Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Teaching Old Crypto New Tricks (TOCNeT)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Panel description: Informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
Countries involved: Austria
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2015-CoG, 2015)
Start date: 2016-04-01
End date: 2021-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1882244.0
EU funding (EUR): 1882244.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The bulk of the research in modern cryptography goes into constructing new schemes for which stronger security guarantees can be proven. However, often it is not clear if simple existing schemes already provide the required security, and we just don’t know how to prove it. As these new schemes are usually less efficient, they are not being applied resulting in a large discrepancy between the security that applied schemes are supposed to provide and what is actually proven. This project aims at closing this gap in different contexts: we will revisit simple schemes (including widely deployed ones) using new tools, developed by us and others in the last years, towards proving much stronger security properties than what is currently known. Three research directions in which we have already made substantial progress and which we will further investigate are: Adaptive Security: Often we can prove a scheme secure against selective adversaries, while in practice stronger adaptive security is required. Until recently this was the case for constrained PRFs, the popular LKH multicast encryption and all known proxy re-encryption schemes. Last year we introduced the “nested hybrids” proof technique, which allowed us to prove adaptive security of these schemes. We will further develop and apply this technique. Symmetric Cryptography: Although symmetric schemes are the work horses of crypto, for most of them we only have non-tight security proofs which leave a huge gap to the best known attacks. We recently proved tight security bounds for HMAC (used for authentication in SSL/TLS, SSH and IPsec) and the Sponge family used in the SHA3 standard. Pseudoentropy: Computational notions of entropy have found many applications in the last few years. The tools available to manipulate pseudoentropy yield poor quantitative bounds, resulting in impractical schemes. We will continue our research towards establishing the exact necessary security degradation for manipulating pseudoentropy.

Keywords: provable security,adaptive security,symmetric cryptography,pseudoentropy
Wiraya Activation Intelligence (WAI)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: Open Disruptive Innovation Scheme (H2020-SMEINST-2-2016-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-03-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2902320.0
EU funding (EUR): 2031624.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

European mobile telecom operators struggle with low customer satisfaction and loyalty in highly competitive markets resulting in high churn (an average mobile operator churn of 14% means that an operator with 5m customers loses 700,000 customers each year), lower ARPU and a high marketing spend to win new customers. Many operators use advanced churn prediction models today but have not yet found an effective way to leverage on this knowledge at large scale. They now demand tools to efficiently engage with millions of customers on a personal level and thereby increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Our managed software cost-efficiently orchestrates and delivers personalized communication enabling dialogues with large customer bases using a blend of voice and text to mimic a human communication. Today, we optimize the communication manually based on our team’s experience, but will now take our product to be automatically data-driven utilizing AI (WAI). Based on previous and real-time interactions WAI learns and adapts what, when and how to communicate with each individual, helping customers to change price plan, order new handset, renew service or get support through a mobile device. Initial tests prove five times higher conversion, and optimize customer lifetime value at a scale that is not possible manually. Wiraya was established in 2008, employs 40 in Stockholm (HQ) and London, and revenue grew by 83% to €3m in 2016. We have worked with Northern Europe’s largest telecom operators for years, and presented WAI to their top management with very positive response, resulting in LoI:s with 3 leading test partner operators. We have a window of opportunity to gain market shares ahead of competition, and will in 2022 have +€45m in revenue and employ +150 people. Our cutting-edge AI technology and expertise is transferable across EU and strengthens EU’s innovation climate and global AI competitiveness, not only within telecom, but also within other verticals.

Keywords: artificial intelligence,customer relationship management,customer communication technology,telecom industry
Kick-starting global cLimate Investments: uncovering hidden liNks in climate finance and exploring dynamic evolution of investment networKs for policy deSign (LINKS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — 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: United Kingdom
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2018-STG, 2018)
Start date: 2019-09-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499956.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499956.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

LINKS aims to contribute to a transformation of the climate finance system to deliver the scale and quality of investment needed to meet the Paris climate goals and ensure effective capital allocation. By understanding the architecture of the financial system, exploring macro patterns in low-carbon investment emerging from observed investors’ behaviour and interactions, and designing cross-cutting policies aligned with long-term climate targets, LINKS will promote essential guidance for a re-orientation of financial flows towards low-carbon and energy efficiency investments. LINKS aims to advance the understanding of the role of climate finance to foster the low-carbon transition by using network theory, advanced computational techniques and extensive empirical data to model the financial system as a complex adaptive system. LINKS will thus lay the foundations of, and pioneer a new field, namely climate finance networks, where dynamics of interconnected investors represented as a network, results in the complex behavior of the whole system. LINKS will bring together interdisciplinary theories and developments in finance, environmental economics, sociology, computer science, network analysis and complexity in an integrated approach to study and model climate finance. Taking this approach will allow advancements in at least three directions: i) a new theoretical approach to account for complexity thinking and systemic perspective in climate finance, ii) more empirical analyses on networks structures of low-carbon investments and their dynamics to shape the development of the climate finance system, iii) policy modelling analyses to explore whether specific architectures of the climate finance system have significant impact on the effectiveness of climate public policies and invested public resources. LINKS will thus deliver robust conclusions on how the financial system could contribute to the required investments to achieve the low-carbon transition.

Keywords: climate finance,complex systems,financial networks
Evolution of the interaction between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes in bumblebees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Bombus): the importance of numts and heteroplasmy (EVOBOMICS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Career Restart panel
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-10-04
End date: 2025-10-02
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Cutting edge sequencing technology enables, for the first time, the characterization of high quality numts (non-functional copies of genes of mitochondrial origin present in the nuclear genome) and heteroplasmy (the presence of different mitochondrial genotypes in the same organism). Although they are completely distinct molecular phenomena, both can be at the same time obstacles and new tools for evolutionary studies. EVOBOMICS is three projects in one, in which numts, heteroplasmy and genomes (nuclear and mitochondrial) will be studied at the same time and from an evolutionary perspective. The following hypotheses will be tested: i) Numts and heteroplasmy are common in a target model taxon (bumblebees); ii) The number of numts in any given species will increase/decrease proportionately with its nuclear genome size; iii) Ancestral numts are related to speciation events, and thus provide a novel tool for constructing and investigating phylogenies; iv) Numts can be used as molecular marker for phylogenomic reconstruction as truly RGCs (rare genomic changes); v) Heteroplasmy is not a temporary state and is shared among close related species; vi) Heteroplasmy can interfere in species delimitation and is related to speciation events. My previous experience and preliminary results ensure the feasibility of EVOBOMICS. During my PhD in Brazil, I initiated an unprecedented and unique research programme into the evolution of mitochondrial genomes, with a focus on numts and heteroplasmy in bees. So far, five articles have been published. Together, these studies suggest that numts and heteroplasmy are common phenomena in bees, and this is likely to be representative of many other taxa. These studies had to be interrupted due to motherhood, but now, EVOBOMICS will give me the opportunity to develop this new research area using innovative methodological approaches, and to update and improve my skills, providing a key stepping stone for my career in Evolutionary Biology.

Keywords: numts,heteroplasmy,nuclear genome,mitochondrial genome,bees,bumblebees
Textuality and Diversity: A Literary History of Europe and its Global Connections, 1545-1659 (TextDiveGlobal)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Cultures and cultural production
Panel description: Literary studies, cultural studies, study of the arts, philosophy
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANT (ERC-2020-ADG, 2020)
Start date: 2021-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2156247.0
EU funding (EUR): 2156247.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This five-year programme of investigation of 52 textual corpora includes Mesoamerican codices, Jesuit neo-Latin plays, popular songs, Kongolese documents in Portuguese, Cervantes’ works, examples of live speech from archives, and many others. It will produce an interdisciplinary literary history of Europe and its global connections for the period between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. The Reformation had fragmented Christendom into differing religious identities. Europeans were multiplying encounters with peoples and cultures in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. TextDiveGlobal challenges the legacy of nineteenth-century European literary-historical scholarship insofar as it durably organised the textual heritage connected with Europe from the perspective of distinct western European national literary canons and histories, and the comparisons and relations between them. Using analytical and linguistic-geographical criteria, it selects a wide and multilingual range of textual objects and forms both made and encountered by Europeans, in relation to spaces from Mexico to China, and events from the Church Council of Trent (1545) to the diplomatic Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). The objective is to understand how textual and sociocultural diversity inform one another in different contexts and regions of this multifarious world. The methodology is a global-historical anthropology of texts grouped into corpora assembled on four interrelated principles: works, forms, spaces, events. Outputs include a two-volume summa (Oxford University Press), a database of information and images relating to the corpora, and a series of seminars across the USA and Europe. In each of five year-long phases of the research, a sub-team of experts and PDRFs will meet with the PI across the year, in weekly meetings and in two formal workshops. There will be small peer review groups across the phases; all events and draft chapters will be available to the whole group online.

Keywords: early modern european and world literature,oral,performative,written,printed,visual texts,the late renaissance,the reformation and counter reformation,history of the book,transnational literary history,history of communications
Rotational mechanical effects of sound (RMES)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Physics
Countries involved: France
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 196707.84
EU funding (EUR): 196707.84
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The exploratory studies on sound-matter interaction are to date one of the most promising directions as fundamental research which can be used practically in rheology, medical imaging and other contactless manipulations. So far only acoustic radiation force is used in applications. The study of rotational mechanical effects of sound actually remains in its infancy and expected application potential invites a better understanding of acoustic radiation torques and further fundamental experimental investigations. With the aim at going beyond the state-of-the art, the research project proposes to explore experimentally new facets of the rotational mechanical effects of sound based on the use of acoustic vortex beams, which are characterized by a helical wavefront bearing on-axis phase singularity. Indeed, depending on the specific wavematter interaction, acoustic vortex beams can induce various rotational mechanical effects, such as angular displacements, spinning or orbiting motions. Our approach will first consist to study acoustic radiation torque effects that do not rely on sound-absorption, which corresponds to a sound-matter interaction regime barely explored experimentally. Also, we will unveil experimentally the existence of recently predicted a spin contribution to the total angular momentum of acoustic vortex beams. For these purposes, we will firstly develop a toolbox allowing versatile acoustic vortex beam shaping in the ultrasonic regime owing to 3D printing technologies. Then, by using obtained vortex beams and appropriately designed sound-matter interaction schemes, we will detect and monitor quantitatively the sought-after rotational mechanical effects. By addressing original and timely scientific challenges on experimental grounds, the project will bring new knowledge in the field of acoustic angular momenta and set a new state-of-the-art for acoustic contactless manipulations.

Keywords: sound matter interaction,acoustic vortex beams,acoustic torque,acoustic spin,acoustic orbital,angular momentum transfer,absorbing acoustic probes,acoustic contactless manipulations
Target specific responses of layer 6b (L6b) neurons in the mouse medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) upon fear memory retrieval (L6b)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Standard European Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-11-02
End date: 2022-11-01
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

One of the fundamental challenges in neuroscience research is to understand how diverse sensory inputs leading to the specific behavioral outcome and what are the networks underlie eliciting such behaviors. This question may only be answered when measurements of structural and functional properties of individual neurons are integrated into a coherent framework, which would then allow numerically simulate (in silico) different networks to predict possible behavioral outcomes. The ‘building block’ for a network model relies on anatomical and physiological data such as neuron input, neuron output, and physiological properties collected from animal experiments. The input can be determined by reconstructing dendrites, functional properties of the neuron can be estimated by obtaining electrophysiological measurements, and output can be determined by reconstructing by their 3D axon branching pattern. Current proposed project work will address some of the building blocks such as projection targets of single neurons upon a specific behavioral expression and their presynaptic partners that are responsible for eliciting such behaviors. Specifically, I will investigate the electrophysiological properties and anatomical connectivity of L6 neurons (L6b) of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) using state-of-the-art techniques and tools such as modified rabies virus labeling and neuron tracing, DREADD technology and optogenetics in a transgenic mouse line that selectively expresses Cre-recombinase in a subpopulation of layer 6b neurons. Exploring mPFC neural circuits may not only provide more in-depth insight on to its involvement in cognitive behaviors but also in a variety of psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). The outcome of this study will establish the functional role of L6b of the mouse medial prefrontal cortex to its specific involvement in eliciting specific behavioral outcomes.

Keywords: layer 6,medial prefrontal cortex,dreadd
Myelinic nanochannels in neurodegenerative diseases (MyeliNANO)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced 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
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2014-ADG, 2014)
Start date: 2016-04-01
End date: 2021-07-31
Duration (months): 64.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Myelin is made by highly specialized glial cells and enables fast axonal impulse propagation. We have discovered that oligodendrocytes in the CNS are, in addition to myelination, required for the integrity and survival of axons, independent of the presence or absence of myelin itself. More recently, we found the underlying mechanism and could show that glycolytic oligodendrocytes provide axons with pyruvate/lactate. These metabolites are transported through a system of myelinic nanochannels to the axonal compartment, in which mitochondria generate ATP. The finding was a paradigm-shift for the physiological function of axonassociated glia, and opens now the intriguing possibility that oligodendrocytes are important modifiers of neurological diseases in which myelinated axons are lost. This includes, in addition to multiple sclerosis, also classical neuropsychiatric disorders. We will generate novel genetic tools in mice that allow us to study the role myelin and secondary axonal loss in higher brain functions. We will test the challenging hypothesis that reducing oligodendroglial support of axonal metabolism is a risk for differen neurodegenerative disorders. These involve the previously neglected ultrastructure of CNS myelin with cytosolic (20-300 nanometer wide) channels within the myelin sheath. These 'nanochannels' couple the oligodendrocyte soma metabolically to the adaxonal space, but are vulnerable to aging and physical injury. We hypothesize that cellular mechanisms as diverse as neuroinflammation and the aggregation of misfolded proteins in myelinic nanochannels cause perturbations of the axonal energy metabolism. When combined, the findings of MyeliNANO will shed new light on previously unknown functions of CNS myelin and will pave the way for metabolic neuroprotection as a therapeutic approach to a range of neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: myelin,glia,oligodendrocyte,axon,neurodegeneration,white matter