Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Supporting Pioneer doctoral Researchers through 3i Knowledge partnerships (SPARK)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes (COFUND)-Doctoral programmes
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Countries involved: Ireland,Spain,Italy,Australia,South Africa,Germany,Norway,Greece,Croatia,Belgium,France,Czechia,Netherlands,United States,Denmark,Kazakhstan,United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: Co-funding of regional, national and international programmes (H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2017-05-01
End date: 2022-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3139200.0
EU funding (EUR): 1569600.0
Participants: 30
Project status: CLOSED

The SPaRK Programme is driven by the need to develop future leaders whose skills combine disciplinary excellence with a capacity for interdisciplinary and intersectoral working that creates genuinely disruptive thinkers. SPaRK recognises that genuinely game-changing intersectoral, international and interdisciplinary collaboration does not happen simply by making available opportunities for mobility, placements, or input from other disciplines. It is therefore designed to offer an innovative model of professional and scientific development that is proactively training researchers to be able to maximise the potential of these 3i partnerships. Only by rethinking our current, competence-based skills agenda in ways that embrace a model based on intellectual flexibility and creativity can we prepare the leaders who will be equipped to respond to constantly shifting global challenges. The SPaRK programme thus proposes the integration of disciplinary excellence with a meaningful reflection on the possibilities both of interdisciplinarity and of mobility across cultural, linguistic, professional and epistemological borders. QUB is ideally placed to host this programme. It is the UK leader in Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and has an outstanding reputation for nurturing research with societal impact across the cultural, commercial and scientific economies. In addition, Queen’s enjoys a significant track record in attracting funding for cohort-based doctoral training programmes (ITNs, UK Research Councils), and as testimony to its record of excellence in, and commitment to, enhanced doctoral training, the university has recently invested the equivalent of 7m euros in a new Graduate School (opened in April 2015), of which the PI for this application is Dean. The Graduate School will host the SPaRK cohort, providing world-class facilities as well as an intellectual hub for 3i training, debate and dialogue.

Keywords: doctoral research leadership,global impact training,global research leadership
Unbalanced Wnt signalling in AD: a DNA methylation effect (eWAD)

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-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2017-03-01
End date: 2019-02-28
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 183454.8
EU funding (EUR): 183454.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Growing evidence suggests that unbalanced Wnt signalling contributes to early stages of Alzheimer´s Disease (AD). mRNA levels of the Wnt antagonist Dikkoff1 (Dkk1) are increased in AD brains and by Amyloid-ß (Aß) in vitro. Importantly, suppression of Dkk1 activity protects synapses from Aß. Genome-Wide Association Studies also provide evidence for deficient Wnt signalling in AD. The host laboratory has recently demonstrated that Dkk1 induced expression in the adult hippocampus leads to synapse loss and cognitive impairment; defects that can be restored by Wnt signalling reactivation. My preliminary results demonstrate that mRNA levels of several Wnt components (Wnts, their receptors and antagonists) are affected in a transgenic mouse model of familial AD, suggesting a general downregulation in Wnt signalling. These findings raise two main questions. Is aberrant expression of Wnt components an early event in AD? What mechanisms lead to aberrant Wnt component expression in AD? Given that Wnt signalling is crucial for synapse maintenance, and that my preliminary results suggest a coordinated downregulation of the Wnt pathway in AD, I will examine the role of DNA methylation at Wnt component genes in AD and how this affects synapse integrity. The potential role of DNA methylation is supported by: i) AD patients and mouse models exhibit global DNA hypomethylation and gene-specific DNA hypermethylation, ii) DNA methylation at promoters leads to gene repression, but intragenic methylation can enhance transcription, iii) Wnt components contain CpG islands at their promoters and/or intragenic regions, and iv) some Wnt components are regulated by DNA methylation in cancer. My work will define the role of epigenetic regulation of Wnt components under physiological conditions and determine the relevance of unbalanced Wnt signalling in AD. This research project could also identify new biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of early AD stages.

Keywords: alzheimer s disease,amyloid,wnt signalling,wnt components wnts,frizzled receptors and wnt antagonists,epigenetic regulation dna methylation
European Materials Modelling Council (EMMC-CSA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing and Processing, and Biotechnology
Theme: Advanced materials
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Italy,Italy,Germany,Germany,Germany,Austria,Switzerland,Sweden,Norway,France,Netherlands,Netherlands,United Kingdom,Denmark,United Kingdom
Call: Network to capitalise on strong European position in materials modelling and to allow industry to reap the benefits (H2020-NMBP-CSA-2016, 2016)
Start date: 2016-09-01
End date: 2019-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3948970.76
EU funding (EUR): 3773470.76
Participants: 18
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the EMMC-CSA is to establish current and forward looking complementary activities necessary to bring the field of materials modelling closer to the demands of manufacturers (both small and large enterprises) in Europe. The ultimate goal is that materials modelling and simulation will become an integral part of product life cycle management in European industry, thereby making a strong contribution to enhance innovation and competitiveness on a global level. Based on intensive efforts in the past two years within the European Materials Modelling Council (EMMC) which included numerous consultation and networking actions with representatives of all stakeholders including Modellers, Software Owners, Translators and Manufacturers in Europe, the EMMC identified and proposed a set of underpinning and enabling actions to increase the industrial exploitation of materials modelling in Europe EMMC-CSA will pursue the following overarching objectives in order to establish and strengthen the underpinning foundations of materials modelling in Europe and bridge the gap between academic innovation and industrial application: 1. Enhance the interaction and collaboration between all stakeholders engaged in different types of materials modelling, including modellers, software owners, translators and manufacturers. 2. Facilitate integrated materials modelling in Europe building on strong and coherent foundations. 3. Coordinate and support actors and mechanisms that enable rapid transfer of materials modelling from academic innovation to the end users and potential beneficiaries in industry. 4. Achieve greater awareness and uptake of materials modelling in industry, in particular SMEs. 5. Elaborate Roadmaps that (i) identify major obstacles to widening the use of materials modelling in European industry and (ii) elaborate strategies to overcome them. This EMMC-CSA stems directly out of the actions of the EMMC and will continue and build upon its existing activities.

Keywords: materials modelling,models,coupling and linking,interoperability,metadata schema,e cuds,open simulation platform,marketplace,validated software,data repositories,translation,economic impact
HARMONISED EUROPEAN SOLUTIONS FOR TESTING AUTOMATED ROAD TRANSPORT (HEADSTART)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Smart, green and integrated transport
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Austria,Germany,Italy,Germany,Spain,Austria,Spain,Spain,Belgium,Sweden,Greece,France,France,Netherlands
Call: Testing, validation and certification procedures for highly automated driving functions under various traffic scenarios based on pilot test data (H2020-DT-ART-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2021-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5999028.75
EU funding (EUR): 5999028.75
Participants: 23
Project status: CLOSED

The HEADSTART (Harmonised European Solutions for Testing Automated Road Transport) project will define testing and validation procedures of Connected and Automated Driving (CAD) functions including its key enabling technologies (i.e. communications, cyber-security, positioning) by cross-linking of all test instances such as simulation, proving ground and real world field tests to validate safety and security performance according to the needs of key user groups (technology developers, consumer testing groups and type approval authorities). Five (5) objectives encompass the HEADSTART project: 1) Create a dynamic catalogue of existing methodologies, procedures, tools for testing, validation and certification considering multi-stakeholder requirements 2) Harmonisation of existing testing and validation approaches taking into account other industries and domains 3) Define and develop test, validation and certification methodologies and procedures for CAD functions building upon existing initiatives. 4) Demonstrate the developed methodologies, procedures and tools through the testing of 4 CAD use cases. 5) Reach consensus by creating and managing an expert network of CAD testing to promote adoption of the project results considering multi-stakeholder needs HEADSTART brings together a large representation of stakeholders across the value chain leveraging the knowledge from European and national activities on CAD testing. The consortium and associated stakeholders will cluster the most relevant initiatives, develop the specific procedures and tools missing and harmonise the whole approach to reach a harmonised European solution for testing, validating and certifying automated road vehicles. This will be achieved through international cooperation with industry, academia and policy makers participating in dedicated working groups of a managed expert network during the whole project duration.

Keywords: testing,cybersecurity,positioning,communications
Advocacy in Digital Democracy: Use, Impact and Democratic Consequences (ADVODID)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Panel description: Political science, international relations, law
Countries involved: Denmark,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2019-COG, 2019)
Start date: 2021-08-01
End date: 2027-10-31
Duration (months): 75.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1986922.0
EU funding (EUR): 1986922.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Digital technology has fundamentally changed the action repertoire of political campaigning and advocacy in the last decade. Despite its fundamental role in contemporary political strategy and potential to affect the quality of democracy, there is still little systematic evidence to assess and compare the real effects of online and offline advocacy tools. ADVODID will implement the first large-scale quantitative project designed to provide rich correlational and causal evidence on the effects of advocacy on citizens and policymakers, in both online and offline settings. It sets out to address - theoretically and empirically - the potentials and challenges for modern democracies that arise from digital advocacy tools. Its novelty lies in analyzing the use, impact and democratic consequences of digital advocacy strategies by assessing interactions of advocacy groups with both citizens and political representatives in a diverse set of eight countries (Australia, Chile, Denmark, India, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US). ADVODID will collect data on the advocacy agenda and strategy use of at least 400 carefully sampled advocates in these countries, and will assess agenda congruence with political and public agendas, and their dynamic development over time. Correlational analyses of different measures of advocacy success will be complemented by field experiments in cooperation with advocates in two countries, to supply causal evidence on how advocacy affects the positions and actions of policymakers and citizens. The project’s rich datasets will be used to assess and refine theories of democratic representation and the role of digital advocacy across different types of policy issues. ADVODID will greatly advance understanding of how modern advocacy impacts its target audiences and potentially changes participatory democracy. Its findings will have interdisciplinary and social relevance and inform ways to strengthen representative democracy in an online age.

Keywords: digital advocacy,political participation,representation,lobbying influence,democracy
Repeating cycles of chemically-driven RNA replication within model protocells (RNA-Rep)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018, 2018)
Start date: 2019-04-01
End date: 2021-03-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Deciphering how nucleic acids replicated in the absence of genetically encoded enzymes is of critical importance to understanding the onset of Darwinian evolution. While much effort has been put into developing chemically-driven copying of RNA exploiting activated monomers, many unsolved issues stand in the way of achieving repeated cycles of non-enzymatic RNA replication. Non-enzymatic copying of a template strand results in the formation of an RNA duplex, which must then be denatured in order for subsequent rounds of replication to take place. Although RNA strands can be separated by heating, re-annealing kinetically outcompetes slow non-enzymatic copying, thus inhibiting RNA amplification. One unexplored solution to this problem is to physically separate melted strands of RNA so that re-annealing is not possible. Since all known living systems exploit lipid membranes, we propose to investigate whether protocellular compartments can facilitate the emergence of simplistic chemical systems that amplify RNA. Specifically, high temperatures are known to induce both RNA strand separation and bilayer defects, ultimately allowing for the partial leakage of RNA. If the transition temperature of the lipid membrane is higher than the melting temperature of the RNA, then subsequent slow cooling would recover the original impermeability of the membrane and give rise to a fraction of protocellular structures containing stochastic numbers of single RNA strands. At this stage, feeding with permeable activated short (oligo)nucleotides would lead to renewed copying of RNA. This highly original and multidisciplinary project combines the strength of organic and supramolecular chemistry to optimise prebiotic compartments with the power of in situ non-enzymatic RNA biochemistry to yield a project of excellent, innovative science that will exploit my expertise in protocellular systems while providing me extensive training in organic synthesis, chemical biology and biophysics.

Keywords: prebiotic chemistry,origin of life,protocell,non enzymatic rna replication,systems chemistry
Elucidating the function of telomeric transcripts in the cytoplasm of ALT osteosarcoma cells (CytoTERRA)

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: Italy
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-09-01
End date: 2023-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 171473.28
EU funding (EUR): 171473.28
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The unlimited replication potential of cancer cells is enabled by their ability to renew their ends of chromosomes, telomeres. A minority of cancers utilizes a recombination pathway, named alternative lenghtening of telomeres (ALT), to maintain their telomeres. ALT cells exhibit increased DNA damage at telomeres and increased levels of TERRA, a lncRNA transcribed from telomeres. TERRA plays important roles in telomere biology, but it also has extranuclear functions. Short TERRA species were found in extracellular vesicles of lymphoblastoid and cancer cells, and they were found to stimulate inflammation. Notably, inflammation can have both anti-tumorigenic and pro-tumorigenic effects. Particularly, in osteosarcoma, a bone cancer with high ALT incidence, affecting predominantly children and adolescents, inflammation is connected to poor prognosis and metastasis development. Our preliminary results suggest that TERRA is present in the cytoplasm of human ALT osteosarcoma cells. We propose that the accumulation of cytoplasmic TERRA (cyTERRA) is induced by telomeric DNA damage, and that cyTERRA, similarly to extracellular TERRA, is capable of initiating an inflammation response. Since the cytoplasmic DNA sensor pathway is defective in these cells, we propose that TERRA plays a role of a DNA damage messenger that triggers the pro-tumorigenic inflammation. We will test our hypothesis by studying the characteristics of cyTERRA, elucidating the factors influencing its localization and studying the effect of cyTERRA depletion on inflammation signalling in these cells. The understanding of the function of cyTERRA in ALT osteosarcoma may introduce it as a marker for inflammation, and expose its export pathway as a therapeutic target. Since the variability of therapeutic outcome in osteosarcoma patients is not completely understood, the understanding of cancer inflammation triggers may be valuable for personalized therapeutic approach in these patients.

Keywords: telomere,dna damage,long non coding rna,lncrna,alternative lengthening of telomeres,terra,osteosarcoma,u2os,saos2,live cell imagining,nfkb,stat3,pro tumorigenic inflammation
Embedded Electronic solutions for Polymer Innovative Scanning Tools using Light Emitting devices for diagnostic Routines (El-Peacetolero)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Euratom
Programme: Nuclear fission and radiation protection
Theme: Nuclear safety
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Germany,Germany,Russian Federation,France,France
Call: Innovation for Generation II and III reactors (NFRP-2019-2020, 2019)
Start date: 2020-09-01
End date: 2024-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3652170.0
EU funding (EUR): 2999236.0
Participants: 9
Project status: SIGNED

El-Peacetolero’s overarching ambition is to design a TRL 7 hand-held, low power, embedded optoelectronic system that can deploy AI for in-situ real-time measurement, identification and diagnosis of the material state of aging polymers in an industrial environment. This optoelectronic system will be compact, ergonomic, modular, low power consumption, low cost and can be used by a technician or installed on a robot to perform non-invasive monitoring and analysis of polymers used in industrial environments for protection and insulation. To develop prototype, we will create a database of aged polymer samples and their ATR-FTIR measurements. Moreover, El-Peacetolero will develop artificial intelligence based algorithms for polymer identification, diagnosis, and early detection of the aging condition.To construct the system, El-Peacetolero will develop a compact, high brightness, multi-wavelengths, measuring head including IR sources(LED/Laser), ATR crystal and detectors in the same package. El Peacetolero’s accuracy will be evaluated through focusing on reference characterisation of aged polymer samples to throughout its design phases. The impact of its operating conditions (radiative environments) on its electronic components will also be thoroughly studied . At the end of the project, El-Peacetolero will be used for performing measurements inside pipes on an equipped robot, which can operate inside the pipes. The El-Peacetolero has the potential for a huge impact. Already within the nuclear industry it will save time and money by implementing easy non-destructive techniques for the identification and diagnosis of polymers. It will also have an impact on the security and safety of the industry as aging polymers on cables and pipes can cause massive safety issues. These safety issues can also be transferred to other industries such as cabling on airplanes, where a technology such as El-Peacetolero could provide invaluable assistance in identifying potential problems.

Keywords: embedded optoelectronic system,diagnosis of polymer aging,safety of reactors,early detection,data science,artificial intelligence,innovation in the safety of reactors,decommissioning