Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
A novel bioinformatics SaaS platform to identify and classify the pathogenicity of single genomic variants and oligogenic variant combinations for the diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases (eVai)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Challenges
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Italy
Call: Strategic Digital and Health Technologies (HORIZON-EIC-2021-ACCELERATORCHALLENGES-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-04-01
End date: 2024-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2403625.01
EU funding (EUR): 1682537.51
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Genetic diseases affect +300 million individuals worldwide, resulting in 2.8 million new patients every year. The advent of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) means it’s now possible to analyze the whole patient’s genome. However, variant interpretation is the biggest hindrance to widespread adoption of NGS technologies. Hence, clinicians are struggling to identify disease-causing variants and the diagnostic yield of genetic disorders is only about 50% on average. eVai is a revolutionary SaaS platform that allows geneticists to identify multiple pathogenic genomic variants with unprecedented accuracy and speed. We bring to market [1] first and only digenic and oligogenic variant interpretation [2] best predictive causative variants accuracy; [3] reduced turnaround time; and [4] consistency of variant interpretation; [5] discovery of unknown variants.
BIOmethane Market Acceleration and UPtake in Europe (BIOMAPE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Energy
Destination: Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Italy,Belgium,Austria,Ireland,Portugal,Ukraine,Slovenia,Hungary,Serbia,United Kingdom
Call: Market Uptake Measures of renewable energy systems (HORIZON-CL5-2024-D3-02, 2024)
Start date: 2025-11-01
End date: 2028-10-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2103134.99
EU funding (EUR): 1999792.49
Participants: 11
Project status: SIGNED

BIOMAPE (BIOmethane Market Acceleration and UPtake in Europe) aims to accelerate the production and use of biomethane across Europe, fostering market development and supporting EU’s energy transition. This objective will be achieved through three activity packages: Biomethane Certificates and Cross-border Trade; Biomethane Policy and Market Development; Biomethane Social Acceptability. BIOMAPE relates, within the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025 on Climate, Energy and Mobility, to the Call Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply, addressing the topic HORIZON-CL5-2024-D3-02-10: Market Uptake Measures of renewable energy systems. The project methodology is built around four pillars: Multi-level Geographical Dimension, Social Acceptance, Policy Dimension, and Comprehensive Support and Transferability. These pillars address technical, social and regulatory challenges to drive biomethane market growth. Throughout these pillars, the project emphasises multistakeholder and multidisciplinary approaches as cross-cutting themes that ensure robust stakeholder engagement and the integration of diverse expertise at every stage. BIOMAPE will help to create biomethane registries for certificate management in five countries and facilitate cross-border trade, enhancing the transparency and efficiency of biomethane trade. By fostering improved and holistic biomethane policies, the project will contribute to increasing the share of renewable energy in final energy consumption by 2030 and beyond. A strong focus on stakeholder engagement will include participatory activities, such as workshops, site visits, and the establishment of Biomethane Social Acceptability Groups in 8 countries, to address public concerns and improve community acceptance of biomethane technologies. In this way, BIOMAPE will lay the groundwork for a robust biomethane market across Europe, fostering international cooperation and knowledge transfer with non-European countries.

Keywords: biomethane,renewable gas,certificate management,production,market uptake,registries,sustainability,social acceptability,policies,cross border trade,replication,applicability assessment
Circular Initiative for Recycling and waste Conversion into Lactate Extracts (CIRCLE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Circular Bio-based Europe
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: CBE (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Israel,Belgium,Italy,Greece,Netherlands,Germany,Korea, Republic of,Finland,Estonia,Switzerland
Call: Expansion and/or retro-fitting of biorefineries towards higher-value bio-based chemicals and intermediates (HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 27438438.75
EU funding (EUR): 16977024.75
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

CIRCLE aims at demonstrating at industrial scale a first-of-its-kind retrofitted biorefinery for the valorisation of food waste streams and additional biomasses into high-value bio-based chemicals and intermediates, lactic acid (LA) as well as derived products, including polylactic acid (PLA), upgrading and expanding the production capacity of an existing biogas plant. The upgrade proposed will valorise the food waste streams currently processed for biogas production to produce LA ready for downstream high-value applications, including the production of PLA and derived new and higher-value products. The process will take advantage of the existing facility and of the renewable energy (biogas and heat) directly produced, thus making the production highly energy efficient. The proposed technology is highly scalable and replicable as it is designed to be deployed as an ‘add-on’ to existing food waste processing infrastructures. CIRCLE will reach the TRL8 by the end of the project by demonstrating the production of raw LA, which will be then converted into clean lactate salt (CLS) and into industrial and polymer-grade LA (≥ 95-99%). The polymer-grade LA will be in turn polymerized into a recyclable PLA, which can replace fossil-based polypropylene (PP) in a wide range of applications, with a significant impact on GHG emissions and environmental pollution avoidance. The application of bio-based chemicals and intermediates will be demonstrated through the production of a wide portfolio of bio-based products fully compliant with market requirements, such as cover cosmetics products (for CLS and LA), cleaning products (for LA) as well as the automotive, cosmetics and food packaging sectors (for PLA). The new circular value chain is expected to generate €20M of turnover and ca. 50 jobs. Retrofitting the existing biorefinery will allow saving at least 10% of the CAPEX.

Keywords: food waste,clean lactic salt,lactic acid,pla,bio based products,biorefinery retrofitting technology
Molecular mimicry and immune evasion in malaria parasites (TROJAN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Immunity, Infection and I mmunotherapy
Panel description: The immune system , related disorders  and their mechanisms , biology of infectious agents and infection, biological basis of prevention and treatment of infectious diseases , innovative imm unological tools and approaches , including  therapies
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-11-01
End date: 2029-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499923.75
EU funding (EUR): 2499923.75
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Parasites have evolved elaborate strategies that maximise their fitness. Central to these strategies is their interaction with the host immune system, for instance with immune receptors which mediate pathogen recognition or immune tolerance. Human malaria parasites encode a family of ~200 rifins, some of which are molecular mimics of human self-identifying proteins and that bind tolerance-inducing receptors. However, very few host targets of rifin proteins are known. Our data suggests that the family at large may form an elaborate repertoire of immunomodulatory effectors. We postulate that rifins are deployed to manipulate host immunity in order to facilitate parasite persistence in its host. We further hypothesise that this immune regulation is underpinned by a complex specificity code and a distinct bet-hedging expression program. In the Trojan project, we will investigate and contextualise immunomodulation by malaria parasites in the arms race between the parasite and its host. Firstly, given the sequence diversity of rifins, we will optimise a method to measure gene expression without the need for a reference genome on a single cell level. We will then deploy this tool to understand how expression of rifins is associated with malaria symptoms and persistence in long-term natural infections. Secondly, we will decipher the range of immune targets of rifins as well as the rifin-specificity code and use lineage tracing to understand how diverse immunomodulatory expression patterns arise. Finally, we will seek to understand how malaria-infected individuals respond to immunomodulation by interfering with rifin-receptor interactions. Altogether we will reveal how pathogen molecular mimicry and manipulation is central to their success. This study will transform our understanding of fundamental aspects of parasite biology as well as immune homeostasis and could provide new tools in the continuing fight against malaria.

Keywords: malaria,immunomodulation,mimicry,self recognition,persistence,bet hedging
GROundWater sustainability and crop production (GROW)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Panel description: Human geography, demography, health, susta inability science, territorial planning, spatial analysis
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-04-01
End date: 2027-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1404141.0
EU funding (EUR): 1404141.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Groundwater is the largest freshwater resource on earth and is crucial for people and the environment. In many regions around the world, groundwater is used unsustainably. Consequently, groundwater levels drop leading to drying rivers and wells, salt intrusion, land subsidence, and groundwater depletion. Irrigated agriculture is the largest user of groundwater worldwide and is responsible for current hotspots of negative impacts, especially for intensively irrigated regions of the world. Already, many rivers in these regions have reached their environmentally critical streamflow, which is necessary to maintain healthy ecosystems. With expected increasing water demands and climate change, the pressure on our groundwater resources will increase further and new regions experiencing negative impacts will develop. To reduce and prevent these impacts, groundwater uses should be reduced. At the same time, crop productivity should be maintained to protect global food security. This poses for me the urgent question: What is the current and future environmentally safe operation space for global groundwater use and what is, and will be, the impact of sustainable groundwater use on crop production worldwide? In this project, I will provide a better understanding of groundwater availability worldwide. My project will define the environmentally safe operating space for current and future groundwater use and will define and quantify the key trade-offs between sustainable groundwater use and crop production. I will develop a novel and innovative modelling framework that connects groundwater, surface water, and crop growth. The model will be linked novel future water demand scenarios, including adaptation strategies towards sustainable groundwater use worldwide. The results will show globally where and when competition for groundwater between the environment and crop production is largest and whether sustainable groundwater use can support current and future crop production.

Keywords: groundwater use,groundwater sustainability,crop production,food security,future scenarios,large scale groundwater modeling
NEW EUROPEAN BAUHAUS ACADEMY ALLIANCE (NEBA Alliance)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Circular Bio-based Europe
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Partnership: CBE (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Slovenia,Austria,Poland,Sweden,Finland,Estonia,Germany,Netherlands,Spain,Italy,Belgium
Call: CBE JU supporting activities for the New European Bauhaus Academy, a network for re-skilling and upskilling towards a sustainable construction ecosystem (HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-2, 2023)
Start date: 2024-04-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1039168.0
EU funding (EUR): 1000000.0
Participants: 14
Project status: SIGNED

The urgency of the climate crisis requires accelerating the transfer and adoption of climate change mitigation skills and tools to workers, businesses, policy makers, and the public. Around 40% of GHG emissions come from building operations and an additional 10-20% from embodied emissions, making the construction ecosystem a major contributor to the climate crisis and a necessary sector to transform. One of the main obstacles to transformation is the massive need for skilled workers and educated professionals on all levels. More than three quarters of companies in the EU report difficulties in finding workers with the necessary skills. The twin green and digital transformation of the construction ecosystem is an enormous opportunity to create sustainable employment in urban and rural areas and is central to decarbonising Europe’s economy and fighting climate change. Our objective is to establish an international network, the New European Bauhaus Academy Alliance (NEBA Alliance), which will ensure high quality training for higher education, VET, and life-long learning is available and delivered to as many workers as possible across Europe and the surrounding regions. The project will establish Hubs that have regional coverage and/or expertise in specific topics, create a joint business plan and operational models, then link them through a digital platform that will serve as a matchmaker between learners and trainers, as well as an open directory and repository for NEBA certified training contents addressing bio-based, circular, regenerative, and long-life processes, concepts, and solutions with microcredentials available. The project will also provide Skills Agenda and Policy Roadmap, guiding implementation of the Green Deal, Renovation Wave, Circular Bioeconomy and related policy initiatives. The NEBA Alliance will be the first and most dynamic entry in a massive push for skills/education across all levels of the construction sector and the society.

Keywords: sustainable built environments,decarbonisation,health,wellbeing,circular economy,wood,skills,training,micro credentials
Intersubjective AI-driven multimodal interaction for advanced user-centric human robot collaborative applications (JARVIS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Digital
Destination: Digital & Emerging Technologies for Competitiveness and Fit for the Green Deal
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: AI-DATA-ROBOTICS (co-programmed)
Countries involved: Greece,Spain,France,Finland,Germany,Luxembourg,Ireland,Norway,Türkiye,Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: Industrial leadership in AI, Data and Robotics – advanced human robot interaction (AI Data and Robotics Partnership) (IA) (HORIZON-CL4-2023-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01-CNECT, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 10338223.75
EU funding (EUR): 9319266.26
Participants: 16
Project status: SIGNED

To strengthen the competitiveness of the EU industry, there is an increasing need for flexible production, exploiting the capabilities of both the machinery and human workforce. The growing market of robots has reacted, adapting to the changing situation by providing collaborative robotic solutions with a variety of characteristics in terms of payload, type and mobility. A number of technological solutions for perception and safety allow their coexistence with humans. While several research activities have been conducted over the past 5 years on this topic, wider industrial adoption is lagging due to the following restrictions: • Limited cognition and intelligence • Low performance of collaborative operations • Collaboration fluidity is rather low as the operators have to adapt to the particularities of the robots. • Complexity in robot programming which requires the involvement of skilled engineers, does not provide flexibility in the execution phase, and does not benefit from the tacit knowledge of experienced operators. Thus, despite the fact the mechatronics are quite advanced, a perfect matching of mechanics and control is required to create robots that advance from repetitive and precision-oriented tasks to becoming intelligent and helpful co-workers. Proper human robot interaction is the most important ground to be covered. Thus, JARVIS aims to develop a reusable set of tools that enable AI driven multimodal means of interaction: a) involving interfaces for physical and remote information exchange, robot control and programming, b) providing social skills to a variety of robots to achieve seamless user-centric interaction that extends human ability for complex tasks and c) demonstrating scalability of application and ability to achieve economies at scale.

Keywords: perception cognition reasoning adaptation
Conciliating a ‘Bearable Life’. Participatory Action Research on Entangled Cross-Border Mobilities (BEARLIV)

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: Portugal,Switzerland
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2024-POC, 2024)
Start date: 2025-06-01
End date: 2026-11-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

Despite their high hopes and aspirations, people crossing borders in search of a ‘better life’ are frequently led to reassess and pare down their ambitions and expectations, and to realign them towards what this project conceptualises as a ‘bearable life’. This is a key finding of the ERC StG on which the present PoC builds. To put the notion of ‘bearable life’ to the test, explore its value, and operationalize its social innovation potential, the PoC develops a ground-breaking applied anthropology framework involving different stakeholders and protagonists of cross-border migratory flows in Ecuador. Participatory action research will proceed in close collaboration with local associations working with different mobile populations –characterised as ‘returnees’, ‘migrants’, and ‘asylum seekers’– and rely on a unique and experimental combination of research techniques, among which focus groups, participatory video, walking interviews, and digital storytelling. Our first ambition is to identify concrete problems, lines of conflict, and needs related to different cross-border mobilities, exploring how they converge, diverge, and relate to one another by putting them into effective dialogue. Secondly, based on the participatory analysis of such needs, we aim to collaborate with NGOs, governmental organisations, and IOs to convene public debates and fora (on- and offline) and produce complementary outputs. The latter include recommendations, academic publications, and multimedia content (such as podcasts, videos, and articles) elaborated collaboratively with the project’s stakeholders both for their own benefit and to the attention of local, regional, national, and international institutions. The ultimate goal of BEARLIV is to propel societal innovation by co-producing, informing, and influencing advocacy efforts and policymaking on cross-border mobilities, and to generate transferrable insights and strategies for applied research in other world contexts
Explainable and Robust Automatic Fact Checking (ExplainYourself)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Computer Science and Informatics
Panel description: Informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1498616.0
EU funding (EUR): 1498616.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

ExplainYourself proposes to study explainable automatic fact checking, the task of automatically predicting the veracity of textual claims using machine learning (ML) methods, while also producing explanations about how the model arrived at the prediction. Automatic fact checking methods often use opaque deep neural network models, whose inner workings cannot easily be explained. Especially for complex tasks such as automatic fact checking, this hinders greater adoption, as it is unclear to users when the models' predictions can be trusted. Existing explainable ML methods partly overcome this by reducing the task of explanation generation to highlighting the right rationale. While a good first step, this does not fully explain how a ML model arrived at a prediction. For knowledge intensive natural language understanding (NLU) tasks such as fact checking, a ML model needs to learn complex relationships between the claim, multiple evidence documents, and common sense knowledge in addition to retrieving the right evidence. There is currently no explainability method that aims to illuminate this highly complex process. In addition, existing approaches are unable to produce diverse explanations, geared towards users with different information needs. ExplainYourself radically departs from existing work in proposing methods for explainable fact checking that more accurately reflect how fact checking models make decisions, and are useful to diverse groups of end users. It is expected that these innovations will apply to explanation generation for other knowledge-intensive NLU tasks, such as question answering or entity linking. To achieve this, ExplainYourself builds on my pioneering work on explainable fact checking as well as my interdisciplinary expertise.

Keywords: explainable ai,automatic fact checking,natural language generation,personalised machine learning,human computer interaction