Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Robot-Assisted Flexible Needle Steering for Targeted Delivery of Magnetic Agents (ROBOTAR)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Systems and communication engineering
Panel description: Electrical, electronic, communication, optical and systems engineering
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2014-STG, 2014)
Start date: 2015-06-01
End date: 2020-11-30
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Diagnostic agents are currently injected into the body in an uncontrolled way and visualized using non-real-time imaging modalities. Delivering agents close to the organ and magnetically guiding them to the target would permit a myriad of novel diagnostic and therapeutic options, including on-site pathology and targeted drug delivery. Such an advance would truly revolutionize minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Presently MIS often involves manual percutaneous insertion of rigid needles. These needles deviate from their intended paths due to tissue deformation and physiological processes. Inaccurate needle placement may result in misdiagnosis or ineffective treatment. Thus, the goal of ROBOTAR is to design a robotic system to accurately steer flexible needles through tissue, and enable precise delivery of agents by magnetically guiding them to a designated target. There are several challenges: 3D models describing the evolving needle shape are not available, real-time control of flexible needles using 3D ultrasound (US) images has not been demonstrated, and US-guided tracking of magnetic agents has not been attempted. These challenges will be overcome by using non-invasively (via US) acquired tissue properties to develop patient-specific biomechanical models that predict needle paths for pre-operative plans. Intra-operative control of flexible needles with actuated tips will be accomplished by integrating plans with data from US images and optical sensors. Ultrafast US tracking methods will be coupled to an electromagnetic system to robustly control the agents. A prototype will be evaluated using microrobots and clusters of nanoparticles in scenarios with realistic physiological functionalities. The knowledge gained will be applicable to a range of flexible instruments, and to an assortment of personalized treatment scenarios. This research is motivated by the existing need to further reduce invasiveness of MIS, minimize patient trauma, and improve clinical outcomes.

Keywords: surgical robotics,medical microrobotics,minimally invasive surgery
Final development, clinical validation and launch preparation of NL01, an innovative health ingredient for supplements, food products and foods for special medical purposes (NUTRI-NEED)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2, 2018)
Start date: 2018-06-01
End date: 2020-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3567000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2496900.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

People want to live a long and healthy life and there is a huge demand for food products to enable this. Among consumers, the most desired health benefits in food products and supplements are ‘supports immune function’ and ‘increases resistance to infections’. NutriLeads is a dynamic Health Ingredients company developing crop-derived food ingredients with clinically proven health benefits. With its proprietary lead ingredient NL01, having completed preclinical data and proven safety in humans, NutriLeads is on track to become the first company to launch an ingredient with an approved health claim for supporting immune function and increasing infection resistance. Targeted end-users of NL01 containing food products (dietary supplements, medical- and functional foods) are young adults, adults, elderly and patients, aiming to support their health and immune status. Nutrileads selected a common crop from which NL01 can be isolated, a game-changer for its commercial success,and developed the isolation process for NL01 up to small scale industrial plant production. In this project, Nutrileads will perform medium scale-up of the production process to 250 kg. Nutrileads will complete the data package for NL01 with a clinical study in a relevant population with increased infection risk to support the health claims on NL01, register NL01 as ‘Novel Food’ and obtain European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) regulatory advice on registration as ‘Food for Specific Medical Purposes’. NutriLeads will generate revenues from out-licensing NL01 to large companies in the food industry. Market leaders Abbott, Nestlé, Friesland Campina, Danone, Fresenius regularly in-licence components for inclusion in their products; Nestlé and DSM have already shown interest in Nutrileads’ products. Nutrileads works towards market entry and first deals during or directly after this project with a projected best-case cumulative revenues of €115 million in 2026, representing >46x the EC grant.

Keywords: food ingredient,dietary supplement,medical food,functional food,approved health claim,efsa,health benefits,nutrition,immune supportive
Forecasting Tool for supporting of grid operations with HIgh INtegration of distributed PV generation (THINKPV)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Greece
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2018-09-10
End date: 2021-03-12
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 152653.2
EU funding (EUR): 152653.2
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The European Union policy for climate and energy imposes significant targets for a high integration of renewable energy sources in the period from 2020 to 2030. System operators have to deal with operational flexibility to respond to variability and to uncertainty of the renewable generation, ensuring the network reliability and security. While significant efforts have been made into the developing accurate forecasts, much work remains to integrate the forecasting in the electric system operations. The successful incorporation of forecasts into grid operation emerges as an important challenge. Accurate photovoltaic (PV) generation forecasts are major themes of the research roadmap of many international task forces, as Smart Grids SRA 2035 to support the flexibility increasing of the power systems. In this context, the project aims to support large scale integration of PV systems in countries with a high solar resource and a significant potential of small capacity PV systems such as Greece. The Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) is the most important Hellenic research institute, committed to support Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator S.A. (HENDO) that is dealing with a radical modernization of the existing network. The THINKPV project encourages the ICCS and its industrial partners to facilitate PV grid integration by the development of a probabilistic forecasting system based on machine learning, taking advantage of data that can be measured in the distribution network, in order to improve forecast accuracy compared to the state of art. The model will be assembled into a solar power forecasting system that will be operational at the Electric Energy Systems Laboratory (EESL) of the ICCS to operate directly with tools for simulating power system operations. A prototype of operational solar forecasting systems will be demonstrated for HENDO, providing also a training program for its efficiency and correct application.

Keywords: photovoltaic,grid connected pv system,solar power forecasting,renewable energy integration,distributed generation,machine learning
Multibeam Femtosecond Laser System for High Throughput Micro-drilling of HLFC Structures (MULTIPOINT)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: Photonics (cPPP)
Countries involved: Spain,Spain,Belgium,Belgium,France
Call: Photonics based manufacturing, access to photonics, datacom photonics and connected lighting (H2020-ICT-2018-2, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2023-03-31
Duration (months): 51.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4000028.75
EU funding (EUR): 4000028.75
Participants: 7
Project status: SIGNED

MULTIPOINT's main objective is to develop a high power femtosecond laser system with a multibeam generation unit and custom beam delivery scanning and processing on the fly heads for high throughput micro-drilling of large Ti panels used in the fabrication HLFC structures in the aerospace industry. Three will be the key challenges to be adressed: • A 1.2 kW femtosecond laser source working at high pulse energy will be developed. This laser has enough power to drive several synchronized processes of percussion drilling at the same time (parallel processing) and hence, maximize the production just taking into account aspects related to the increase of the energy provided to the sample. • Secondly, a multibeam generation unit will be developed for splitting the main beam supplied by the laser source. This unit will be optimized not only optically but will take into account process optimization and application requirements. It will be designed to optimize the energy balance per beam in a pattern determined by the particular requirements of the micro-drilling of Ti panels for the development of HLFC structures. • Finally, two strategies for delivering the multibeam pattern to the Ti panel based on the percussion drilling technique will be developed and tested. The first strategy involves the development of a multibeam scanner based on galvanometric mirrors. Its custom design will include a sufficient optical aperture to take a number of parallel beams to the sample, within a working field determined by a focussing f-theta lens, in a controlled environment by means of an inert Ar atmosphere chamber for process protection. The second head will be a multibeam on-the-fly processing head with pulse trains in a multibeam pattern and Ar jet nozzle. These two strategies will also allow us to study the best processing approach through the development of new beam delivery technologies to optimize the process parameters and maximize production.

Keywords: high power femtosecond laser,hybrid laminar flow control,micro drilling,laser parallel processing,multibeam generation,multibeam scanner,multibeam on the fly processing,monitoring drilling processes
A game-changing booking website designed to help 1bn people with a disability enjoy accessible accommodation that can suit their specific needs and allow them to travel worry-free (Handiscover)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: SME instrument (H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020-3, 2020)
Start date: 2020-06-01
End date: 2022-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2309125.0
EU funding (EUR): 1616387.5
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The UN estimates there are over 1bn persons with disabilities worldwide, as well as 2bn people such as spouses, children and caregivers that are directly affected by disability. This group, representing almost a third of the population, can face serious issues when travelling, with inaccessible environments leading to inconveniences or sometimes even embarrassing or humiliating situations. Due to the specificity of each condition, people with special needs require highly detailed information on facilities when travelling. For instance, someone in a regular wheelchair travelling with a companion won’t have any issues in getting over one step. However, someone in a motorised wheelchair travelling alone would face a more serious situation and would probably need to be lifted by untrained staff to get over the hurdle. Existing travel booking systems don’t give users any guarantees on accessibility, with mainstream websites (Booking.com, Airbnb) providing only basic or inaccurate information. With a mission to overcome these limitations, we developed Handiscover, the world’s first inclusive booking system that helps people with a disability to identify accessible accommodation that suits their specific needs and allows them to travel worry-free. Whilst we have a prototype at TRL7, we need to refine, demonstrate and scale up to meet the demand we have seen and to maximise the impact of our solution. Specifically, we need a more automated and wide-ranging system that can account for any form of disability, generate accessibility knowledge amongst hotel staff and better manage hotel accessibility details. By commercialising our solution, we will generate invaluable accessibility data, support the participation into society and in the economy of people with a disability and their families, and generate a cumulative revenue of €37m and 74 new jobs by 2026. Our solution will position Europe as an active player in the currently US-centric Online Travel Agency market.

Keywords: accessible travel,societal challenge,online booking system
Revolutionary Opéra-Comique in Scandinavia: Transfer and Repertoire (RevolutionaryOpScan)

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: Norway
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-09-01
End date: 2024-01-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 303238.08
EU funding (EUR): 303238.08
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Scandinavia provides a particularly interesting case for the study of the impact of French revolutionary theatre. The Scandinavian countries (today’s Norway, Denmark and Sweden) were never invaded by the French during the Napoleonic wars that followed the Revolution of 1789, but these countries were nonetheless strongly affected by revolutionary ideas, in some cases experiencing profound constitutional upheavals. The project examines the impact of ideas from the French Revolution in Europe, by focusing on the intriguing case of the Scandinavian countries and by centring on the largely under-studied literary and musical phenomenon of opéra-comique. Opéra-comique, a very special and hugely popular form of musical drama mixing song and spoken dialogue, was one of the most popular forms of theatre and one of the most important means of expression of public opinion during the French Revolution. Yet this kind of theatre has received little attention in scholarship, be it from historians, musicologists, or literary scholars. The project builds on multidisciplinary approaches and recent work on opéra-comique during the French Revolution in order to examine the impact of the French revolutionary ideas through this repertoire in the case of the Scandinavian countries. The project includes the collection of historical performance evidence for opéra-comique in Sweden, Denmark and Norway for the period from 1789 to 1815. Through the establishment of an open online database, the project will make this information accessible for statistical analysis by scholars for the first time. On a conceptual level, the project will use the information gathered in the database to establish where, when, and how often revolutionary pieces were staged in Scandinavia. The project will also set out questions on the adaptation and modification of this repertoire in Scandinavian context. This will lead to new knowledge and pave the way for similar studies on a European level.

Keywords: circulation of theater pieces in eighteenth century,eighteenth century op ra comique,eighteenth century french theatre studies,eighteenth century french literature,theatre during the french revolution
Tailoring topological properties in Weyl semimetal thin films (TOP WSF)

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: Italy
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2021-05-01
End date: 2023-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 171473.28
EU funding (EUR): 171473.28
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Recently discovered topological Dirac and Weyl semimetals are provoking an incredible interest not only because they represent a point of contact between high-energy and solid state physics, but also due to the technological perspectives they offer in the fields of electronics, spintronics, spin-caloritronics, quantum computing and energy harvesting. Although several exceptional properties, caused by the non-trivial topology, have been observed on macroscopic single crystals, many concrete applications pass through the integration of candidate materials into nano/micro-structured devices. To this aim, the establishment of methods to fabricate high-quality thin films and the investigation of the evolution of their topological transport properties with scaling the sample dimensions is a crucial step, but the current state of art is still strongly lacking. In this project, I want to fabricate thin films of selected topological semimetals with different magnetic ground states (non-magnetic, ferromagnetic, non-collinear antiferromagnetic) using the pulsed-laser deposition technique and set a protocol to optimize the growing conditions. The aim is to explore the evolution of their topological electric and thermoelectric transport properties, including anomalous Hall and Nernst effects, chiral anomalies and giant magnetoresistance, as a function of different tunable parameters (thin film thickness, sample lateral size, temperature, magnetic field, strain). This will be achieved through a sophisticated method of sample patterning with a multiple-approach, which combines optical lithography and focused-ion-beam techniques. In this way, I will be able to obtain highly conditioned micro/nano-structures with an optimal control over the geometrical factors. This study will be of crucial importance to obtain at the same time a new insight into the fundamental physics of topological semimetals and a clue into the actual perspectives of transport devices.

Keywords: topology,thin films,transport properties,thermoelectric properties,dirac semimetals,weyl semimetals,optical lithography,focused ion beam
From Chemical Bond Forces and Breakage to Macroscopic Fracture of Soft Materials (chemech)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced 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: France
Call: ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2015-AdG, 2015)
Start date: 2016-09-01
End date: 2022-02-28
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2251026.28
EU funding (EUR): 2251026.28
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

Soft materials are irreplaceable in engineering applications where large reversible deformations are needed, and in life sciences to mimic ever more closely or replace a variety of living tissues. While mechanical strength may not be essential for all applications, excessive brittleness is a strong limitation. Yet predicting if a soft material will be tough or brittle from its molecular composition or structure relies on empirical concepts due to the lack of proper tools to detect the damage occurring to the material before it breaks. Taking advantage of the recent advances in materials science and mechanochemistry, we propose a ground-breaking method to investigate the mechanisms of fracture of tough soft materials. To achieve this objective we will use a series of model materials containing a variable population of internal sacrificial bonds that break before the material fails macroscopically, and use a combination of advanced characterization techniques and molecular probes to map stress, strain, bond breakage and structure in a region ~100 µm in size ahead of the propagating crack. By using mechanoluminescent and mechanophore molecules incorporated in the model material in selected positions, confocal laser microscopy, digital image correlation and small-angle X-ray scattering we will gain an unprecedented molecular understanding of where and when bonds break as the material fails and the crack propagates, and will then be able to establish a direct relation between the architecture of soft polymer networks and their fracture energy, leading to a new molecular and multi-scale vision of macroscopic fracture of soft materials. Such advances will be invaluable to guide materials chemists to design and develop better and more finely tuned soft but tough and sometimes self-healing materials to replace living tissues (in bio engineering) and make lightweight tough and flexible parts for energy efficient transport.

Keywords: fracture,mechanical properties,polymer physics
Software tools for fast, reliable analysis of magnetic materials in the electron microscope (MAGTOOLS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Spain
Call: ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2015-PoC, 2015)
Start date: 2016-06-01
End date: 2017-11-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

This proof-of-concept project aims at developing a software tool to be integrated in commercial electron microscope control platforms dedicated to the development of novel magnetic materials. Magnetic materials have applications in different areas such as data storage, sensors, biomedical applications or spintronic devices. Future technological developments will come hand-in-hand with new materials based on novel atomic arrangements, and electron microscopy is a unique technique to analyze nature in an atom-by-atom fashion. Recent improvements in microscope performance ensuing from the correction of optical aberrations are already commercially available. However, a successful transfer of specific, advanced tools into a wider technology development context needs of user-friendly interfaces that can help non-specialist researchers and engineers fully exploit these techniques. This is a particularly pressing need for the magnetic material industry, since a number of techniques sensitive to magnetic quantities have been demonstrated in the electron microscope in the last few years. But the field development is incomplete because they are hampered by time-consuming data acquisition and analysis procedures. No tools exist that are capable of fast optimization, acquisition and analysis of data at the flick of a switch. Here, we propose to fill this gap and develop an optimal software tool ready to be marketed by specialized technical companies. It will consist of an interface that will control and modify the excitations of magnetic lenses, the detectors in charge of data acquisition and, also analyze datasets and calculate parameters relevant to the magnetic behavior of samples of interest. These tools will provide the means to give a new spin to research into the magnetic materials of the future.

Keywords: software tools,electron microscopy,magnetic materials