmental kinetics, spatial distribution and tissue diversity of memory B cells in the gastrointestinal tract upon Salmonella infection. To achieve this goal, I will take advantage of a transgenic mouse line to track memory B cells in vivo, gastrointestinal infection models, multiparametric flow cytometry, cutting edge imaging techniques and single-cell RNA-seq. Understanding how memory B cells are generated and maintained in the gut mucosa and associated lymphoid tissues upon infection is critical for the future design of protective vaccines against Salmonella and other emerging enteric pathogens.

Keywords: memory b cells,gut mucosa,salmonella infection
Nanoengineered coatings for visible-light photocatalytic disinfection of medical devices (PHOTO-IASIS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-05-01
End date: 2022-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 191852.16
EU funding (EUR): 191852.16
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Catheter-associated infections are characterized by the formation of a bacterial biofilm on their surface and are a major clinical problem today with huge socioeconomic implications. As a result, apart from longer hospital admissions that dramatically increase healthcare costs, in order to fight these infections increased antibiotic drug doses are used. This approach places selective pressure on pathogens and, especially in nosocomial settings, facilitates the emergence of antimicrobial resistant bacteria that are more difficult, if at all possible, to treat. In fact, catheter-associated infections by antimicrobial resistant bacteria are potentially lethal, especially in patients with compromised immune system (cancer, HIV patients). So, there is an urgent societal and clinical need to reduce such infections. The target of this project is to re-engineer catheters that exhibit anti-biofilm properties due to the presence of an antimicrobial nanocoating. This coating will consist of a photo-active material that destroys the biofilm upon visible light irradiation. The light will be delivered on the catheter surface by an optical fiber through the catheter opening. This will enable biofilm destruction with a simple push of a button. The developed catheter here will revolutionize this field by reducing such catheter-associated infections, minimizing the emergence of drug resistant bacteria and improving the public health worldwide. The supervisor’s unique expertise in nanomaterial synthesis using flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), and in applying the resulting nanoparticles to specific biomedical applications combined with that of the applicant’s in nanoparticles and photocatalysis reassures a mutual benefit between the applicant and the host institute and enhances the feasibility of this proposal.

Keywords: flame nanoparticle synthesis,antibacterial
Bacteriocins and human commensal bacteria as a new strategy to inhibit the opportunistic human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae (BACKSPiN)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Switzerland
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-05-01
End date: 2023-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 203149.44
EU funding (EUR): 203149.44
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

When the Noble Prize-winning Alexandre Fleming discovered antibiotics, he already noticed that microorganisms developed resistance mechanisms to survive. Therefore, he anticipated that a misuse of antimicrobial compounds to treat infections will drive the selection of hyper-resistant strains and the resurgence of almost-eradicated infectious diseases. Nowadays, the problem is so critical that the World Health Organization foresees that superbugs will outcompete cancer and cardiovascular diseases to become the first cause of mortality on the planet in less than 30 years (horizon 2050). Recently, the international organization drew a list of 10 priority pathogens that includes Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium notorious in pneumonia (major upper respiratory tract infections), endocarditis, meningitis and brain abscess. To replace or restore antibiotic action, we thus need to find alternative strategies. In this proposal, I aim to use bacteriocins, small antimicrobial peptides secreted by bacteria, to kill S. pneumoniae. They are currently underexploited for human need but feature many valuable characteristics (e.g., efficiency, evolvability, specific spectrum, cheap/easy production, high sequence diversity, stability) complementary to antibiotics. I will test a collection of hundreds of bacteriocins and, according to their mode of action, will rationally assemble “overwhelming” bacteriocin cocktails to prevent emergence of resistance. In parallel, a tantalizing idea would be to exploit the beneficial bacteria of our microbiota and mobilize their bacteriocins to treat local infections. So, I will perform ex vivo infection of human epithelia with S. pneumoniae and test how bacteriocin-induced S. salivarius, a commensal bacterium of our gut, influences it. Besides generating valuable fundamental insight into the S. pneumoniae resistance mechanisms and infection cycle, the results of this project will also pave the way to fight against other notorious pathogens.

Keywords: bacteriocins,antimicrobial resistance,streptococcus pneumoniae,streptococcus salivarius
Early detector of comorbid depression (LUCY)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Health, demographic change and wellbeing
Theme: Treating and managing disease
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Italy
Call: Clinical research for the validation of biomarkers and/or diagnostic medical devices (H2020-SMEINST-1-2015, 2015)
Start date: 2015-10-01
End date: 2016-01-31
Duration (months): 4.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Chronic patients suffering from mood disorder and depression comorbid to other pathologies or drug treatments receive poor preventive screening, insufficient early diagnosis and follow-up; the insurgence of depression with one more pathological condition amplifies the loss of Quality-Adjusted Life Expectancy expected for both depression and the other condition. Lucy is a cross-platform cloud environment continuously collecting biomarkers belonging to psychic and relational life of the person, like anxiety, depression, pain, disability, relational impairment, using screening tools officially validated by medical practice. An advanced relational system, characterized by very low cost for the patient, elaborates information and translates it into objective and communicable data available to the team of attending physicians, providing continuous, updated patient monitoring, through data-mining and smart on the go doctor interface

Keywords: comorbidity depression
The role of the miR156-SPL genetic network during land plant evolution: a comparative analysis of sporophyte development in divergent plant lineages (miR156evo)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Reintegration panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-11-01
End date: 2023-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 212933.76
EU funding (EUR): 212933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

An ancient divergence in land plant evolution gave rise to the vascular plant (e.g. Arabidopsis) and bryophyte (e.g. moss) groups. Prolonged apical growth is a defining feature of vascular plants and the establishment of elaborate shoot systems with delayed reproductive development enabled their extraordinary evolutionary success. In contrast, mosses undergo transient apical growth prior to rapid reproductive development. In Arabidopsis, the microRNA miR156 represses members of the SPL family of transcription factors that inhibit apical growth and promote developmental transitions. However, the role of the miR156-SPL module in plant evolution remains to determined. SPL genes evolved before plants colonised land, whereas miR156 arose during early plant evolution. It is possible, therefore, that miR156 was a critical innovation in land plant evolution that facilitated the elaboration of vascular plant forms. My Proposal will test this hypothesis by taking a comparative developmental approach. Using gain and loss-of function genetic techniques I will characterise the role of miR156 and SPL genes in moss sporophyte development, specifically, their effects on apical growth and reproductive development. In Arabidopsis, I will test how SPL genes regulate apical growth using reporter genes assays, advanced imaging and genome-wide surveys of SPL-targets. Finally, I will test the importance of intercellular signaling to apical growth in moss and Arabidopsis by blocking connections between cells. This Fellowship will provide training from a world-leading expert in cutting-edge techniques that are critical to my long-term research objectives. It will allow me to extend my research portfolio by asking fundamental biological questions in a new experimental system (moss) within a highly stimulating scientific environment. The training and outstanding professional development opportunities provided by the University of Bristol will be vital to achieve my career ambitions.

Keywords: plant development,moss,arabidopsis,shoot apical meristem,plant evolution,vegetative phase change,mir156,sporophyte,symplastic signaling
Primitive chemistry in planetary atmospheres: From the upper atmosphere down to the surface (PRIMCHEM)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting 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: France
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2014-STG, 2014)
Start date: 2015-09-01
End date: 2021-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1487500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1487500.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The presence of organic compounds was essential to the emergence of life on Earth 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. Such compounds may have had several different origins; amongst them the ocean-atmosphere coupled system (the primordial soup theory), or exogenous inputs by meteorites, comets and Interplanetary Dust Particles. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is the best known observable analogue of the Early Earth. I recently identified a totally new source of prebiotic material for this system: the upper atmosphere. Nucleobases have been highlighted as components of the solid aerosols analogues produced in a reactor mimicking the chemistry that occurs in the upper atmosphere. The specificity of this external layer is that it receives harsh solar UV radiations enabling the chemical activation of molecular nitrogen N2, and involving a nitrogen rich organic chemistry with high prebiotic interest. As organic solid aerosols are initiated in the upper atmosphere of Titan, a new question is raised that I will address: what is the evolution of these organic prebiotic seeds when sedimenting down to the surface? Aerosols will indeed undergo the bombardment of charged particles, further UV radiation, and/or coating of condensable species at lower altitudes. I expect possible changes on the aerosols themselves, but also on the budget of the gas phase through emissions of new organic volatiles compounds. The aerosols aging may therefore impact the whole atmospheric system. An original methodology will be developed to address this novel issue. The successive aging sequences will be experimentally simulated in chemical reactors combining synchrotron and plasma sources. The interpretation of the experimental results will moreover be supported by a modelling of the processes. This complementary approach will enable to decipher the aerosols evolution in laboratory conditions and to extrapolate the impact on Titan atmospheric system.

Keywords: planetary atmospheres
A Human and Environmental history of the Atacama Desert: understanding ecological and archaeological interactions in arid areas of South America (AHEAD)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Career Restart panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-09-01
End date: 2020-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 195454.8
EU funding (EUR): 195454.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Fuel availability can constrain human occupation of desert environments – fuel availability is as important as water, food and building materials. The aim of AHEAD is to reveal the use of fuelwood resources in negotiating human survival in three contrasting desert areas in South America over the long-term; from foraging subsistence societies to colonial mining exploitation. The three study sites cover a range of altitudinal zones, allowing comparison between inland (hyperarid) vs coast (arid) deserts. The project’s core discipline is anthracology (charcoal identification to source species) contextualised by a regional review of available palaeoenvironmental data. Insights on fuel use history will be supported by biomolecular analysis to distinguish the functions of hearths (i.e. domestic cooking or metal working) and isotope analysis to provide data on changes in water availability in the past. The ambitious project is highly feasible due to the fellow's extensive experience in wood identification in South America, and personal reference collection of wood and charcoal from Argentinian and Chilean deserts. Moreover, all archaeological samples are available and from securely dated contexts; the fieldwork is solely for the collection of fresh wood for comparison and surface samples of subfossil wood - i.e. the project is low risk and highly cost-effective. AHEAD will benefit from York's expertise in isotope and of the collaboration with LandCover 6K network, including cutting-edge research on integrating long-term and spatially diverse palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. In addition to being exposed to the global LandCover 6K project, the applicant will learn spatial extrapolation technique to move perspectives of human-resource use interactions from the site to the landscape scale. This project directly feeds into current global research initiatives that are employing long-term land use and landcover data to refine and test predictive climate models.

Keywords: fuelwood,anthracology,isotopes,biomolecular analysis,holocene,atacama desert
Development and Market Replication of novel NIR-transparent polymer colourants to replace carbon black, and allow the sorting of black and coloured polymers from mixed waste streams (NIRSort)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Ireland,Sweden,United Kingdom
Call: Fast Track to Innovation Pilot (H2020-FTIPilot-2016-1, 2016)
Start date: 2017-06-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1474375.0
EU funding (EUR): 1005762.5
Participants: 3
Project status: CLOSED

Currently, around 25 million tonnes of plastic waste is created each year across Europe, primarily from three sources – consumer packaging, WEEE disposal and vehicle dismantling. The requirements for sorting and segregation of polymer types within waste streams are intensifying - more stringent targets for recycling are forcing recyclers to segregate more difficult materials that they could formerly lose as scrap; increased volumes and high labour costs force the industry to reduce manual segregation and increase shredding; this requires more automation of sorting facilities; producer regulations increase the responsibility for the supply side to ensure identifiability of the materials they provide, through to the point of recycling. Automated sorting operations are all based on Near Infra-Red spectroscopy, which can rapidly recognize the NIR signature of different polymers, and activate sorting equipment to segregate the polymer types. NIR is the only technique that is fast enough, powerful enough and robust enough to be usable on a recycling line. BUT the NIR technique fails to “see” black materials and some colours, because the carbon black pigment used also absorbs the NIR beam and prevents the reflection of the polymer’s characteristic spectrum back to the sensor. This project, based on our successful previous work, will develop a range of “NIR transparent” alternatives to carbon black, to enable the NIR sorting operations to segregate black and coloured plastic where they have been unable to before, to a purity that will be usable in high value recycled engineering polymers. We will base our market entry strategy on a “spiral economy” approach, where the packaging industry uses virgin detectable polymer to make their packaging, and this, with its product life of under one year, is recycled into high quality engineering plastics for the manufacturers of automotive and consumer durables to use without waiting for returns from their own end-of-life materials.

Keywords: near infra red sorting black coloured plastic recycling pigment carbon black
The extended EEN innovation support service for innovative SMEs in Serbia — EEN InnoS Journey (EEN InnoS Journey)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: Specific Grant agreement
Countries involved: Serbia,Serbia,Serbia
Call: EEN H2020 SGA3 (H2020-EEN-SGA3-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 12.0
Total project cost (EUR): 35968.75
EU funding (EUR): 35968.75
Participants: 6
Project status: CLOSED

According to official data, 99.9% of the enterprises in Serbia are SMEs. SMEs in Serbia contribute a share of roughly 60% of employment and less than 50% of value added, compared with the respective EU averages of 67% and 57%. Micro-firms make a particularly small contribution, providing only 10% of value added, 11 percentage points lower than in the EU . Regarding the movement of the total innovation index (SII-Summary Innovation Index), it can be concluded that the innovative performance of the Republic of Serbia indicates a certain increase, since SII for the Republic of Serbia in 2016 was 64,2 compared to 46,8 in 2010. Also, the innovative performance in Serbia is still below the average of EU-28 (102 for the same year). However, regarding SII index for the period of 2010–2016 in the neighbouring countries, it can be concluded that the situation in Serbia is more favourable compared to Bulgaria, Macedonia (FYROM), Romania and Croatia, but less favourable compared to Slovenia or Hungary . Taking into account all this, the Enterprise Europe Network could play a crucial role in bridging the gaps of knowledge, resources and skills that could be essential for increasing the innovation capacity of SMEs, especially in experience and knowledge sharing, training and consultation EEN could provide assistance to managers and entrepreneurs in all phases of the development of new products and services, from concept to commercialization. The overall objective of EEN InnoS Journey is to increase Summary Innovation Index of Serbia providing services that will help to foster innovation and drive a fast growth of Serbian economy.

Keywords: innovation potential,innovation capacities of the sme beneficiaries,innovation management capacity