Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Performance in Robots Interaction via Mental Imagery (PRIMI)

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: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,Spain,United Kingdom
Call: Pushing the limit of physical intelligence and performance (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2022-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02, 2022)
Start date: 2023-11-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 50.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4973683.75
EU funding (EUR): 4973683.75
Participants: 8
Project status: SIGNED

The next generation of personal robotic systems needs to reach a level of cognition and motor intelligence that provides autonomy in any environment, effective interaction with humans, and adaptation of their actions to a broad range of open, dynamic situations. Robots are expected to be able to predict perceptual and functional changes that result from human actions and replicate human activities taking into consideration their own capabilities and limitations. The required human-like physical performance and reasoning cannot be achieved with the mainstream AI and robotics paradigms, because they are missing the required co-design of body (robot) and mind (AI) and are based on inefficient computing and sensing resources that cannot be scaled up to the required level. To go beyond what is currently possible, PRIMI will synergistically combine research and development in neurophysiology, psychology, machine intelligence, cognitive mechatronics, neuromorphic engineering, and humanoid robotics to build developmental models of higher-cognition abilities – mental imagery, abstract reasoning, and theory of mind – boosted by energy-efficient event-driven computing and sensing. It will produce a new unifying concept for the next generation of autonomous interaction technologies, capable of more autonomous, faster, safer, and precise interaction with real-time learning and adaptation, thanks to the integration of the capabilities to mentally represent themselves, the physical and social worlds, resemble experiences and simulate actions. PRIMI’s ambition is to induce a paradigm shift in AI and robotics to create truly autonomous socially interactive robots, which will offer new technological perspectives for transforming personal robotic services. As a proof-of-principle of the technological advancement in a relevant scenario, prototypes of neuromorphic humanoid robots will be validated in clinical pilot studies of robot-led physical rehabilitation of stroke survivors.

Keywords: neurorobotics,neuromorphic engineering,biologically inspired artificial intelligence
Sugars maketh the brain: investigating the role of neuronal glycocalyx in shaping the architecture of emerging circuits (GLYCOCIRC)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator 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: Lithuania
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2030-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Neuronal glycocalyx has been recently recognized as an active agent that contributes to neuronal synapse formation, neuron excitability as well as neuron-autonomous and microglia-dependent brain network remodelling. In particular, the glycan-terminating sialic acids, which often dominate the ends of the chains of glycoproteins and glycolipids on neuronal surface, are required for appropriate brain development and function. Interestingly, almost a fifth of sialic acid biology genes have human-specific changes and aberrant neuronal sialylation and desialylation are implicated in different neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions. Thus, I hypothesize than neuronal glycocalyx and specifically its component sialic acid in particular have a critical role in the formation of unique human brain. Despite its recognized importance, there is still a lack of mechanistic understanding filling the knowledge gap how synapses are shaped by the dynamics of the glycocalyx. Therefore, here I propose to merge my expertise in biochemistry and neuroscience to tackle this challenging area of research to further our knowledge of brain sialome through evolutionary approach. We will use in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo models from humans, non-human primates and mouse that can be modified at genetic level for selective labelling and modification of neuronal cells and will combine it with advanced microscopy techniques as well as synaptic-level molecular analysis. We will demonstrate how the glycocalyx and sialic acid act as a defining factor for neural circuitry formation and refinement in developing brain, in particular through the interaction of neurons and their synapses with brain immune cells – microglia. Our results will advance our understanding of fundamental contribution of the glycocalyx to brain physiology and pathology with the translatability to human conditions, thus paving potential ways to develop treatment for brain network disorders.

Keywords: glycobiology,ipsc,metabolic labelling,crispr,viral vectors,organotypic cultures
Your Future You: An Intelligent Conversational Agent to Increase Future Orientation and Decrease Self-defeating Behavior (YourFutureU)

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: Germany
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: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This PoC action harnesses the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance future orientation and mental well-being, and to mitigate self-defeating behaviors. Building on recent evidence that future-oriented thinking —a key factor in academic performance, health, wealth, and goal achievement— can be stimulated, we aim to address the scaling and impact-related challenges of existing interventions. Leveraging the power of AI-powered large language models (LLMs), our proposed solution is to develop an intelligent conversational agent that allows for meaningful interaction with one's future self. This agent will utilize user-specific inputs —such as personality traits and other individual characteristics— to create a backstory of their personal history, i.e., a synthetic memory, and enable a highly personalized and relatable conversation between users and their future, i.e., 10-year older, self. Frequent dialogues with the future self instill a more vivid image of the future self and increase the psychological connection to it. This in turn increases the motivation and ability to consider the longer-term consequences of decisions and reduces the likelihood that people opt for immediate gratification. This effort is facilitated by features known to enhance decision-making: perspective taking, a vivid mental image of the future, and the ability to distance oneself from situations. Originating from our ERC CoG action, in which we used virtual reality technology and smartphone apps to generate future-self avatars, we have begun to see promising results, such as higher levels of engagement and a demonstrated capacity to stimulate future orientation as well as symptom reduction in depression and suicidal ideation. Expanding on this prior work, we aim to develop an innovative solution that integrates the behavioral sciences and computer science, making mental health care more affordable and accessible while addressing self-defeating behaviors in diverse populations.
Accurate reconstruction of microbial genomes from the environment (Metagenome binning)

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 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-08-01
End date: 2025-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 189687.36
EU funding (EUR): 189687.36
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) obtained from metagenomics are of fundamental value to understanding diverse ecological niches of microbes such as the human gut, with applications in medicine, biotechnology, and climate science. However, the quality of MAGs constructed with state-of-the-art tools is often unsatisfactory and worse than the self-reported quality. The main source of error is binning, a computational step that groups sequences assembled from short sequencing reads (contigs) into species-wise bins. The two chief challenges are accurately binning (1) genomes with low abundance and (2) highly conserved regions. Due to cross-mapping of reads, the contigs from conserved regions appear to have abundances equal to the sum of the abundances of the related species or strains. As conventional binning tools all rely on clustering contigs according to their abundances across samples, conserved regions end up forming separate bins. Besides, most existing methods optimise quality measures (purity and completeness based on conserved marker genes) and assess the final quality on these very measures, leading to highly optimistic results. I aim to solve these problems by developing a binning algorithm that applies i) linear mixture models using non-negative matrix factorization to account for cross-mapping, ii) Poisson statistics to accurately model low abundance, and iii) Bayesian statistics-based multinomial clustering to calculate bin numbers. Importantly, it does not require marker gene-based quality measures for binning. By improving the binning of low-abundance and highly conserved contigs, this approach should yield more high-quality MAGs, thereby enhancing a multitude of downstream metagenomic analyses for all areas of microbiome research.

Keywords: metagenomics,binning tool,bioinformatics
Beam self-cleaning beyond its current understanding (BESCLING)

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 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-04-01
End date: 2027-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 242260.56
EU funding (EUR): 242260.56
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

The goal of BESCLING is to shed light on the physics of the beam self-cleaning (BSC) effect. This is driven by Kerr nonlinearity and consists of the spontaneous increase of the spatial quality of a multimode beam, which turns from speckles in the linear regime to a bell shape at sufficiently high power. Since its first observation, BSC has attracted great interest, mostly because it allows for improving the performances of state-of-the-art optical fibre technologies; remarkable examples are the power scale-up of fibre lasers and the resolution enhancement of multiphoton imaging devices. Despite these successes, the physical mechanisms behind BSC are still largely debated. Specifically, recent experiments demonstrated that for achieving BSC the temporal beam evolution plays a pivotal role. Whereas the temporal dimension has been often ignored in the investigation of BSC. Here, I propose a new approach to dig into the physics of BSC. I will build up a holographic mode decomposition tool, which, in addition to retrieving the mode occupation at the fibre output, allows for obtaining information on the beam temporal profile. This will pave the way to a fully spatiotemporal interpretation of BSC, e.g., it will enable the understanding of the simultaneous occurrence of BSC and supercontinuum generation, whose physical interpretation has been largely disregarded, so far. In addition, to survey the generality of BSC, I will explore photonics platforms beyond standard multimode optical fibres like few-mode optical fibres and lossy fibres made of soft glass or polymer. To date, theoretical models do not apply to these types of systems and, from the experimental point of view, only a few observations of BSC have been reported. To this goal, the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne is the perfect Host Institution since it is the only laboratory in Europe that combines expertise in all aspects of BESCLING, from nonlinear guided optics to special fibre fabrication.

Keywords: multimode fibres beam self cleaning supercontinuum generation multimodal optical thermodynamics
Data Spaces: Making Sense of Health in an Age of Cross-Border Data Infrastructures (DataSpace)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Soci al World and Its Interactions
Panel description: Sociology, social psychology, education  sciences , communication  studies
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2022-ADG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2028-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499060.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499060.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

DataSpace proposes a new conceptualization of how the pursuit of health is shaped by data. Healthcare is increasingly datafied and a wide range of actors – patients, clinicians, administrators, policymakers and industry – want to be able to exchange and access health data across national boundaries. Competing initiatives for fostering cross-border data integration proliferate, and the EU provides major investments, e.g. through the European Health Data Space. These massive investments will influence healthcare, administration and research, but we do not know how. DataSpace explores what is driving the establishment of cross-border health-data infrastructures, which types of infrastructures are being established, with which implications for whom, and what comes to be included and acted upon in relation to health, organizational performance, and health policy. Furthermore, these investments emerge in tandem with wider social changes where data have become constitutive for the lives we can live. With DataSpace we therefore explore and conceptualize how people experience themselves and the world around them with and through data. We take the term ‘space’, empirically present in the EHDS initiative, and reinvigorate it theoretically to establish a vocabulary fitted for understanding data-intensive health environments. We suggest seeing data spaces as having both formative and experiential dimensions and explore how they interact. Concerning the formative dimensions, data spaces are enacted through promises, work, and users. Four experiential dimensions relate to what is experienced as right (legally and morally), true (epistemologically), present (phenomenologically) and valuable (economically, emotionally, and socially). This theoretical approach moves beyond problematic distinctions between the virtual and the real and provides a new understanding of how patients, clinicians, researchers, administrators, and industry shape healthcare with and through data.

Keywords: anthropology,critical data studies,cross border,data infrastructure,health data
Efficient QUantum ALgorithms for IndusTrY (EQUALITY)

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: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,France,Netherlands
Call: Strengthening the quantum software ecosystem for quantum computing platforms (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02, 2021)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2025-10-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 6043935.0
EU funding (EUR): 6043935.0
Participants: 13
Project status: SIGNED

A quantum revolution is unfolding, and European scientists are on the lead. Now, it is time to take decisive action and transform our scientific potential into a competitive advantage. Achieving this goal will be critical to ensuring Europe’s technological sovereignty in the coming decades. EQUALITY brings together scientists, innovators, and prominent industrial players with the mission of developing cutting-edge quantum algorithms to solve strategic industrial problems. The consortium will develop a set of algorithmic primitives which could be used as modules for various industry-specific workflows. These primitives include differential equation solvers, material simulation algorithms, quantum optimisers, etc. To focus our efforts, we target eight paradigmatic industrial problems. These problems are likely to yield to early quantum advantage and pertain to the aerospace and energy storage industries. They include airfoil aerodynamics, battery and fuel cell design, space mission optimisation, etc. Our goal is to develop quantum algorithms for real industrial problems using real quantum hardware. This requires grappling with the limitations of present-day quantum hardware. Thus, we will devote a large portion of our efforts to developing strategies for optimal hardware exploitation. These low-level implementations will account for the effects of noise and topology and will optimise algorithms to run on limited hardware. EQUALITY will build synergies with Quantum Flagship projects and Europe’s thriving ecosystem of quantum start-ups. Use cases will be tested on quantum hardware from three of Europe’s leading vendors and two HPC centres. The applications targeted have the potential of creating billions of euros for end-users and technology providers over the coming decades. With EQUALITY, we aim at playing a role in unlocking this value and placing Europe at the centre of this development. The project gathers 9 partners and has a budget of €6M over 3 years.

Keywords: variational quantum algorithms,quantum machine learning,qubit routing,quantum noise,rydberg atoms,quantum neural networks
Repair mechanisms of topoisomerase II DNA lesions (TOPO2_REPAIR)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator 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: Denmark
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2023-COG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-07-01
End date: 2029-06-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Topoisomerase II (TOP2) chemotherapeutics such as etoposide have been widely used in the clinic to treat leukemias, lymphomas, lung, testicular, and ovarian cancers. Etoposide was first approved for clinical usage in 1983. By intercalating into DNA, etoposide stalls the TOP2 catalytic cycle, generating toxic DNA lesions known as TOP2-DNA-protein crosslinks (TOP2-DPCs). After 40 years of intense research, the mechanisms employed by cells that counteract these lesions are starting to emerge. These include enzymes that reverse the crosslink, degrade the protein adduct, or remove the lesion by DNA incisions. Moreover, the protein ZATT was recently described as an essential regulatory enzyme that SUMOylates TOP2 and thereby stimulates TOP2-DPC resolution. Important and long-standing questions in the field relate to our understanding of how the different modes of repair are activated, coordinated between one another, and preferentially used by cells. Based on genetic data, ZATT appears to be the primary responder to TOP2-DPCs but how ZATT coordinates the different modes of repair via TOP2-SUMOylation is currently unclear. To address these questions and study TOP2-DPC repair, we propose to use a novel approach based on Xenopus egg extracts, which can recapitulate DNA repair mechanisms in a soluble environment. As part of our preliminary data, we show that these extracts can recapitulate TOP2-DPC repair via ZATT SUMOylation, providing a unique opportunity to delineate the molecular mechanisms underlying this reaction. By combining this system with complementary and innovative approaches, we seek to obtain a clear molecular understanding of the different mechanisms counteracting TOP2 lesions and unravel the molecular triggers that activate the different routes of repair. By doing this, we will provide new opportunities and targets to improve cancer treatment.

Keywords: dna repair,dna replication,topoisomerase,dna protein crosslinks
Virus-host interactions in the Baltic Sea (VISIBLE)

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: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-12-01
End date: 2024-11-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 222727.68
EU funding (EUR): 222727.68
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Dr. Bell proposes to work with Prof. Andersson at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, to study VIrus-hoSt Interactions in the BaLtic sEa (VISIBLE). Bacteriophages (bacteria specific viruses) are the most abundant biological entity on the planet, yet we are only beginning to grasp the impact they have upon ecosystem functioning. Using state-of-the-art metagenomics, viromics and bioinformatics, the fellow will uncover novel genomes of virus populations in the Baltic Sea and the prokaryotic hosts they infect. Multiple approaches (abundance, CRISPR spacer matching and homology of auxiliary metabolic genes) will be combined to uncover virus-host dynamics. The metagenomic and viromic dataset has a high temporal resolution spanning a three-year period making it possible to answer fundamental ecological questions: (1) How are the temporal dynamics of viruses related to that of their hosts? (2) Can the co-evolution of viruses and their hosts be detected? (3) Do the function of auxiliary metabolic genes reflect changes in environmental gradients? These questions have major implications for biogeochemical cycling and resource turnover in the marine biosphere, as well as water resource management and predicting ecological responses to climate change. By means of a multidisciplinary approach, the fellow will advance their current research skills in microbial ecology and bioinformatics and gain new skills in virology. The MCSA fellow will join a world-class host institute and world-leading research team in environmental genomics. They will establish new interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers from across Sweden and Europe and develop their communication, management and leadership skills. KTH has been awarded HR Excellence in Research and supports the MCSA Green Charter. KTH provides the ideal environment and infrastructure for the fellow to carry out this research and to develop as a leading independent researcher.

Keywords: viromics,metagenomics,aquatic microbiology,ecosystem functioning