Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Spectroscopy for Strain-Modulated Terahertz Magnonics (SpecTera)

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: Germany
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2029-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2968750.0
EU funding (EUR): 2968750.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Motivated by the recent discovery of a giant strain-induced blue-shift of Terahertz antiferromagnetic spin waves (magnons) in the spin-orbit Mott insulators Sr2IrO4 and Ca2RuO4 by the PI and his group, the SpecTera project will explore whether strain modulation can be harnessed to confine and guide THz magnons. To probe magnetic order and magnon excitations in inhomogeneous strain environments with high energy and momentum resolution, we will develop a combination of Raman, Brillouin, and resonant x-ray scattering instruments, including a new “momentum microscopy” facility that will generate momentum-space images of magnetic order and excitations with micro-focused x-ray beams. To establish a materials platform for SpecTera, we will use these instruments for surveys of the strain response of different spin-orbit Mott insulators, including compounds with antiferromagnetic order above room temperature. The magnetic ground state and excitations of selected model compounds will be mapped out in carefully tailored strain environments in thermal equilibrium, followed by experiments to probe their response to controlled non-equilibrium situations including thermal gradients and local excitation of magnons by intense sub-THz sources. Inspired by methods developed in semiconductor physics, we will pattern strain profiles by electron beam lithography and assess their ability to serve as magnon conduits. Finally, we will explore the interaction of magnons in spin-orbit Mott insulators with dynamic strain generated by surface acoustic waves. SpecTera will create a new nexus between the rapidly evolving research fields of Terahertz magnonics and correlated-electron physics, and harness the resulting synergies to explore pathways towards a novel architecture of magnonic devices.
A Thousand Years of Transformation: Building a genomic bridge between population and life history at the edge of medieval Europe. (LIFETIMES)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Study of the Human Past
Panel description: Archaeology and history
Countries involved: Ireland
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2025-STG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-09-01
End date: 2031-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499967.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499967.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Population history is built on individual lifetimes. Life traits such as health, mobility and fertility determine demographic trajectories. Demography, in turn, drives environmental, cultural and biological change, altering future life histories. To unravel these complex feedback loops is to learn where our societies and genomes came from, and where we might go next. Central to these endeavours is the reconstruction of local demographic histories from the archaeological record, which can reveal long-term cycles of growth, decline and transformation. These reconstructions can be built from the top-down (charting macro trends in human activity) or bottom-up (characterising bioarchaeological traits). Ancient genomics promises to transform these dual approaches and further build a bridge between the two, but this requires highly focused regional sampling and methodological innovation. LIFETIMES will build this bridge for one of the world’s most highly-resolved archaeological records - that of medieval Ireland. Leveraging almost 5,000 ancient and modern genomes, it will map in unprecedented detail islandwide and subregional patterns of population size, gene flow and adaptation. These macro-histories will be set against the stories of three communities, whose burial grounds remained in use for almost a millennium. Through exhaustive sampling, extensive family trees will emerge, allowing us to view the longue durée of human history at the highest resolution - as a series of interconnected lifetimes. Changes in social organisation, lifespan and health will be interrogated at the level of the genome, methylome and microbiome. Combined with structured interdisciplinary collaboration, this will be the first such synthesis of its kind. It will not only address longstanding issues within insular history (e.g. language origins, disease risk, past pestilence, gender dynamics), but provide fresh insights into the fundamental interactions between genes, culture and the environment.

Keywords: ancient genomics palaeodemography,life history migration social organisation health and disease
Transcriptional Regulation Assessed in Neuronal Subtypes in three major interrelated Psychiatric disorders (TRANS-PSYCH)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System
Panel description: Nervous system development, homeostasis and ageing , nervous system  function and dysfunction , systems neuroscience  and modelling , biological basis of cognitive processes and of behaviour, neurological and mental disorders – In humans and all other organisms
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-08-01
End date: 2028-07-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499999.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BP), and Major Depressive Disorder (MD) are three major psychiatric disorders that affect mood, thinking, and behavior. These disorders are strongly genetically intercorrelated, and exhibit pronounced clinical overlap, suggesting that they are different manifestations of a shared underlying neurobiology, along a spectrum. However, the neurobiological mechanisms and pathophysiology of these disorders are still poorly understood, limiting effective drug discovery. There is an urgent need for new models for drug testing, as animal models have major limitations, and current psychiatric organoids systems are dependent on patient derived stem cells, in which technical, genetic and biological diversity confound the interpretation, and obscure the underlying neuropathology. The major challenge of this ERC proposal is to develop organoid models for psychiatric disorders by targeting upstream transcription factors. Transcription factors are key molecules that drive cell type differentiation including neuronal network formation. Hence, the central hypothesis of this ERC proposal is that neuronal subtype associated transcription factors can function as targets to model these disorders using brain organoids. However, the neuronal transcriptional regulators that mediate these disorders are currently unknown, and difficult to identify. Novel genomics technologies allow for an unbiased characterization of the brain in order to detect cell types and genes that are dysregulated in disease, and can be used to identify putative upstream transcription factors. Here, I propose a selection of multi-omics profiling - strategies to a unique collection of high quality psychiatric human brain tissue aimed at reliably identifying key upstream transcription factors. We will subsequently target those transcription factors in brain organoid systems to establish neurobiological models of these disorders.
5G expOsure, causaL effects, and rIsk perception through citizen engAgemenT (GOLIAT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Health
Theme: Health
Destination: Living and working in a health promoting environment
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Belgium,France,Italy,Poland,Hungary,Austria,Norway,United States,Switzerland,United Kingdom,Netherlands
Call: Exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) and health (HORIZON-HLTH-2021-ENVHLTH-02, 2021)
Start date: 2022-06-01
End date: 2027-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 7036677.64
EU funding (EUR): 7036677.64
Participants: 22
Project status: SIGNED

Despite the rapid growth in novel applications of wireless technology, comparatively little is known about their potential impacts on health. In particular, special attention should be paid to the most vulnerable (i.e. young people up to 25 years old) and most exposed (i.e. workers) populations. The aims of GOLIAT are to monitor radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) exposure, particularly from 5G, provide novel insights into its potential causal health effects, and understand how exposures and risks are perceived and best communicated using citizen engagement. Applying an integrative and transdisciplinary pan-European approach, we will i) develop next-generation exposure assessment methods to estimate aggregated RF-EMF dose to the whole-body and organs in young people; ii) identify new occupational RF-EMF sources resulting from 5G deployment and estimate RF-EMF exposure levels and patterns in workers; iii) assess neuropsychological effects of RF-EMF in young people and workers using causal inference, and iv) quantify potential health impacts of exposures at the population level; v) assess effects of 5G on brain function, thermoregulation, and radical stress using in vitro, in vivo, human, and in silico experiments; vi) identify effective means of exposure reduction; vii) better understand risk perceptions to RF-EMF and 5G; viii) apply an inclusive engagement model and co-design communication methods/tools to address RF-EMF concerns and misconceptions; ix) disseminate GOLIAT’s results to stakeholders and integrate them into policy actions; x) implement a broader analysis of the societal and ethical implications of RF-EMF and 5G; xi) develop a FAIR data infrastructure; and xii) perform activities related to the EMF and health cluster. The expected results will serve to deliver robust evidence on the potential effects of (5G) RF-EMF exposure in young people andworkers, and contribute to developing guidelines for exposure prevention/reduction from new generation radio-communication networks including internet of things. GOLIAT is part of the European cluster on EMFs and health.

Keywords: 5g,rf emf,child and occupational health,neuropsychological effects,brain function,thermoregulation,radical stress,health impact assessment,risk perception,communication,citizen engagement
Dispersals, resilience, and innovation in Late Pleistocene SE Africa (DISPERSALS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Study of the Human Past
Panel description: Archaeology and history
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2021-ADG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Genetic evidence suggests that successful modern human migration out of Africa is believed to have started c. 70,000 years ago, populating the whole world, at different rates and times. This incredible voyage took place because of human’s unique resilience, versatility, and innovation, both biological and cultural, to external stimuli, including ecological and environmental changes. The main objective of DISPERSALS is to investigate the migration and dispersal dynamics of early Homo sapiens in Africa and archaeologically evaluate the genetic model that southern African human populations were the genesis of the successful out-of-Africa some 70,000 years ago. This will be accomplished by investigating cultural and biological continuity/discontinuity issues and human population movements in the last c. 100,000 years in the poorly studied Limpopo and the Save river basins, central Mozambique, an area mediating the two key regions of human development, i.e., southern and eastern Africa. DISPERSALS will compare the human occupation and ecology between central Mozambique and eastern and southern Africa using a multi-scale approach based on the study of regional diachronic cultural traits. It will reconstruct regional population patterns, followed by comparative quantitative population genetics combined with GIS computational network analyses. The results will be then integrated through Agent-based modeling, based on the incremental creation, elimination, or reorientation of network links to simulate a quantitative framework to study the evolution of population dispersal across southern-eastern Africa. The project will be crucial in providing ground-breaking high-resolution archaeological, chronological, and paleoenvironmental data. DISPERSALS will deliver a fundamental perspective on the key processes that triggered migrations and dispersals within Africa and out-of-Africa which ultimately resulted in the human diaspora over the entire planet.

Keywords: african stone age,middle stone age,later stone age,early human migrations and adaptations
Understanding Latin American Challenges in the 21st Century (LAC-EU)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Doctoral Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Spain,Belgium,Chile,Germany,Portugal,Ecuador,France,United Kingdom,Costa Rica,Brazil,Norway
Call: MSCA Doctoral Networks 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-02-01
End date: 2028-01-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2547007.2
EU funding (EUR): 2547007.2
Participants: 16
Project status: SIGNED

Social, political, and cultural transformation, a fast-changing global economy, geopolitical tensions and global uncertainties have created a markedly different context from the previous era of European Union (EU) policies towards Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The doctoral network LAC-EU will establish a novel, comprehensive and interdisciplinary framework to understand LAC and its relationship with the EU, fostering respectful, non-Eurocentric research and engagement. It will enable a better understanding of current challenges in Latin American governance and support sustainable, equitable and successful relations between the EU and LAC. LAC-EU offers doctoral candidates an outstanding, integrated four-year PhD programme and provides world class, interdisciplinary research and training in social and political sciences, law and the humanities, as well as research exchanges and policy-relevant secondments at associated partners in the EU and LAC. Research themes within LAC-EU include the rise of populism, democracy, gender rights, trade, migration, health, global cities, sustainability and green finance and cultural learning. The LAC-EU doctoral programme comprises an interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral network composed of four leading European universities, an outstanding LAC higher education institution and key, highly relevant civil society and policy partners from a range of European and LAC countries. It offers an exceptional combination of academic and research-related training and transferable skills to deliver scientific excellence, occupational mobility and preparation for lifelong, policy-relevant learning for a new generation of researchers. Furthermore, it provides the EU with the vital inputs needed to design coherent, sustainable, equitable and comprehensive policies towards LAC and to promote an effective and respectful interregional engagement that enhances the potential for mutually beneficial partnerships in global and multilateral fora.

Keywords: governance,democracy,human rights,migration,trade,investment,gender,health,equitable development,global cities,natural resources,climate change,populism,eu,latin america,regionalism
High-throughput identification of novel phage-encoded bacterial defense mechanisms against protozoan predation (DictyDefense)

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: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Germany
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): 189687.36
EU funding (EUR): 189687.36
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Bacteria are the backbone of natural communities. A single gram of soil may contain up to 10 billion cells. Two types of bacterial predators are also abundant: protozoa, single-celled eukaryotes that phagocytize bacteria, and bacteriophages (phages), viruses that only infect bacteria. Each day, up to 20% of the global bacterial population is killed by these two predators. This puts pressure on bacteria to adapt defense strategies, but also on each predator to out-compete the other. However, the interplay between bacteria, phages, and protozoa is rarely studied. Certain phages can integrate into bacterial genomes, becoming prophages, and encode beneficial traits for host fitness, like protection from other phages. My hypothesis is that prophages encode defense mechanisms that may interfere with protozoan predation and protect the bacterial host, thereby indirectly benefiting the prophage. To investigate this, I will develop a high-throughput quantitative fluorescence predation assay, using the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum as the model protozoan. Changes in abundance of fluorescently tagged bacteria with and without defense functions will report the strength of predation defense in a large bacterial isolate panel harbouring thousands of prophages. The assay will be scaled up with robotics platforms. Gain of function screens will be used to link defense phenotype with individual genes. After prioritizing the defense hits for novel biology, the major stages of predation that are inhibited can be observed by real time tracking of interactions between fluorescently tagged cells. Biochemical and genetic follow-ups will pinpoint the exact mechanisms of defense. Proteomic, transcriptomic, and lipidomic methods will assess changes in bacterial and protozoan physiology. Overall, this proposal addresses an important blind-spot in the interactions of bacteria, protozoa, and phages and will reveal new aspects on how predatory interactions shape microbial ecosystems.

Keywords: bacteriophages amoeba protozoa genetic tools
A New Paradigm for High-Precision Top Mass and Jet Substructure Measurements at the LHC (TOPMASS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Panel description: Particle, nuclear, plasma, atomic, molecular, gas, and optical physics
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2030-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

We are in the era of precision collider physics where a major challenge is to accurately describe the effects of the strong interactions. The precise determination of the top quark mass is one of the most important measurements in particle physics: it is crucial for indirect searches for new physics and the analysis of the stability of the universe. Currently, the measurement is plagued by theoretical imprecision, including an over-reliance on Monte Carlo simulations and the lack of a systematically improvable treatment of the physics of hadronization (the process by which quarks and gluons are bound into color-neutral hadrons). The same limitations also impact essentially all jet substructure measurements. This includes measurements of the strong coupling, which is another fundamental parameter of the Standard Model. With the high-luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the horizon, addressing these problems becomes exceptionally timely and critical. TOPMASS will overcome these problems by 1) capitalizing on the PI's recent groundbreaking work to exploit Energy-Energy Correlators as a top mass-sensitive probe leading to a new paradigm, and 2) exploiting modern effective field theory methods for developing a model-independent framework to describe hadronization, enabling precise jet substructure determination of the top mass and the strong coupling. This avoids the systematic uncertainty from the usage of hadronization models. It will have immediate applicability to a wide range of precision QCD measurements. The key outcomes of TOPMASS will be 1) High-precision computations that enable a sub-GeV top mass measurement at the LHC in a field-theoretic scheme. 2) A systematic data-driven approach for describing hadronization effects in modern jet substructure observables.

Keywords: top mass,hadronization,energy correlators,jet substructure,strong coupling