Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Towards Terawatt Production of c-Si Solar Photovoltaics - Hop On (TERASUN-HOP-ON)

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: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Czechia
Call: Hop on Facility (HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-06, 2023)
Duration (months): 28.0
Total project cost (EUR): 292246.25
EU funding (EUR): 292246.25
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

TERASUN aims to advance technologies for more efficient and cost-effective mass production of c-Si solar cells. By joining the TERASUN Hop On project, FZU brings essential expertise in optical-electrical characterization, significantly enhancing control over light management in advanced light-trapping structures, the uniformity of thin-film layers, and the structural properties of advanced PV devices. FZU’s contribution will focus on developing optical measurement tools to directly assess key solar cell parameters, which will lead to improvements in cell and module conversion efficiencies. These tools will specifically address the homogeneity and structural uniformity of novel light-trapping structures and passivating contacts, with a focus on creating in-line measurement solutions compatible with industrial production. FZU’s specific roles include: (i) Adapting Raman micro-spectroscopy method to evaluate light trapping in c-Si solar cells; (ii) Characterizing nanophotonic structures on module cover glass, focusing on light in-coupling; (iii) Examining contact structures and the uniformity of passivating layers in IBC solar cells. FZU's involvement will elevate TERASUN by introducing innovative, cutting-edge characterization methods, ensuring that the project's technological advancements are not only groundbreaking but also ready for large-scale industrial application.

Keywords: photovoltaics,renewable energy sources
Impact of soil microbiodiversity on the development of wild mammal gut biota and immune function (SOIL2GUT)

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: Italy
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-11-01
End date: 2025-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172750.08
EU funding (EUR): 172750.08
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The biodiversity hypothesis asserts there is a link between the diversity of environmental and host-associated microbes and ‘civilization diseases', such as asthma and allergies, the result of immune dysfunction and chronic inflammation. Using a well-studied rodent model, the bank vole, SOIL2GUT will test for the first time whether exposure to natural communities of soil microbes during development can improve individual health by promoting microbiota function at the host-microbiota interface (ileum and colon mucous layers) and reduce the risk of immune-related diseases. SOIL2GUT will take advantage of tissue samples generated by an ongoing intervention experiment, promoting the 3Rs policy, but also providing a unique opportunity for ‘omics integration (metataxonomics + MTX). Innovatively, this project will focus on the function of gut flora (not merely taxonomical characterization), in both bacteria and fungi (the latter is particularly unusual), using recent developments in metatranscriptonomics (MTX) to explore functional activity, and combining metadata and metatranscriptomes in statistical models to identify critical factors determining health. Since 68% of the human population will be urbanized by 2050, SOIL2GUT will contribute significantly to the WHO OneHealth framework. This project will also provide data that can be used to plan urban greenspaces, enhance rewilding interventions and improve domestic and zoo animal wellbeing. The researcher will build on his previous experiences and solid publications as a PhD/postdoc, receiving advanced personalized training in bioinformatics and soft skills, including writing grant applications for expanding to other tissues (lung, skin), and rendering him highly employable. In exchange, the researcher will bring methods for measuring individual health and immune gene expression to the hosting lab, among others. A synergy of expertise in microbiota research is envisaged, leading to future collaborative endeavors.

Keywords: microbial ecology,ecosystem microbiota,metatranscriptomics,wild rodent model,conservation omics
DSTrain - Data Science Postdoctoral Training Programme (DSTrain)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Countries involved: Norway,Denmark
Call: MSCA COFUND 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-COFUND-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5158080.0
EU funding (EUR): 5158080.0
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

DSTrain is a 5-year postdoctoral programme that will award 36 postdoctoral fellowship positions of 36 months each in two calls over the programme period within the overarching frame of data science. The programme will train researchers and innovators with disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transferable skills and a foundation in data science methods enabling them to become Europe’s digital leaders across disciplines and sectors. Data Science (DS) is a fast-growing scientific area of high importance, playing a central role in all scientific investigations, and are essential to innovation in almost all domains across society. Data Science underpins the majority of today’s technological, economic and societal feats. Increasing amounts of data offer enormous opportunities, but only to those who are able to harness them. In order to utilize these opportunities, skills and competences in data science are necessary. Such skills will play an essential role in shaping future technological developments. There is a massive interest both in the public sector and in the industry for candidates with excellent qualifications in data science combined with the ability to use these skills in cross-disciplinary projects. The DSTrain programme will facilitate ground-breaking research by emphasizing interaction between data science, computational science, natural sciences and technology. The programme will develop new research and educational strategies that will serve society at large. The postdoctoral fellows will be integrated in research groups across scientific disciplines where there is an urgent need for computationally skilled researchers. The research groups provide excellent research environments and supervision enabling world-class research, innovation and digital infrastructure, models for cross-disciplinary collaboration and training in research, including computational and transferable skills. The DSTrain program also includes a range of cross-sectorial secondments.

Keywords: digital competence,computational science,computational physics,computational neurophysiology,computational chemistry,computational astrophysics,computational geoscience
A new understanding of the uplift and incision of the Colorado Plateau from classical and electron spin resonance thermochronology (PLATOCHRON)

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: France,Switzerland
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-07-01
End date: 2026-06-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 308746.56
EU funding (EUR): 308746.56
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

High-standing orogenic plateaus are key features of most mountainous regions, and typically have profound regional, and in many cases global, impacts on atmospheric circulation and precipitation patterns. The Colorado Plateau is characterized by a low-relief surface at high elevation and deep canyon incision at the plateau margins. Although these canyons are key features of ecosystems and water resources, the chronology of the uplift and subsequent canyon incision remains debated. In addition, the relative importance of deep-seated processes, changes in paleogeography and climate, on the late geomorphologic evolution of the plateau remains controversial. Two endmember models of Grand Canyon incision have been proposed: a 80-60 Ma incision or a 6-5 Ma incision, the discrepancy between these models is partly related to limitations in conventional thermochronology techniques. This project will provide new constraints on the incision history of the canyons carved across the Colorado Plateau using an innovative set of thermochronometers. I will combine apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He and fission-track data to document the thermal history of rocks in Zion Canyon which has never been explored and infer the respective effects of erosion and regional magmatism on the thermal evolution of the lithosphere. Electron spin resonance (ESR) thermochronometry, a new thermochronometer sensitive to temperature ranging from 50 to 20˚C will be performed on the same samples and combined with thermo-kinematic modelling to decipher the timing and rate of canyon incision in Zion. Finally, I will apply ESR thermochronometry in selected canyons to decipher the timing of incision across the Colorado Plateau. Low-temperature thermochronology data, including ESR, will be integrated in a numerical model of the landscape evolution to test different processes (change in base level versus mantellic process) and associated scenarios for the Colorado Plateau uplift and incision.
Karakoram’s downscaling of precipitation and extremes (KARRONTE)

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: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2026-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 165312.96
EU funding (EUR): 165312.96
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

KARRONTE is motivated by the controversial “Karakoram Anomaly” in High-Mountain Asia, which denotes the relative mass balance stability of glaciers in the Karakoram region under global warming, compared to the massive ice loss observed in other high-mountain glaciers. Recently, some possible explanations have been proposed in the literature, but all of them are based on coarse-resolution data sets, due to the scarcity of weather station data. The need for a new regional climate simulation for the Karakoram using convection-permitting scales is clear. These scales will allow the climate model to resolve convection directly in a physically consistent way, without the need for a cumulus parameterization scheme. Thus, the main objectives of KARRONTE are the following: (1) To create a novel regional climate simulation for the Karakoram, covering the last 15 years and adopting a spatial resolution of 3 km in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. (2) To evaluate the temporal and spatial variability of precipitation and extreme events. (3) To investigate the relationship between recent trends of precipitation, local atmospheric dynamics and teleconnection patterns worldwide. These objectives will allow us to understand the drivers of extreme precipitation and the atmospheric dynamics in the Karakoram region, and to disentangle complex, local atmospheric effects related to the Karakoram Anomaly that could have been missed in previous analyses. KARRONTE will contribute to the evaluation of extreme event impacts and climate adaptation strategies. Its outcomes will also provide tools and fundamental knowledge to understand the effects of climate change on other high-mountain environments, such as those in Europe and other continents. Regarding my research career, KARRONTE will foster my independence and my ability to attract funding, and it will enable me to develop the competencies and skills valuable to become a young research group leader in the near future.

Keywords: extreme events,precipitation,high mountain asia,regional climate modelling
Viking Iron Production in Iceland: a new model of Norse iron supply and circulation in the North Atlantic (VIPICE)

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: Denmark
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): 230774.4
EU funding (EUR): 230774.4
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Iron was a strategic resource in ancient societies and is still of great importance today. This metal was notably mass produced during the Viking age and traded over long distances between the different Norse settlements. This project aims to investigate the provenance of Viking iron artefacts and to develop a new model of the dynamics of iron movement in the North Atlantic region during the Viking age. In Norse society, iron was used to produce everyday tools, as well as weapons and boat rivets. This metal is thus intrinsically linked to the formidable Viking expansion. The numerous remains of iron production in the Scandinavian homelands led most historians to consider that Viking iron was almost exclusively produced in Norway and Sweden. However, this hypothesis fails to explain the growing number of archaeological evidence attesting to intensive iron production in Iceland, exceeding the local needs. To investigate the fate of this Icelandic iron production in the network of Viking iron circulation, we propose a novel multi-proxy tracing approach. Combined Sr, Fe, Hf, and Nd isotopes, and trace element analyses will be performed on metallurgical remains from iron smelting sites (i.e. technological sources) and archaeological artefacts. We will determine a specific multi-isotopic and elemental signature for each region of iron production, against which the composition of the objects will be compared. Strontium isotopes are highly likely to fingerprint iron from Iceland because of its geological singularity. To complement this, Hf, Nd, Fe isotopes, and trace elements will be used to refine source distinctions. These results will be compiled to produce a multi-tracer object-source matching map and propose new iron flows patterns during the Viking age. Finally, this model will be used to address the question of a possible spatially specialised Norse iron industry and improve our understanding of the Viking diaspora that first connected Europe to North America.

Keywords: strontium isotopes,isotopic tracing,trace element analyses,iron provenancing,north atlantic geology
Characterization of natural and modified plant nucleotide-based immunity signals as potential agents for crop protection (NISP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Postdoctoral Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Germany
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-08-01
End date: 2027-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 189687.36
EU funding (EUR): 189687.36
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Disease in crop plants is the major cause of lost productivity and economic hardship globally. New environmentally sustainable approaches for enhancing plant resistance to newly emerging pathogen strains are much needed. Recent studies by the groups of Jijie Chai (at Uni. Köln/Tsinghua University) with Jane Parker (MPIPZ) led to the discovery of four chemically related nucleotide-based compounds that are produced naturally by plants upon pathogen attack to promote immune responses against a broad range of diseases. The biochemical modes-of-action of these small molecules was determined and the chemical synthesis of several pure analogs successfully achieved. These advances provide a basis to (i) explore further the immune-potentiating activities and dynamics of nucleotide-based signals in plant cells and tissues, and (ii) develop and test modified forms of the signaling molecules for increased uptake, bioactivity and stability in plants. The aim of this proposal is to combine knowledge of nucleotide chemistry and modifications (Kath-Schorr) with in vitro and in vivo functional assays (Parker) with a view to designing a disease resistance-potentiating agent with broad efficacy on crops.

Keywords: nucleotide based messengers,plant innate immunity,nucleotide binding domain leucine rich repeat nlr signaling,rna biology
Virtual planets to unravel how mantle convection shapes geosphere, climate and life co-evolution (PANDORA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Earth System Science
Panel description: Physical geography, geo logy, geophysics, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, climatology, cryology, ecology, global environmental change, biogeochemical cycles, natural resources management
Countries involved: France
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2029-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2144646.25
EU funding (EUR): 2144646.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The Earth's geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere have co-evolved together as a single planetary system for billions of years, resulting in a complex web of systemic interactions that have shaped the geological record and biodiversity. However, the complexity of these interactions and the incomplete geological record make it impossible to replay the tape and fully explore the profound mechanisms at play. Here I propose to uncover how mantle convection shapes with the evolution of both the surface environment and photosynthetic autotrophs. To accomplish this ambitious objective, I will construct advanced 3D spherical virtual terrestrial planetary systems operating at geological time scales. I will explore the responses of global coupled carbon-climate-surface process-eco-evolution models to cutting-edge 3D spherical geodynamic scenarios over 1 Gy time-scale. The utilization of these innovative models will resolve a series of fundamental questions such as: what planetary properties drive fast adaptive radiation? What mantle/lithosphere properties generate stable/variable environments over geological time? Throughout this groundbreaking project, I will leverage the power of in silico simulations to create self-consistent virtual terrestrial planetary interiors capable of generating conditions conducive to the evolution of geological and biological diversity. To decipher the intricate relationships between model parameters and their effects on geological, climatic, and biological changes, I will employ state-of-the-art machine learning classification methods. With Pandora, I am poised to make significant strides in understanding the systemic dynamics behind the profound planetary changes that have shaped Earth and potentially other planetary bodies.

Keywords: numerical modelling,mantle convection,plate tectonics,climate modelling,surface process modelling,eco evolution modelling,earth system
Characterization of Diffuse Glioma tumors’ chemical exposome and potential positive associations with environmental pollution through air particulate matter analysis and wastewater based epidemiology (EnviBrain)

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: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-11-01
End date: 2025-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

Although chemicals enable a constant improvement of health, life quality and facilitate food production, industrial applications and advanced agricultural practices, their release into the environment may be followed by increased risks for human health. Humans (directly or indirectly) are exposed to a diverse mixture of chemicals through multiple pathways, which has been acknowledged to play an important role in common chronic diseases, including multiple types of cancer, but the specific exposure-disease associations have not been explored sufficiently in many cases. This is particularly relevant for brain tumors, whose causes are still unknown, and it is suspected that the environmental components may play an important role since less than 5% of patients have a family history. Diffuse gliomas are the most common primary malignant brain tumors in adults with poor prognosis and survival, therefore, identifying environmental contributions to diffuse gliomas development and investigating links with chemical exposures is crucial for improving prognosis and treatment options. The objectives of this fellowship are (i) to explore the chemical exposome (exogenous chemicals and associated metabolites) of brain tumor tissues by making use of a unique historical cohort of diffuse gliomas patients (Bellvitge Glioma Cohort; Hospital de Bellvitge; 2005-present) and (ii) assess the exposure of Barcelona citizens to a mixture of contaminants through the analysis of air particulate matter, wastewater and sewage sludge. State-of-the-art analytical chemistry techniques and data science methods will be integrated to identify potential toxic organic chemicals and their metabolites/transformation products in the environment, that may influence the development of diffuse glioma in Barcelona. The generated results can be used by competent authorities to establish more surgical measures to reduce the emission of very hazardous chemicals and improve both air quality and population health.

Keywords: high resolution mass spectrometry non target screening emerging contaminants wastewater based epidemiology human health brain cancer