Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Collision-free Design of Rational Single-loop Linkages (LoopMechColls)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Austria
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-07-01
End date: 2025-06-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183600.96
EU funding (EUR): 183600.96
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This project focuses on the collision-free design of single-loop mechanisms, which are customized devices synthesized for a given task. With only few degrees of freedom, such mechanisms can perform very complex spatial motions, which nowadays industrial solutions can achieve for an extensive energy cost or cannot achieve at all. Although the kinematics of the single-loop mechanisms is a well-investigated topic among mechanism scientists, there exist very few real-world applications, because the synthesized kinematic models do not consider collisions between the links and joints. Also, their structural design is complicated – engineering tools struggle when dealing with closed-chain mechanisms given algebraically due to numerical rounding. The project aims to solve this problem through recent progress on mechanisms constructed by rational motion factorization along with numerical optimization methods. Rational motion has, in addition to the possibility of factorization, other benefits such as motion parametrization, algebraic collision detection, or can approximate even other types of motions, making the output of this work widely adaptable. This project will provide a simplified mechanism collision model, quantify the collision states on a continuous level, optimize the rigid body structural design, and deal with special cases such as folded states of mechanisms. Daniel Huczala recently finished dissertation at VSB-TU of Ostrava, Czech Republic, where he dealt with the synthesis of serial kinematic structures of robotic manipulators. His obtained knowledge in optimization of mechanisms design will be joined with the theoretical kinematics expertise of researchers at the Unit of Geometry and Surveying, University of Innsbruck, Austria, who participated in the development of the rational motion factorization and can transfer this knowledge to Dr. Huczala, which will considerably develop his research profile at the very beginning of his postdoc career.

Keywords: robotics,kinematics,single loop and closed chain mechanisms
Tailor-Made Terpenoids: Exploring and Exploiting Natures Magic Methyl Effect (TAILOMET)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting 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: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2025-STG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-02-01
End date: 2031-01-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499868.75
EU funding (EUR): 1499868.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

TAILOMET will explore and exploit the hidden magic methyl effect in nature to develop genetically programmable biocatalytic systems for the production of tailor-made terpenoids. Given the immense pharmaceutical and industrial importance of terpene natural products, methodologies for strategic structure modifications to fine-tune physicochemical properties are of vast interest. Introduction of a single methyl group can have dramatic impact on a drug lead’s potency, selectivity, or pharmacokinetics, and can alter olfactory reception of aroma compounds. The influence of methylations on the bioactivity of terpenes has, however, never been systematically investigated due to the limited availability of suitable methodologies to introduce such structural modifications into terpene scaffolds. Our recent discovery on a novel general pathway to homoterpenes, together with bioinformatic analyses indicates widespread interkingdom occurrence of terpene C-methylations in nature. The findings suggest a readily available and vast treasure trove for the discovery of novel enzymology to develop biocatalytic systems for selective methyl installation into terpene backbones. By exploration, exploitation, and re-design of these naturally available enzymes, TAILOMET will develop a comprehensive toolbox to close current knowledge gaps and unlock rapid access to terpenoids with fine-tuned or even novel properties. Besides synthetic advancements, comprehensive insights into the biological function of terpene methylations in nature might shed novel lights on intra- and interspecies communication with potentially valuable implications for chemical ecology and natural product discovery.

Keywords: natural products,enzyme discovery,biosynthesis,biocatalysis,terpenes,methyltransferases
Operate Anywhere (OperA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research
Action type: Innovation actions
Partnership: SESAR (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Czechia,Spain,United Kingdom,Belgium,Austria,Slovakia,Romania,Latvia,Slovenia,Lithuania
Call: Fast Track Innovation and Uptake U-space and Urban Air Mobility (HORIZON-SESAR-2022-DES-IR-01, 2022)
Start date: 2023-04-01
End date: 2026-06-30
Duration (months): 39.0
Total project cost (EUR): 9314739.26
EU funding (EUR): 5828863.49
Participants: 15
Project status: SIGNED

This Fast Track project is a unique opportunity allowing the different stakeholders to approach, in an agile way, the development and joint validation of needed UAM technologies and operations in a real European environment. This will help the market bridge the famous “Valley of Death” in technology development, while it will bring a significant amount of insights that will be necessary for ensuring a safe introduction of the new UAM vehicles in all types of airspaces. The project has set 5 key objectives which will deliver 6 well-defined results that will contribute to achieving all Expected Outcomes stated in the Call text. The OperA project will enable safe and efficient operations in all types of airspace (controlled, uncontrolled and U-space) and conditions by validating 3 different complex UAM (piloted Air Taxi and unmanned cargo) operations in real-life and/or simulated ATM conditions including contingency and non-nominal situations. It will stimulate the uptake of new sustainable Urban Air Mobility services by addressing Air/Ground integration and the critical transition steps from piloted towards automated flights for 5 key autonomy-enabling technologies . In addition, it will ensure environmental sustainability compared to the next best transport alternative, and enhance it, by optimizing flight routing for minimum noise footprint and aircraft energy utilization. Eventually, it will accelerate the deployment of Urban Air Mobility by addressing necessary standardization, regulation and roadmaps, in synchronization with the ongoing certification of the involved European UAM vehicles and ensure social acceptance by targeted communication and dissemination activities. All of this will be done through 3 distinct and well selected demonstration activities involving Europe’s promising UAM OEMs.

Keywords: u space,u space advanced services,uam,urban air mobility,autonomous operations,social acceptance
Role of mitochondria in mediating evolutionary rescue by anthropogenic pollutants in an invasive crab (MitoRescue)

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,Australia
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-05-01
End date: 2026-06-30
Duration (months): 38.0
Total project cost (EUR): 298734.72
EU funding (EUR): 298734.72
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Invasive alien species (IAS) are the cause of enormous socio-economic and biodiversity loss across the world. In the context of climate change and increased pollution, IAS are often more adaptive than native species, capable of adjusting their phenology in accordance with climatic changes, facilitating their invasion. It has been recently suggested that “rapid evolution” (allowing quickly adaption and avoiding extinction due to maladaptation), is the cause of the increased invasive capacity of IAS. In MitoRescue I take this concept one step further, and I hypothesize that mitochondria, being exquisitely sensitive to environmental stress and with a highly mutagenic DNA, are key organelles involved in rapid evolution resulting in “evolutionary rescue”. I will study the combined impact of pollutants and increased temperature on an ancestral and an invasive (recently established) population of the European Green Crab, an extremely prolific invader. The study involves both field and laboratory approaches, from the organelle to the whole-organism. It merges the fields of toxicology, physiology, evolutionary and molecular biology to provide a highly multidisciplinary and integrative perspective. The final objective of this research subject is to predict future invasion scenarios, identify novel targets to control IAS proliferation and improve management and risk assessments of IAS in Europe and worldwide. With MitoRescue I will use a state-of-the-art training in assessing mitochondrial plasticity to consolidate my career in Europe and compile the necessary data to establish a research subject new to the ERA with great translational impact. In the long-term, this research will promote “restoring Europe’s biodiversity”, which is one of the four current key strategic orientations for EU’s R&I. It will contribute as well to the European Green Deal Initiatives and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 by addressing IAS socio-economical management in a thermally changing world.

Keywords: invasive alien species,evolutionary rescue,rapid evolution,mitochondria
Sympathetic Neural Networks protecting against Obesity (SympNetO)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Panel description: Organ and tissue physiology, comparative physiology, physiology  of ageing , pathophysiology, inter - organ and tissue communication, endocrinology, nutrition,  metabolism, interaction with the microbiome, non -communicable diseases including cancer (and except disorders of the nervous system  and immunity -related diseases)
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2024-ADG, 2024)
Start date: 2026-01-01
End date: 2030-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2612128.0
EU funding (EUR): 2612128.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The brain regulates various physiological functions, including body weight, through descending autonomic sympathetic neurons. While targeting this system can improve obesity, it often carries cardiovascular risks. These limitations arise from a limited understanding of sympathetic neural networks due to their complexity and anatomically inaccessible location. My laboratory has been developing innovative strategies, including a novel imaging technique with single-neuron resolution and advanced single-cell analysis algorithms. In mice, these methods have enabled my laboratory to identify sympathetic interneurons, offering a new perspective into autonomic neuroscience. These interneurons are melanocortinergic and reside in sympathetic ganglia that do not target the heart but a unique thermogenic fat cluster, which we hypothesize is analogous to one found in adult humans. SympNetO will investigate whether these sympathetic interneurons can provide a neurobiological basis for cardioprotective anti-obesity mechanisms that promote fat burning. My laboratory will expand its suite of unpublished techniques, integrating single-cell genomics data across humans and macaques, alongside intersectional mouse models. This approach will enable us to develop anatomical and molecular atlases and functionally characterize sympathetic neural networks conserved across species. In Aim 1, my laboratory will molecularly define sympathetic neural networks across ganglia. In Aim 2, we will manipulate these networks to differentiate those regulating energy expenditure from other physiological processes like heart rate and blood pressure. In Aim 3, we will determine how sympathetic circuits control previously unrecognized thermogenic fat pads to regulate energy expenditure. This research aims to bring sympathetic neuroscience into the era of neural networks, providing a platform that could identify new fat-burning medications that spare the cardiovascular system.

Keywords: brown adipose tissue,obesity,sympathetic nervous system
Astrochemistry and chemistry emulation to simulate dust formation and growth around evolved stars (ASHES)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Universe Sciences
Panel description: Astro -physics/ -chemistry/ -biology; solar system; planetary systems; stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy; cosmology; space sciences; astronomical instrumentation and data
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2025-STG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-08-01
End date: 2031-07-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The chemical evolution of galaxies is driven by mass loss from stars at the end of their lives. The majority of stars will go through an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase, losing their outer layers by means of a stellar outflow and enriching the interstellar medium with the building blocks for the next generation of stars and planets. The outflow is triggered by stellar pulsations that aid dust formation, which then launches a dust-driven wind. Large-scale structures, like spirals and disks, are widely observed and thought to be caused by binary interaction with a (sub)stellar companion. Despite the importance of dust to launching the outflow, we still do not know exactly how it is formed. Dust formation is a fundamentally chemical process: gas-phase molecules form larger clusters, condense into a seed particle and grow by accreting more molecules. Existing dust formation models either assume an initial number of seed particles to be already present at the start of the model or use classical nucleation theory, which is not applicable to AGB outflows as it assumes thermal equilibrium. Now, thanks to a decade of quantum chemical calculations, it is finally possible to model dust formation in a chemical kinetic way in AGB outflows. ASHES will develop the first comprehensive chemical network that includes dust nucleation and growth, allowing us to quantify the effects of large-scale structures and a stellar companion’s UV field on the amount, composition, and size of the dust. Using machine learning to emulate the network, we will build the first comprehensive 3D hydrochemical model. This model will quantify the impact of a binary companion on shaping the outflow and, for the first time, on the chemistry and dust formed within the outflow. The observational tracers generated by the model will be used to determine the dusty output of observed outflows. ASHES will transform our understanding of dust formation in AGB outflows and impact AGB research and beyond.

Keywords: astrochemistry,dust nucleation,evolved stars,astrochemical modelling,hydrodynamical simulations
Healing and Learning in the Fondaco: A Forgotten Network of Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Mamluk and Ottoman Levant, 1400-1700 (FONDACO)

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: Italy,Türkiye
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-12-15
End date: 2026-08-14
Duration (months): 32.0
Total project cost (EUR): 188590.08
EU funding (EUR): 188590.08
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

This two-year Fellowship will produce the first systematic study of an uncharted network of knowledge exchange connecting Christian and Islamicate states across the Mediterranean and Levant 1400-1700. This network had its humble origin in a public health initiative of the Republic of Venice, first uncovered by Pugliano thanks to a Wellcome Trust Fellowship in Medical History. Keen on protecting its commercial and political interests overseas, for three centuries Venice appointed physicians, surgeons and apothecaries to its colonies and outposts in the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire. Tasked with guarding the health of Venice’s diplomats and merchants, in fact these medical servants used their positions as springboards for rich intellectual explorations that brought them in contact with local populations and traditions. The proposed project aims to investigate how these diplomatic doctors turned into savants and, more ambitiously, how this network facilitated the development of key fields of scholarship in early modern Europe, notably natural history and antiquarianism, and how these were informed by the intellectual world of the Near East. In so doing, the project will overturn the image of intellectual stagnation traditionally attributed to the post-medieval Mediterranean world, and reshape our understanding of the connected history of the region. The project will significantly contribute to the development of the field of History of Science and Medicine in the host institution and European higher education. It will also considerably advance the career of Valentina Pugliano, an experienced researcher educated internationally in the UK, Germany and the US. The training provided by Ca’ Foscari and a secondment at Koç University, Istanbul, the international networks of these two institutions, and the project’s output, will cement Pugliano’s reputation as emerging scholar and increase her chances of securing an ERC grant and a position at a European university.

Keywords: venice,mediterranean,mamluk and ottoman levant,cross cultural encounters,knowledge networks,natural history,antiquarianism,collecting,global early modern europe,public health
Performance uncertainty and the level of female participation on tournaments (GAPINCOMPETITION)

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: Türkiye,United States
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-08-15
End date: 2024-08-14
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 171521.28
EU funding (EUR): 171521.28
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

In business life, academics, nonprofits, and politics, it is commonly observed that women enter competitive positions less often than men. This may stem mainly from two facts: 1) Women do not prefer competitive environments; 2) They are discriminated against in competitive environments. The literature starting from Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) focuses on the first fact. Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) show that although there is no performance difference between men and women, women prefer competitive environments less often than men. The aim of this project is to understand the (information) conditions under which females become more competitive. The promise of the project is important because it may be possible to increase the number of females in the competitive positions with a proper information design. In this project, I plan to use a similar set up to rank-order tournaments, i.e., performance is the sum of effort (transformation of skill) and chance. In the outgoing phase, I aim to understand how tournament entry decision differ across genders when subjects know both their own and their competitors’ skills but they have different types of information about the chance component: one being that the chance component is drawn from a known distribution (uncertainty), the other one being that it is drawn from an unknown distribution (ambiguity). This part of the project will be carried out in UCSD under the supervision of Prof. Uri Gneezy. I will then return to METU to continue the project for 12 months under the supervision of Prof. Serkan Kucuksenel. In the incoming phase, I aim to understand what should be the skill differences for males and females to encourage (discourage) females (males) to enter tournament by knowing that they have higher (lower) skill than males (females). Through the proposed research, I will be able to work with leading scholars in behavioral economics and my research agenda will advance with the help of new connections and skills.

Keywords: behavioral economics,gender,tournaments,uncertainty,ambiguity