Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Massive parallel de novo design of sensing nanopores (PoreMADNeSS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting 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: Belgium
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2023-STG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-04-01
End date: 2029-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1831287.5
EU funding (EUR): 1499250.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Proteins embedded in membranes play key roles in maintaining cell integrity, homeostasis and communication. Emerging technologies (nanopore sequencing, synthetic cells, …) imitate biological systems and repurpose membrane protein for the transport and sensing of new analytes through synthetic membranes. These applications have fuelled the demand for (synthetic) membrane proteins with properties and functions not observed in nature. Structure-based computational protein design is revolutionizing many aspects of biotechnology but has almost exclusively focused on protein folding in water. The aim of PoreMADNeSS is to develop innovative strategies to enable the design of transmembrane β-barrels (TMBs), a class of membrane proteins with excellent properties to act as nanopore sensors. Using multidisciplinary approaches, we will address basic biophysical knowledge gaps that currently limit TMB design. The design of TMB folding in synthetic membranes gives access to a wealth of TMB sequences and structures not sampled by nature because of constraints associated with biogenesis and with the composition of biomembranes. We propose a combination of massive parallel de novo design and adaptive machine learning to explore this unknown TMB space, to gain crucial insight into the determinants of TMB folding and to develop robust design methods. As a proof-of-concept, PoreMADNeSS will focus on the design of steroid sensing nanopores. Our strategy is to design a cortisol binding site across the transmembrane channel, which would act as the reading head for single molecule fingerprinting. My lab was first to demonstrate the feasibility of TMB design and has established a design pipeline from computation to electrophysiology and biochemical characterization. This project has all the components to translate into transformative advances in nanopore sensing and sequencing by providing the nanopore R&D community with accurate and innovational computational design methodologies.
CONtext-aware VerifIable dyNamiC dEliberation (CONVINCE)

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
Partnership: AI-DATA-ROBOTICS (co-programmed)
Countries involved: Italy,France,Germany,Ireland,Belgium,United Kingdom
Call: Pushing the limit of robotics cognition (AI, Data and Robotics Partnership) (RIA) (HORIZON-CL4-2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-10-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 42.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4332400.0
EU funding (EUR): 4332400.0
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

In recent years, robots are being increasingly deployed outside strictly controlled environments. When faced with unexpected situations, these robots are often incapable of taking appropriate action and require human intervention. The goal of CONVINCE is to advance the capabilities of robots to perform complex tasks robustly and safely within unstructured environments via autonomous and unsupervised adaptation to the environment and operational context. More specifically, the key contribution is to develop cognitive deliberation capabilities that ensure safe robot operation over extended periods of time without human intervention. These capabilities will be integrated into a model-driven software toolchain to allow developers to build application-specific deliberation systems able to i) determine robot’s behaviors required to fulfill a given task, also taking into account the context in which the robot operates and the experience gained during previous executions of the same task, ii) deploy and configure the components that are required to execute these behaviors, iii) automate the analysis of behaviors to ensure that they are safe and secure, leveraging on formal models and tools for design-time and run-time verification. The toolchain shall be based on proven system modeling concepts, particularly from the EU-funded project RobMoSys. Major parts shall be open-sourced with adapters to relevant robotics frameworks like the Robot Operating System (ROS). To ensure real-world applicability, CONVINCE will demonstrate the technology developed in the project on three different real-world use cases, each of which presents unique technical difficulties and utilizes robotic systems of increasing complexity, in different application domains: vacuum cleaner robot, assembly robot, and robotic museum guide.

Keywords: verification of autonomous systems,task and motion planning,scene understanding,learning and perception,behavior trees,software architectures for robotics,open source software,ros
NAMS WITHIN INTEGRATED SAFETY & EFFICACY EVALUATION OF CHEMICALS AND PHARMACEUTICALS (NAMWISE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Health
Theme: Health
Destination: Maintaining an innovative, sustainable and globally competitive health industry
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: France,Spain,Germany,Netherlands,Austria,United Kingdom,Belgium,Switzerland
Call: Gaining experience and confidence in New Approach Methodologies (NAM) for regulatory safety and efficacy testing – coordinated training and experience exchange for regulators (HORIZON-HLTH-2024-IND-06, 2024)
Start date: 2024-12-01
End date: 2027-05-31
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2049890.0
EU funding (EUR): 1977390.0
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

The vision of the NAMWISE project is to provide a supporting framework to pave a scientifically substantiated way towards a paradigm-shift in (eco)toxicology that will not rely on in vivo data. To fulfil its vision the project will leverage the acquired knowledge on New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) and then gather new input from all stakeholders to refine, improve and optimize their use in regulatory contexts for chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The project will merge under its umbrella inputs from a multi-disciplinary consortium comprising academia, NAM-developers, NAM users (CROs), regulators while reaching out towards societal expectations. The workplan of NAMWISE is organized along far-reaching objectives driven by the interest for all the stakeholders: 1. Sustain and amplify the momentum built by similar initiatives by combining expertise on in silico tools, in vitro assays and a widespread network with external projects. 2. Provide a pragmatic approach based on case-studies for hazard/risk assessment and drug efficacy that will guide the project in implementing NAMs strategies. These procedures will be submitted to a peer-review to ensure that what the NAM community receive is of a high standard. 3. Deliver an analysis of requirements in terms of standardization and validation of NAMs that benefits from the input of the PEPPER platform on pre-validation, a unique French initiative on NAMs based on public and private funding. 4. Foster fruitful interactions between stakeholders catalyzed by several actions, including a series of workshops and training initiatives targeted on the needs of CROs identified during the project. 5. Propose a way forward for solving NAMs’ shortcomings and enhancing their drivers. Finally, the project will provide a white paper during its final open symposium that will render NAMWISE a major reference point and essential force for bringing forward proposals for animal-free chemical and drug assessments.

Keywords: nams,chemical sector,pharmaceutical sector,safety,regulatory
The gut and bias benefits - the investigation on urolithin metabotypes. Producer strains isolation and multiomic-based description of ellagitannin biotransformation. (UroAPROD)

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: Belgium
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-02-01
End date: 2026-02-28
Duration (months): 25.0
Total project cost (EUR): 191760.0
EU funding (EUR): 191760.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Ellagitannin-rich herbal remedies are used traditionally because of their anti-inflammatory activity. This is connected not to ellagitannins themselves but to their metabolites produced by the gut microbiota. Urolithin A (UroA) is recognized as the most significant of all ellagitannins’ metabolites. However, not everyone is able to have it produced in their gut. The UroA production is exclusive to the hosts of urolithin metabotype A (UM-A) and B (UM-B) and is most probably dependent on the gut microbiota composition and activity. Preliminary trials showed that UM-A hosts have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Moreover, the transition from UM-A to other metabotypes is also connected to aging, which might suggest losing certain beneficial abilities. The identity of microorganisms that differentiate UroA producers were not yet revealed. If recognized, new probiotics might be designed. Providing non-UM-A hosts with the possibility to produce UroA efficiently would grant them an advantage due to reports of a wide range of proven and indicated UroAs biological activities. The project aims to isolate, characterize and preserve bacterial strains able to produce UroA from the fecal samples of UM-A and UM-B donors. This will be possible due to innovative substrate conversion screening strategies and novel metabolomic and sequencing techniques utilization. Results will provide missing insights about urolithin metabotypes for further explanatory studies focused on the elucidation of UM-dependant features. Moreover, bioinformatic tools will be developed to obtain multi-omic descriptions of the studied processes, combining metabolomic and targeted metagenomic data. The project will deliver protocols and data analysis methods that will enable us to run advanced projects in the field of natural products biotransformation research. The established pipelines will be suitable also for dysbiosis, xenobiotic-microbiome interaction and pre- and probiotic design studies.

Keywords: gut microbiota biotransformation urolithin metabotypes urolithin a microbial isolation multi omics metabolomics targeted metagenomics comparative transcriptomics proteomics bioinformatics
GPS-free, beyond the visual line of sight navigation for logistics drones in urban environments (AUTOFLY)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Challenges
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Israel
Call: Green Deal innovations for the Economic Recovery (HORIZON-EIC-2021-ACCELERATORCHALLENGES-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-04-01
End date: 2023-12-31
Duration (months): 21.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3527060.0
EU funding (EUR): 2456377.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Sightec offers a unique platform based on cutting-edge algorithms which can provide vision-based orientation and navigation, Real-time Detection & Tracking, Visual Positioning and Autonomous Inspection. Sightec analytics performed on edge devices support a novel approach for determining global self-position. Our system enables constant communication and real-time broadcast of analytics to mission control, while using minimal network bandwidth. With Sightec, autonomous and remotely piloted vehicles to navigate as human pilots do, by cross-referencing map data with visually observed landmarks, known waypoints, and visible obstacles and hazards. Sightec enables drones to autonomously perform complex tasks that are otherwise impossible with currently available technology. In February 2021, our capabilities were demonstrated through a successful flight of a delivery drone across five routes in southern Israel, beyond line-of-sight and without the use of GPS.

Keywords: navigation,guidance,control and tracking,machine learning,statistical data processing and,beyond the visual line of sight bvlos navigation,urban logistics drones,last mile logistics,drone navigation
Resilient Enhancement for the Silicon Industry Leveraging the European matriX (RESILEX)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Industry
Destination: Increased Autonomy in Key Strategic Value Chains for Resilient Industry
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,France,Luxembourg,Belgium,Italy,Switzerland,Norway,United Kingdom
Call: Building innovative value chains from raw materials to sustainable products (IA) (HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-06-01
End date: 2026-05-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 12039696.79
EU funding (EUR): 10577055.0
Participants: 25
Project status: SIGNED

The general objective of Project RESiLEX is to demonstrate 7 industry-driven technological and business innovative solutions covering the full Silicon value chain in order to contribute to improving the resilience and sustainability of this critical raw material value chain in Europe. RESiLEX (Resilient Enhancement for the Silicon Industry Leveraging the European matriX) will assess the economical, social and environmental impact of these solutions and identify, roadmap, provide open source policy-making recommendations to accelerate the replication of the ones with the highest potential, while also addressing transversal challenges from the European mining industry as a whole with a 8th pilot transversal demonstration.

Keywords: silicon,photovoltaic
Platform Experiments: How Standardized Tools and Customized Artificial Intelligence Shape Competition and Fairness Within Platform Markets (PLATEX)

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: Economic Sciences
Countries involved: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-10-01
End date: 2026-09-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165312.96
EU funding (EUR): 165312.96
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

PLATEX studies how users are affected by increased standardization associated with tools and services offered by platforms, and whether AI offsets these effects through customization. PLATEX reveals a potential “illusion of choice” where optional tools shape competition on platforms and enable unequal treatment of users under the veil of self-selection. In the empirical context of the e-commerce industry, PLATEX examines how a tool offered by a leading European price comparison platform impacts users’ behavior and performance. In a second step, PLATEX integrates platform and AI research to examine the interplay of standardization and customization through AI. To this end, PLATEX conducts experiments on a newly created peer-to-peer chat platform and analyses the use of an AI tool based on natural language processing (NLP), using an innovative methodological approach that combines the benefits of lab and field experiments. PLATEX builds on a two-way transfer of knowledge between the researcher, whose research identity centers on ecosystems and platforms, and the host institution IESE Business School, where the supervisor of the project, Prof. Sampsa Samila, directs the AI and Future of Management Initiative. The training advances the researcher’s knowledge and network in the field of AI, adds to her methodological toolkit with experimental methods, and sets her on the path to a tenured professorship at a leading European business school. It also positions her for non-academic roles in the fields of data science, business development and technology regulation.

Keywords: technology strategy,platforms,artificial intelligence,standardization,competition,business ecosystems,consumer protection,quantitative empirical and experimental methods
Capture-and-Release Organic Nanomaterials for Optical Sensing and Control of Cells (CaptuRel)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Panel description: New materials and new synthetic approaches, structure -properties relations, solid state chemistry, molecular architecture, organic chemistry
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2024-ADG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-10-01
End date: 2030-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Fluorescence sensing materials enable detection of biologically active molecules at the cellular level, whereas photo-responsive materials for molecular uncaging allow controlling cellular processes. Would it be possible to merge these two research fields? The aim of CaptuRel is intelligent fluorescent nanomaterials undergoing bioinspired cycle of specific capture/sensing and photorelease of naturally present bioactive species, protons and neurotransmitters (NTs), for sensing and controlling chemical gradients at the biological interface. These CaptuRel materials will use protons and NTs as messengers to establish chemical communication with other materials and cells in a two-way detection-action regime. They will be applied for sensing and controlling activity and connections of neurons. The project is composed of three work packages. (1) We will establish concepts of fluorescent artificial receptors that exploit adaptive and dynamic covalent chemistry with fluorescent dyes and recognition ligands in nanoparticles for specific reversible capture/sensing of NTs. They will change their fluorescence color/intensity on specific capture of NTs and lose their affinity to NTs at low pH. (2) We will introduce photoacid nanomaterials capable to generate and control pH gradients at distances 0-1000 nm and apply them for short-distance chemical communication with materials and cells. (3) We will obtain CaptuRel materials capable of NT capture and photorelease by coupling artificial receptors with photoacids. They will sense and control NT gradients at 1-100 µm distances and enable us to establish principles of long-distance material-material and material-cell communication based on NTs. This high-risk/high-gain multidisciplinary project will establish a paradigm-shifting concept of a nanomaterial capable to capture bioactive molecules in situ, allowing sensing biological events and then photorelease these molecules to control in space and time bio-activity at cellular level.

Keywords: polymeric nanoparticles,polymeric nanofibers,light responsive materials,fluorescence sensing,fluorescent dyes,probes,dynamic covalent chemistry,photorelease,photocages,photoacids,photo responsive materials,molecularly imprinted polymers,artificial receptors,chemical communication,neurotransmitters,neuromodulators,cell membrane,nanomaterial cell interactions,biosensing,cellular imaging,neural stimulation,synaptic plasticity
Setting Up green eNergy Research In SErbia (SUNRISE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
Programme: Widening participation and spreading excellence
Theme: Improved access to Excellence
Destination: Improved access to Excellence
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Serbia,Netherlands,Spain
Call: Twinning (HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2025-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1406746.25
EU funding (EUR): 1406746.25
Participants: 5
Project status: SIGNED

The EU aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and be climate-neutral by 2050. Serbia has also adopted the Clean Energy for all Europeans package and agreed to a decarbonization roadmap. The transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions includes the decarbonization of the power sector. However, up to date, the majority of the energy in Serbia is fossil-fueled, with very little or no progress towards energy decarbonization. Moreover, pollution in Serbia is reaching alarming numbers, placing it as one of the leading countries in Europe related to bad air quality and pollution. Nonetheless, research capacity in the power system decarbonization domain at UB, as well as other actors in Serbia and the region, are undeveloped and insufficient for competitive R & I. Therefore, SUNRISE aims to support the Power System Department (the University of Belgrade – School of Electrical Engineering) in improving excellence capacity in the field of Power system decarbonization. Research excellence will be promoted in three dimensions by improving research infrastructure through the development of Real-Time Simulation Laboratory for power system simulation, upskilling research staff through training and mobility, the development of new approaches in exploratory research projects with partners. Furthermore, as network and collaboration between UB and other research institutions in the EU is modest or non-existent, as well as low linkages between UB and industry, the special focus in SUNRISE will be given to mobility and networking activities. One more SUNRISE objective is to improve the research management and administrative skills of the staff at UB, to enhance funding attraction and participation in international research projects. SUNRISE partners have a long experience and high scientific impact in the power system decarbonization field, and they can support UB to improve scientific performance and research profile, as well as participation success in HE.

Keywords: energy decarbonization,energy transition,real time simulation,knowledge transfer,smart grids