Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Self-supporting biofuel sludge pellet producing system for small and medium sized sewage plants (InnoPellet)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Climate action, environment,  resource efficiency and raw materials
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Hungary
Call: Boosting the potential of small businesses for eco-innovation and a sustainable supply of raw materials (H2020-SMEINST-2-2015, 2015)
Start date: 2016-03-01
End date: 2019-02-28
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2158500.0
EU funding (EUR): 1510950.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

There is a huge number of small and medium sized sewage plants in and out of the European Union that cannot pass over urban sewage sludge for agricultural use in sufficient proportion (less than 50% in the EU), therefore the management of these sewage plants usually ask and receive permissions from environmental authorities for disposing the communal sludge in disused mines or dumps. Instead of disposal/landfilling – that regularly causes pollution of natural water resources – it would be more beneficial to produce sludge pellets. Such experiences drove us to create the InnoPellet technology, a self-supporting biofuel pellet producing system for treating communal sewage sludge that is economical in case of small scale production too. Five years of research and development led to the successful completion of a prototype machine that received regulatory approval and third-party testing/validation. After finalising the InnoPellet technology, our primary goal is to commercialise the units and relating pelleting services to wastewater companies primarily in Europe and later on the world market as well. The InnoPellet system offers an economical solution of sewage sludge treatment for wastewater companies. Our technology is a self-supporting machinery for drying and pelleting sewage sludge without external need of fossil fuel or any other additional material. Our technology fits into the ‘energy from waste’ policy of the European Union. It will enables wastewater plants to meet the strict EU environmental regulations and at the same time, reduce their sewage sludge treatment costs with 50-75%.

Keywords: sewage sludge biofuel pelleting,eco friendly wastewater treatment,self supporting system,low wastewater treatment cost
New players in immunometabolism: investigating the role of succinate and pyruvate kinase in T cell immunity (SPArKLE)

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: Ireland
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-04-01
End date: 2019-07-31
Duration (months): 16.0
Total project cost (EUR): 125244.0
EU funding (EUR): 125244.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Despite major advances in the development of novel immunomodulatory drugs, the incidence of many immune disorders such as allergic and autoimmune diseases is increasing worldwide, particularly in Western countries. Innovative therapeutic targets must be identified to limit the social and economical impact of such pathologies, and a better understanding of the pathways involved in immune cell activation and functionality is needed. The SPArKLE action will provide an outstanding training programme to an experienced researcher (ER) in the research area of immunometabolism, a novel exciting frontier in immunity and inflammation, which investigates the importance of intracellular metabolic modulation in immune cell functions. By using a multidisciplinary approach spanning from basic biochemistry to immunology and in vivo studies, the goal of the SPArKLE research activity will be to evaluate the role of the metabolite succinate and of the enzyme pyruvate kinase (PK) in the effector functions of CD4+ T lymphocytes and in the development of autoimmune and allergic diseases. Succinate and PK where recently identified as key players in immune cell-mediated inflammation, but their involvement in the activation and functionality of T cells have never been investigated thus far. This research project may identify a T cell-specific role for succinate and PK, the targeting of which could have therapeutic utility in inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The SPArKLE fellowship will also allow the ER to strengthen transferable skills such as communication/dissemination of results, mentoring and scientific writing, and to acquire novel competences in terms of results exploitation, entrepreneurship and project coordination. Overall, the SPArKLE training programme will expand the ER scientific background and interests and his employability and leadership potential, with the final goal to help him start an independent research career in an academic or non-academic institution.

Keywords: immunometabolism,t cell immunity,succinate,pyruvate kinase,neuroinflammation,allergy
Disability Advocacy Research in Europe (DARE)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Countries involved: Iceland
Call: MSCA Special Needs Allowance (H2020-IBA-MSCA-SNLS-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2019-12-01
End date: 2022-12-31
Duration (months): 37.0
Total project cost (EUR): 9687.5
EU funding (EUR): 9687.5
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The request of financial support to cover the additional costs that researchers/staff members with disabilities face due to the increased costs of their mobility and/or to ensure necessary assistance by third persons or for adapting their work environment.

Keywords: disability,special needs,reduced vision
Big Data Value Spaces for COmpetitiveness of European COnnected Smart FacTories 4.0 (BOOST 4.0)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: Big Data PPP (cPPP)
Countries involved: Germany,Germany,Germany,Spain,Italy,Austria,Austria,Austria,Germany,Germany,Germany,Ireland,Italy,Israel,Austria,Germany,Germany,Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain,Italy,Switzerland,Sweden,Switzerland,Belgium,Greece,Switzerland,Finland,France,France,France,Czechia,Netherlands,United Kingdom,Luxembourg,Portugal,Portugal,Portugal
Call: Big Data PPP: Large Scale Pilot actions in sectors best benefitting from data-driven innovation (H2020-ICT-2017-1, 2017)
Start date: 2018-01-01
End date: 2020-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 18613727.71
EU funding (EUR): 14983516.26
Participants: 60
Project status: CLOSED

EFFRA recommendations on Factories 4.0 and Beyond (Sept 2016) clearly stated the need for development of large scale experimentation and demonstration of data-driven “connected smart” Factories 4.0, to retain European manufacturing competitiveness. BOOST 4.0 will address this need, by demonstrating in a measurable and replicable way, an open standardised and transformative shared data-driven Factory 4.0 model through 10 lighthouse factories. BOOST 4.0 will also demonstrate how European industry can build unique strategies and competitive advantages through big data across all phases of product and process lifecycle (engineering, planning, operation, production and after-market services) building upon the connected smart Factory 4.0 model to meet the Industry 4.0 challenges (lot size one distributed manufacturing, operation of zero defect processes & products, zero break down sustainable operations, agile customer-driven manufacturing value network management and human centred manufacturing). Our chief objectives include: (1) Establish 10 big data lighthouse smart connected factories (VW, FILL, AutoEuropa, +GF+, FIAT, Phillips, Volvo, GESTAMP, Benteler, Whirlpool). (2) Provide the RAMI 4.0 and IDS based BOOST 4.0 open EU framework and governance model, for both services and data assets. (3) Put together methodologies, assets, models and communities in order to maximise visibility, mobilization, replication potential, and impact (business, financial, standardization) of BOOST 4.0 The investment leveraging factor of BOOST 4.0 will be well above the 4:1 ratio, up to 10:1. In terms of exploitation, in 5-years horizon after the project end, just only the participating lighthouse factories will make a direct follow-on investment above 33Meuro (ROI 10,61), while the commercialisation of the BOOST 4.0 products in the market is expected to generate some 96Meuro cumulative profits (ROI 4,73) for the rest of the partners.

Keywords: big data,factory4 0
Rationality in the Flesh (RIF)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-09-16
End date: 2026-06-28
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 305778.24
EU funding (EUR): 305778.24
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This project aims to propose a novel solution to the problem of knowledge- and wellbeing-conducive irrationality. Empirical research shows that irrationality is sometimes preferable to rationality: even simplest decisions, like choosing a meal from menu, cannot be made by emotionless cost-benefit analysis alone only; religious faith helps to recover from surgery and is conducive to mental health; faith in success of a relationship makes it more successful, and even the capacity for moral agency requires empathy. These findings challenge a standard conception of rationality, according to which following reason and norms of logic is a reliable path to knowledge and wellbeing. I argue that solution to this problem is to take body into account. Traditional approaches in psychology and philosophy often ignore human body. However, numerous findings suggest that body affects our cognition and decision-making through emotions, intuitions, etc., that often go unnoticed by our conscious mind. When offered to choose an object, people prefer that on their right hand side without realising that. Such circumstances, as left and right, insubstantial for rational decision-making, have crucial importance for our body. Bodily influence is structured and predictable, thus I hypothesise that body has its own kind of rationality, working in parallel to intellectual reasoning. This study will develop and test this hypothesis by analysing the paragon cases of irrationality with positive and negative outcomes. It will go to the flesh and bone of cognition in order to reveal the basic structures of what is deemed irrational according to the standard concept. This project will open new research horizons on two levels: the ground-breaking methodological approach, combining the cutting-edge embodied method and legacy of pragmatic philosophy will be applied to the representative cases of irrationality. This will involve a novel re-reading of the empirical material of cognitive science, religious studies, and psychology, challenging traditional ideas about human cognition and developing a novel theory of irrationality, thus promoting European excellence in research and practical dealing with irrationality in policy making.

Keywords: rationality,embodied cognition,irrationality,racism,racial bias,gender bias,philosophy of mind,philosophy of,religion,beliefs,embodied approaches,religious studies,psychology,sociology
Isotope-labeled amino acids – Providing solutions to complex biological questions (LABELED AMINO ACIDS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept 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: Austria
Call: Call for proposals for ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2020-PoC, 2020)
Start date: 2020-11-01
End date: 2022-10-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Isotope-labeled amino acids are highly valuable and versatile tools to tackle complex biological questions and to accelerate research and therapeutic development. Current production processes are, however, low-yielding, expensive and time-intensive, and cannot be applied to all amino acids, leading to missed therapeutic opportunities and inefficient use of resources. We have addressed these limitations and developed an innovative and more efficient method to produce such isotope-labeled amino acids. Our new technology is fully scalable, substantially undercuts industry production costs, and provides access to products currently not available. The main objective of this project is to advance this technology to a commercializable stage that will enable us to distribute these valuable tools globally. This requires further proof-of-concept data and expansion and optimization of our protocols to bring it to industry standards and scale. This, in turn, will strengthen our intellectual property position, which is crucial for establishing a spin-off company. Anticipated outcomes of successful commercialization of our technology include several economic benefits for the EU, strengthening EU’s leadership in biotechnology and innovation, and –most importantly– technological advancements that will create new research avenues, improve research translation and disease management, and lead to an overall improvement of health and well-being.

Keywords: chemical biology,solid phase peptide synthesis spps,nuclear magnetic resonance nmr,mass spectrometry,peptides,proteins,recombinant expression
The high-tech offshore and seabed fish farming system the next marine aquaculture generation (SUBFISH)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Norway
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2019)
Start date: 2019-08-01
End date: 2019-11-30
Duration (months): 4.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

53% of the global fish still relies on wild-fishing with the well-known environmental side effects. Aquaculture is the most promising option to mitigate overfishing and meet the increasing demand for protein. Boosting European aquaculture to increase our self-sufficiency (only 25.4% in 2015 mainly based on wild catch, 74.6% was imported) and reduce the fish stocks fished beyond biological sustainability, requires measures such as moving further offshore and farming of new species without placing unacceptable demands on the ecosystems. At Marine Garden AS (Norway) we found inspiration in nature to design SUBFISH: new sustainable offshore aquaculture to deliver wild-like and premium fish. SUBFISH covers from hatchery to dispatch and fish grow in an offshore farm secured to the seabed keeping natural habitat conditions of local fish living and feeding on or near the bottom of seas. Our design respects nature instead of going against it, enables our farm circumvents most harsh constrictions faced by aquaculture today while scaling more than any other (1,200,00m3). SUBFISH stock density is kept x20 lower than current intensive exploitations, with 20% of reduced mortality using 80-90% less drugs to control fish disease outbreaks. All these benefits are achieved without occupying any coastal space and at x10 lower capex. By 2024, we expect to sell at least 12 SUBFISH systems licensing the rights to use our technology and brand across our targeted European countries, beside to sell about 240 tons of Coral Grouper across the European and Asian markets. Producing more of our seafood in European waters means that consumers will have local, safe, and sustainable choices. Moreover, SUBFISH also helps diversify the fish markets with valuable species not exploited yet or that will no longer support wild captures. Thus, by commercializing SUBFISH and its products from 2022 onwards, we will generate €70.6 million of cumulative revenues (ROI 9.08) and a total of 43 new jobs

Keywords: fish farming,sustainable aquaculture,nature inspired innovation,whitefish,demersal fish,seabed farm,fish quality,offshore aquaculture
A Phenomenological, Computational and Neural model of the Sense of Reality (UnReal)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Panel description: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, theoretical philosophy
Countries involved: Israel
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2020-STG, 2020)
Start date: 2021-04-01
End date: 2026-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1498187.0
EU funding (EUR): 1263045.75
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

We all rely on our senses to convey veridical information about the world around us, which we call “Reality”. However, distortions of reality in the form of hallucinations or illusions originating from neurological, psychiatric, pharmacological or psychological origins are prevalent. Thus, the sense of reality which is the ability to discriminate between true and false perceptions of the world, is a central criterion for neurological and psychiatric health. Despite the critical role of the sense of reality in our daily life, little is known about how this is formed in the mind and brain. This project proposes novel theoretical and technological frameworks to uncover the phenomenological, computational and neural processes underlying the Sense of Reality (SoR). The proposed experiments employ a specialized virtual reality environment allowing precise and controlled manipulations of visual reality across different domains (AliceVR). Using this VR platform, we will first test the impact of parametrically manipulating visual reality on judgments of reality in order to build a phenomenological and computational model of SoR (WP1). We will then investigate the neural mechanisms underlying SoR by combining our VR paradigm with high resolution fMRI (WP2). Finally, WP3 will investigate conditions of altered SoR, either of psychiatric origin or pharmacological origin. Here, we will empirically test SoR under conditions of altered reality processing in schizophrenia patients with hallucinations and in a pharmacological model through administration of ketamine in healthy participants. This ambitious project will thus reveal how humans discriminate reality at the phenomenological, cognitive and neural levels. The results will have important implications not only in defining a neurocognitive model of reality in healthy and clinical populations, but also shedding new light upon the fundamental philosophical question of “how do we know what is real?”.

Keywords: sense of reality,reality monitoring,virtual reality
Why helping others? The role of direct fitness benefits within the social-networks in cooperatively breeding azure-winged magpies (Helping in Cyanopica)

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: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Portugal
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) (H2020-MSCA-IF-2014, 2014)
Start date: 2015-05-01
End date: 2017-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 160635.6
EU funding (EUR): 160635.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Current literature on the evolution of cooperation agrees that kin selection cannot explain the benefits accrued by cooperators in many systems. One main gap is the type of direct benefits that helpers obtain in cooperative breeding systems and how they are ESS provided that natural selection favours defectors over cooperators in unstructured populations. Recent advances show that "social viscosity" can maintain benefits for cooperators. Thus, the study of social-network structure can potentially explain why cooperation persists. This type of approach can only be tackled after a long-term study at individual level. I have monitored a population of cooperative breeding Azure-winged magpie (Cyanopica cooki) for more than 20 years. I have pedigree data, their reproductive behaviour in helper and breeder roles, and lifetime reproductive success for many birds. Yet, the reason why helpers contribute to rearing other birds' offspring has remained elusive. Here I will use network approach to previous data plus new monitoring of breeding groups to study: the role of kinship, by using pedigree and genetic analyses; the structure of social networks based on cooperative relationships, to see whether interactions can explain the maintenance of cooperative behaviour from the point of view of reciprocity and generalized reciprocity predictions; potential paternity sharing between breeders and helpers; and the relative roles of different benefits in lifetime inclusive fitness. I will implement the project within the team of Dr. Rita Covas, who has solid experience in the study of cooperative breeding. I present an innovative but realistic workplan to test original questions with new methodologies that are expected to lead to strong publications. The collaboration proposed means the reinforcement of the contribution of Mediterranean biology into ERA, the re-integration of a woman to scientific activity, and the collaboration between women heading research lines in Europe.

Keywords: cooperative breeding,altruism,helpers at the nest,reciprocity,bird behaviour,evolution,inclusive fitness,social networks