Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Achieving Good Environmental Status for maintaining ecosystem SErvices, by ASsessing integrated impacts of cumulative pressures (GES4SEAS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Norway,Denmark,Greece,Ireland,Portugal,Türkiye,Italy,Germany,France,Canada,United Kingdom,Romania,Finland,Netherlands
Call: Assess and predict integrated impacts of cumulative direct and indirect stressors on coastal and marine biodiversity, ecosystems and their services (HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 9024352.5
EU funding (EUR): 9024352.0
Participants: 20
Project status: SIGNED

GES4SEAS will inform and guide marine governance in minimizing human pressures and their impacts on marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, while maintaining the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services. This will be achieved through developing an innovative and flexible toolbox, tested, validated, demonstrated and upscaled, in the context of adaptive Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM). This will allow competent authorities to assess and predict the effect of multiple stressors (including climate change) and pressures from human activities, at the national, sub-regional, regional and European level. This will ensure they achieve Good Environmental Status (MSFD), and support different policies at national, European and global levels (e.g. BHD, Biodiversity Strategy, SDG). This will be achieved by integrating stakeholders and the key competent authorities in a Practitioner Advisory Board, in co-creating and validating the toolbox and the EBM approach. In this, we focus on real problem solving and following an iterative and incremental development approach. This will allow GES4SEAS to achieve Technological and Societal Readiness Levels 6, since our solutions will be tested and demonstrated at 11 Learning Sites (LSs) covering important regions and environments. These LSs have been selected to explore geographical specificities, in the four regional seas, with regards to the impacts of cumulative pressures (including climate change) on the functioning of ecosystems, and their capacity for providing ecosystem services, to ensure better management. This includes LSs to explore transboundary issues and a LS at pan-European scale, to explore comparability and harmonization across regional seas, and gain understanding on the functioning of transverse topics (e.g. invasive species, HABs and jellyfish blooms, and top predators). Finally, to internationalize outputs, we have included a LS in the Caribbean Sea, in relation to the SDGs framework and intense extreme events.

Keywords: cumulative pressures biodiversity strategy climate change ocean literacy ecosystem services integrative ocean health assessment
Generation, validation and use of a synthetic reporter of CAR T cell products function and dysfunction (SynT)

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-2023-POC, 2023)
Start date: 2024-03-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Cell-based immunotherapy, particularly adoptive cell transfer (ACT) using engineered T cells, holds great promise as a therapeutic strategy for cancer treatment. However, challenges such as the manufacturing process, excessive antigen exposure, and the hostile tumor microenvironment often lead to dysfunctional T cell products, limiting their effectiveness in treating both blood cancers and solid tumors. We propose a novel tool to define in vitro conditions to enhance T cell product fitness through the development of a synthetic reporter system for detecting T cell dysfunction states, referred to as SynT. This innovative system will incorporate a dual synthetic locus control region (sLCR) reporter, with one sLCR reporter indicating T cells in a potent "serial killer" mode and another sLCR reporter representing T cell dysfunction. By using SynT, we aim to screen for external signaling and pharmacological modulators that can enrich and reverse the dysfunctional state in CAR T cells. we will generate and validate a synthetic reporter of CAR T cell products function and dysfunction, and produce a media supplement that promotes ACT products functions.
Predictive REagent-Antibody Replacement Technology stage 2-Translation (PRe-ART-2T)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Transition
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Germany,Switzerland,United Kingdom
Call: EIC Transition Open 2021 (HORIZON-EIC-2021-TRANSITIONOPEN-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-06-01
End date: 2025-05-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 800000.0
EU funding (EUR): 800000.0
Participants: 3
Project status: SIGNED

PRe-ART-2T will translate FET-OPEN project PRe-ART (Predictive Reagent Antibody Replacement Technology) from laboratory proof-of-concept to investment readiness. We retain Pre-ART?s original aim to disrupt the reagent antibody market, which after forty years plus, is still based on monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to detect biomolecules, when 50% of all commercial reagent mAbs have been shown to not function correctly. Pre-ART has successfully delivered a foundational platform technology to TRL3. Pre-ART-2T will develop the technology to TRL6, so empowering our aim to disrupt the reagent antibody market by replacing low-quality, commercial animal-derived reagent mAbs with high-performing synthetic alternatives, created by combining modules from our encyclopaedia of experimentally pre-selected amino acid-binding motifs. Multidisciplinarity is key to the current experimental success of PRe-ART. By combining collective expertise in biochemistry, computational protein design and protein engineering, we have created a virtuous circle wherein biochemical & structural data (UZH) inform our novel computational mutagenic predictions (UBT), that inform synthesis of highly-specified gene libraries (Aston), whose protein products are analysed though novel high-throughput screens (UZH). Key hits are analysed biochemically and structurally (UZH) and resulting data inform the next cycle. As the cycle reiterates, greater specificity ensues. We have thus created many new and extremely stable amino acid-binding motifs that we have also combined in a modular manner to successfully bind predicted peptide targets. The project has also resulted in novel modelling (ATLIGATOR), mutagenic (ParaMAX randomization) and screening procedures. In Pre-ART-T2 we will complete our suite of dArmRPs for natural and modified amino acids and further study their modularity by creating prototypes for four commercially-relevant targets. At the end of the PRE-ART-2T, we expect to seek investment of ~E20 M.

Keywords: protein design,antibodies,armadillo repeat proteins,computation,molecular modelling,max randomization,paramax,biological engineering,biotechnology,directed evolution,diagnostics
Contested frontiers: Understanding the metapolitics of settler-state peripheries (CONFRONT)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Panel description: Political science, international relations, law
Countries involved: Norway
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2023-STG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2029-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1544896.0
EU funding (EUR): 1544896.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Between Indigenous self-determination and settler colonization lie contested frontiers, subject to metapolitics – i.e., to competition over the framing of polities. In the past, settlers, using force, domesticated frontiers. Recent decades have seen an Indigenous resurgence, rekindling metapolitics, particularly on settler-state peripheries. These contests are increasingly waged by weaponizing “constitutive principles”: Is the demos universal or divisible? Should individual or collective rights prevail? Should democracy or self-determination decide? Resolving such contests is difficult. Yet the metapolitics of today’s frontiers have escaped political-science attention. CONFRONT aims to develop a theory of frontier metapolitics. It will study contests over constitutive principles in, and how such contests shape and are shaped by, settler-state peripheries. It will gather and test data from settler federal territories and related peripheries to pursue four research objectives: conceptualizing metapolitics to render it cognizable, compiling the first dataset of frontier constitutive metapolitical contests, analysing such contests and their interaction with the constitution of peripheries, and normatively theorizing how such contests should be approached/resolved. CONFRONT will combine comparative politics, comparative constitutional law, and normative political theory to identify and open a salient new research field. Led by a pioneer of settler-metapolitical studies with a unique pre-academic background in peripheral areas, this project will make modern frontier metapolitical contests visible, comprehensible, and more soluble. If successful, it will place peripheries central to studies of metapolitics, inspiring and preparing scientists, decisionmakers, civil-society actors, and even colonized peoples to grapple with the rising metapolitical instability of peripheries and of the “late Westphalian” world at large.

Keywords: settler colonialism,decolonization,indigenous rights,metapolitics,frontiers,peripheries,state building,westphalianism,comparative constitutionalism,comparative politics,normative political theory
DNA: A Dependable NIC Architecture (DNA)

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-2025-POC, 2025)
Start date: 2026-04-01
End date: 2027-09-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The DNA project aims to develop and deploy trustworthy distributed systems on large-scale heterogeneous datacenters (HDCs) such that their dependability properties, i.e., safety, security, and fault-tolerance, can be enforced by the foundational layers of the network hardware stack. Distributed systems have become ubiquitous in modern cloud environments, offering high availability, perfor- mance, and resource scalability. However, ensuring the dependability and performance of distributed systems in large-scale HDCs, which are vulnerable to malicious threats and arbitrary (Byzantine) failures, is a complex task. Existing systems are limited by (a) programmability: They lack a unified, trusted foundation for security and programmability, (b) security: They have vulnerabilities and may be unable to handle malicious attacks and (c) high-performance: They can be slow, especially in complex distributed systems. These limitations force programmers to use ad-hoc methods, which can be expensive and unreliable. The DNA project seeks to resolve the design trade-off between security and performance by introducing a new trustworthy network-level abstraction. DNA realizes this abstraction by proposing a minimalistic, high-performance, and verifiable silicon-root-of-trust as the foundational hardware building block for implementing trustworthy distributed systems. Our implementation of DNA on commodity SmartNICs will revolutionize the way distributed systems are built in cloud environments. By providing a synergistic co-design of hardware-software networking substrate, we abstract out the hardware heterogeneity in cloud environments while providing a minimalistic interface for resource management, isolation, communication, and trust establishment. Overall, we aim to empower programmers and significantly strengthen the dependability properties of widely adopted distributed systems.
Circuit mechanisms of behavioural variability in Drosophila flight. (MOBY-FLY)

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: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-12-01
End date: 2027-11-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

While sensory systems report sensory input with high reliability, behavioural responses are inherently variable. How this variability arises and how behavioural decisions are formed, is not well understood in any organism. I will use the fruit fly Drosophila as a model system to study how a specific behaviour is initiated depending on external stimuli and behavioural state. During flight, flies change direction to avoid dangers or search for food with a fast turning response called saccade. This behaviour can be replicated in head-fixed flying flies, where saccades are measured as fast changes in wing stroke amplitude, which allows for simultaneous recordings of neuronal activity. However, the neuronal circuits underlying the execution of saccades in the fly brain are not known. Previously, I have discovered a descending neuron, whose activity is strongly correlated with saccadic turns during head-fixed flight. I will use novel anatomical tools and the available EM data sets to find the neurons, which provide input to this descending neuron and which control saccades. I will then record their activity using both 2-photon Calcium imaging of a genetically encoded indicator and whole-cell patch-clamp recordings during flight. At the same time, I will present a panel of multisensory stimuli, while monitoring turning behaviour. This will allow me to test under which stimulus conditions and internal states these neurons are active and whether their activity is more closely correlated with sensory input or behavioural output. To test for the contribution of these neurons to the execution of saccades, I will use genetic tools to manipulate their activity during tethered as well as free flight. This comprehensive approach will allow me to study, which neurons control saccadic turns and at which processing stage behavioural decisions are made and will provide general insights into how information is processed along the sensory-to-motor pathway and how behaviour is initiated.

Keywords: sensory motor integration,2 photon calcium imaging,patch clamp recordings,drosophila melanogaster,decision making
Mechanistic insight into the role of glycosylation in focal cortical epilepsy through modelling in brain organoids. (EpiGlyco)

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: 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): 226420.56
EU funding (EUR): 226420.56
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

An increasing number of neurodevelopmental pathologies are associated with disorders of glycosylation. One such disorder is MOGHE (Mild Malformation of Cortical Development with Oligodendroglial Hyperplasia in Epilepsy), which is primarily caused by brain somatic mutations in the gene SLC35A2. This gene encodes the sole known ER/Golgi UDP-galactose transporter, and mutations in SLC35A2 result in loss of galactose from glycans. The only therapeutic approach to control MOGHE-related seizures is surgical resection of the affected brain region. The host lab has used this tissue to gain insight into the genomic, histological and transcriptomic characteristics of MOGHE. To better understand the pathophysiology of this condition and promote future therapeutic approaches (e.g. galactose supplementation), I will model MOGHE by generating mosaic SLC35A2 knockout myelinating organoids. Through imaging and electrophysiological approaches, I will use these organoids to understand the development of the phenotypic characteristics of MOGHE: oligodendroglial hyperplasia, hypo-myelination, defective neuronal migration, and altered neuronal electrical activity. To better understand the mechanisms underpinning these phenotypes, I will use high-throughput approaches, including single-cell RNA sequencing and glycoproteomics to identify candidate conveyors. Findings from these experiments can then be validated on patient tissues available in the host laboratory. Beyond therapeutic perspectives, the mosaic nature of this model provides an unprecedented opportunity to gain insight into the cell autonomous and non-cell autonomous roles of glycans in cortical development and function. This project incorporates the state of the art in techniques used to study brain development and glycobiology and thus will expand on my existing skills as a researcher in a highly collaborative and open host environment and help me reach my goal of becoming an independent researcher.

Keywords: malformations of cortical development glycosylation epilepsy cortical organoids glycoproteomics oligodendroglia
Women and Arabic Literacy in Congo during the Colonial Period: A Double Invisibility (WOMLIT)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Belgium
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): 175920.0
EU funding (EUR): 175920.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

WOMLIT project aims at challenging the invisible presence of women in Arabic literacy in Congo during the colonial period (1885-1960). The core assumption is that the grasp of salient feature of the participation of Muslim women in literacy is key to understanding Islam in Central Africa, women’s identity, social networks, and major inherent gender and class tensions. This project is mainly designed to address the historical gap on the absence of women in Arabic literacy, aiming to bring new female voices. To reach these goals, and given the significant scarcity of documentation in the field, WOMLIT will adopt a transnational, socio-historical and feminist perspective, combining oral testimonies, archival research and photographic material collected in Congo, as well as in other locations (Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, including Zanzibar) and in the Arabian Peninsula (Sultanate of Oman). The project will address the extent to which Muslim women’s practices in other Swahili areas can be transposable to Congo, and vice versa, addressing their participation in Sufi Brotherhoods (Qaradiyya), Umwali (sexual initiation) and magic. WOMLIT will analyse how the question of archives and the voices they reveal is a fundamental issue for feminist theories. This project aims to add new perspectives on the history of the Congo, as well as the history of Oman whose presence in Congo remains silenced compared to its influence in East Africa. WOMLIT is closely related to the research led by the researcher's supervisor Xavier Luffin and his team on Arabic literacy in Eastern Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda during the colonial period, part of a 4-year project funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS, Belgium), that will greatly benefit the fellow.

Keywords: congo,arabic literacy,arab swahilis,oman,colonial,women s invisibility,gender,archives,oral history,muslim practices,islam,sufism,religion
AI for Health: Evaluation of Applications & Datasets (AHEAD)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Staff Exchanges
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Spain,Greece,Netherlands,Israel,Austria,Finland,United States,Italy,Switzerland
Call: MSCA Staff Exchanges 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-SE-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 496800.0
EU funding (EUR): 496800.0
Participants: 15
Project status: SIGNED

The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on the rise, and yet, there remains a lack of consensus on standardised approaches for responsible implementation. In Europe, there is a strong push to regulate AI, particularly in high-impact societal applications such as biomedicine and healthcare. The objective of AHEAD is to create a transdisciplinary, diverse and global community drawing on the expertise of professionals in biomedicine, ethics, AI development, software engineering, sociology, psychology, law, gender studies, and relevant stakeholders, dedicated to the ongoing effort of tackling challenges and setting important standards in an ever-changing landscape. Together, the community will gather, consolidate, and put into practice established principles and guidelines, building a methodology and a platform to evaluate AI-based systems for biomedical and healthcare applications to ensure the compliance with legal, ethical, technical, scientific, and regulatory standards. The project will extend the fucntionalities of OpenEBench, ELIXIR’s benchmarking platform for bioinformatics tools, to provide a platform for these assessments. The community will also establish an observatory to collect and curate existing guidelines, best practices, and principles for AI assessment in biomedicine and healthcare across multiple disciplines (technical, societal, legal, etc.). AHEAD will encourage responsible AI innovation through constant collaboration and knowledge exchanges, to continuously meet the demands of the fast-changing AI landscape and ensure that quality healthcare for all people is never compromised and only enhanced. The proposed project is the beginning of a sustained endeavour that would greatly benefit from mobility grants to enhance community bonds and foster collaborative efforts toward this goal.

Keywords: artificial intelligence,law,sociology,ethics,eu ai act,psychology,transdisciplinarity