Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Comparative Connectomics: Revealing change and conservation in whole brain circuits across evolution (CircuitEvolution)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Synergy grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: United Kingdom,United States,Spain
Call: ERC SYNERGY GRANTS (ERC-2024-SyG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-07-01
End date: 2031-06-30
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 11927316.0
EU funding (EUR): 11927316.0
Participants: 5
Project status: SIGNED

Animals display remarkable diversity in their behaviors, yet very little is known about how nervous systems evolve to generate such variation. CircuitEvolution will answer two fundamental questions: 1. How does brain wiring change across species as novel behavioral traits evolve? 2. What core features of brain circuits are deeply conserved across species? We will use electron microscopy connectomics, the only method that enables unbiased, brain-wide structural analysis of the synaptic connectivity between all neurons. Building on recent rapid progress in Drosophila melanogaster, the frontier of whole brain connectomics, we will target drosophilids at a strategically selected range of evolutionary divergences. Two PIs (Cardona, Jefferis) are pioneers in Drosophila connectomics, and our third PI (Ruta) and collaborators (Prieto-Godino, Benton) have pioneered molecular genetic investigation of behavioral and circuit evolution across drosophilids. Crucially, with our fourth PI (statistical physicist, Sales Pardo), we will identify conserved and divergent neurons and circuits across increasingly distant species, developing new inference methods for connectome alignment, simplification, and neuron annotation. Working together on this project we can develop a new field of whole-brain comparative connectomics. With cutting edge technology, we will obtain and share multiple connectomes for 7 species. These unique datasets will allow comparisons across species, sexes and developmental stages and support three areas of biological investigation within this grant: olfactory circuits, courtship behavior and the conserved core of the insect brain. This will generate many hypotheses that will be tested experimentally by the PIs, collaborators and laboratories worldwide. The insights and methods will have a major impact on understanding conserved and evolving circuit function across phyla all the way to mammalian brains and impact the design of artificial intelligence systems.

Keywords: connectomics,neuronal evolution,neural circuits,drosophila,olfaction,sexual dimorphism,network analysis
Quantum Applications with Rydberg Atom Arrays (QARA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Fundamental Constituents of Matter
Panel description: Particle, nuclear, plasma, atomic, molecular, gas, and optical physics
Countries involved: Austria
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-04-01
End date: 2027-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1397300.0
EU funding (EUR): 1397300.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Rydberg atoms arrays have emerged as a promising platform for assembling quantum matter in a bottom-up approach. This platform combines deterministically prepared, reconfigurable arrays of individually trapped cold atoms with strong, coherent interactions enabled by excitation to atomic Rydberg states and in situ state readout. It enables a scalable realization of quantum spin models with system sizes beyond what can be simulated on classical computers. The main goal of this project is to harness many-body properties of Rydberg atoms for applications in next-generation quantum technology. The first goal is to explore the possibility to harness a novel, robust dynamical quantum many-body phenomenon as a tool to generate useful entangled states in systems with limited control. Specifically, we will study the entanglement properties of quantum many-body scars, a natural phenomenon first discovered in Rydberg atoms arrays, regarding their utility for measurement-based quantum computation, quantum error correction and quantum metrology. Our second goal is to study and develop novel approaches for implementing information processing protocols with Rydberg atom arrays, based on an intimate connection to maximum independent set problems. This includes the exploration of analog quantum annealing algorithms, the development of noise-resilient gate sets for circuit-based approaches, and preparation and manipulation of topologically protected qubits. The third objective is to develop novel tools to characterize quantum many-body states of Rydberg atom arrays and access fundamental properties, such as entanglement measures.
Privacy-preserving and Channel-adaptive Smart Task-oriented Semantic Communication (POEM)

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: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-08-04
End date: 2027-08-03
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 276187.92
EU funding (EUR): 276187.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks generates a promising paradigm, namely task-oriented semantic communications (ToSC), which focuses on task efficiency by transmitting task-relevant information only and thus reducing communication overhead. ToSC is crucial for emerging applications, such as augmented reality, autonomous driving, and smart healthcare, which require frequent, large-scale data exchanges. However, ToSC faces challenges related to explainability of decision-making, data privacy, and adaptability in dynamic wireless environments. To address these challenges, this project aims to create an innovative, privacy-preserving, and channel-adaptive smart ToSC system. First, groundbreaking transparent neural networks (NNs) will be developed by using model-based learning and deep unfolding techniques, providing interpretable decision-making while maintaining performance. Second, a novel privacy-preserving framework will integrate adversarial models and encrypted parameter sharing in ToSC, ensuring robust data protection. Third, a pioneering channel-adaptive system will be developed using diffusion-based models and meta-learning techniques, enabling real-time adaptability to varying wireless conditions without retraining the NNs. This new system will be validated through a simulation platform and hardware testbed to ensure optimal performance in real-world scenarios. The success of this project will deliver groundbreaking advancements in wireless communication and AI, providing explainable, adaptive, and secure ToSC for future 6G networks. By reducing the volume of data transmission, the outcomes of this project will cut down energy consumption and lower carbon emissions. In addition to addressing the key concerns like data privacy and sustainable communication, this project will foster talent development through interdisciplinary training and position the EU as a leader in AI-driven communication technologies.

Keywords: 6g communications,explainable ai,privacy preserving,semantic communication,channel adaptation
Framework for Enhanced Sequencing in DNA data storage (DiDAX-seq)

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: Israel,Lithuania
Call: Hop on Facility (HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-06, 2023)
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 569800.0
EU funding (EUR): 569800.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The DiDAX project is part of the Horizon EIC Pathfinder DNA data storage portfolio, which focuses on addressing the sustainability and scalability challenges of digital data storage. To tackle these challenges, DiDAX is developing cost-effective DNA storage technologies through novel encoding and decoding algorithms, cryptographic authentication, cost-reducing synthesis methods, and innovative embedding techniques. One crucial aspect of DNA storage is the readout of data, typically performed by sequencing. To achieve comprehensive sustainability and scalability in DNA data storage, novel readout methods are essential. By combining the DiDAX project with additional research in the field of DNA data storage readout, we will develop a "Framework for Enhanced Sequencing in DNA Data Storage" (DiDAX-seq). The DiDAX-seq project will focus on research of DNA sequencing methods to improve overall efficiency by developing: (i) novel techniques for DNA concatenation, (ii) advanced strategies for enhanced long-read sequencing accuracy, and (iii) software tools for sequencing data analysis. Also, integration of the widening country partner, Genomika, is mutually beneficial to the industry partner and DiDAX consortium. For company, the project will provide international multidisciplinary project and scientific experience and as a spin-off itself, Genomika, will bring not only scientific knowledge but also commercialisation experience to the consortium. DiDAX-seq will directly contribute to DiDAX broader goals and strengthen its mission to create cost-effective, high-density, long-term DNA data storage solutions, positioning Europe as a leader in this emerging technology.

Keywords: dna concatenation,readout improvement,next generation sequencing,bioinformatics,optimized dna sequencing strategy,comparative analysis short vs long oligos
BrightSpace: Designing a Roadmap for Effective and Sustainable Strategies for Assessing and Addressing the Challenges of EU Agriculture to Navigate within a Safe and Just Operating Space (BrightSpace)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Netherlands,Germany,Austria,France,Italy,Spain,Czechia,Hungary,United Kingdom,Belgium
Call: EU agriculture within a safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries (HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-11-01
End date: 2027-10-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 9666775.0
EU funding (EUR): 9480000.0
Participants: 15
Project status: SIGNED

The European Green Deal, aims, among others, to increase the contribution of EU agriculture to climate change action, improve the management of natural resources, ensure a fair economic return for farmers, and reinforce the protection of biodiversity. EU agriculture and food practices are currently not on the right track to meet the Green Deal ambitions and objectives. These objectives are interdependent, and while often aligned, they may also compete. Synergies and trade-offs between socio-economic and environmental outcomes are brought together in the concept of a Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS), where the Safe component reflects the bio-physical boundaries of the ecosystem and the Just component the requirements for the well-being of the involved people. Policy makers and opinion leaders often lack sufficient information to gauge the likely effects of a SJOS crises in their country. The BrightSpace collaboration responds to this challenge by designing effective and sustainable strategies to navigate within a SJOS. BrightSpace provides an analytical toolbox to experiment, analyse, and coordinate the effects of innovative technologies, governance structures, as well as short- and long-term policies related to agriculture, thereby allowing for the execution of consistent, coherent, and lasting strategies with the desired consequences. The project emphasises the diversity of challenges regarding the SJOS across countries and regions and delivers new empirical evidence on cause-effect relations between drivers and outcomes relevant for the SJOS. A harmonised data framework and modelling toolbox are developed for medium-term and forward-looking projections of possible SJOS futures by 2050 and beyond. The support for effective and sustainable actions will include the identification of critical pathways for technological, institutional and consumer-oriented options for EU policies in the areas of agriculture, climate change, trade, and energy.

Keywords: planetary boundaries,social foundations,
How Play Shaped the United States from New Media to Politics: Worlding America, 1503-2028 (WORLDING-AMERICA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Studies of Cultures and Arts
Panel description: Social anthropology, studies of cultur es, stud ies of arts
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2029-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

WORLDING AMERICA researches how “play” has been a key force in the past and present process of creating America as a coherent and hegemonic “world,” from 1503 to the present. Play is an activity linked to change, serious even when frivolous, potentially transgressive even when rule-bound. Play intersects with the process of worlding (bringing a new world into existence) in liminal moments. In such unstable phases, when new worlds take shape, but are not yet consolidated, play comes to the fore as a way to probe possibilities. I seek out such historical moments of disruptive play when a new visual medium was introduced that contributed directly to tangible political change. I study four pivotal cases: Worlding Colonial America through Engravings, 1590-1776; Worlding the Nation through Newspaper Cartoons, 1870-1924; Worlding the Body Politic through Television, 1972-2022; Worlding Colonial Mars through Twitter/X, 2006-2028. Tracing specific elements of play, in particular imagination, invitation, participation, and improvisation, across cases, I demonstrate how forms of play have been essential to American worlding in ever evolving mediascapes. I hypothesize that play has intensified through the rise of social media, to such an extent that current forms of worlding driven by play have overridden traditional rules of politics, thus changing the game while playing it. I employ source-based qualitative methods from cultural history, media studies, and American studies to synthesize these cases of hegemonic playful worlding, into a comparative transhistorical framework. I move beyond American grand narratives so as to understand the role of play in their construction and implementation, thus contributing an innovative dimension to the composite field of American Studies. Additionally, I explore potential for counterhegemonic play.

Keywords: play,worlding,america,media,politics
Providing complete subsurface information of the urban areas (WIDMO Cities)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Challenges
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Poland
Call: EIC Accelerator Challenge: New European Bauhaus and Architecture, Engineering and Construction digitalisation for decarbonisation (HORIZON-EIC-2023-ACCELERATOR-01, 2023)
Start date: 2023-07-01
End date: 2025-09-30
Duration (months): 27.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2950625.0
EU funding (EUR): 2065437.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

WIDMO Cities is a breakthrough, non-invasive solution for the cities and companies within the construction sector. WIDMO Cities will provide access to very high-precision subterranean information (geology, utilities, and underground infrastructure location). This information can be used two folds: 1. To determine the exact location of the gas pipe, waterways, and electric cables at the project planning stage 2. To establish the geological profile and recognize possible landslides and sink holes hazards. WIDMO Cities has the technology that allows for rapid gathering and processing of the described information giving any stakeholder incredibly easy access to the needed data. This not only significantly decreases the risk and cost of construction but also alleviates safety hazards associated with geological faults. WIDMO Cities will be a global one-stop shop for everything that lies underground. We will revolutionize the construction surveying industry and improve public safety.

Keywords: digital twin,smart cities,geo information,construction,construction surveying,geo radar
Young Homeownership (YoHo)

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: 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: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Consider a household looking to buy a house. In attractive locations, this household competes with other buyers to purchase their desired property since the number of listed properties is limited. In this scenario, what is the impact of subsidizing a given group? What is the impact of a change in public policy that affects one group more than others? Do households respond to the policy by changing their preferences? YoHo (Young Homeownership) builds on a simple yet powerful insight: if a buyer is competing against other buyers from the same group, then changing financial conditions for that group will not change their access to the housing market but may affect how much they can pay. The insight that YoHo proposes to formalize is that if a policy targets a large share of buyers, subsidizing them will likely not lead to higher homeownership rates but to rising prices. Moving beyond market-level outcomes, YoHo will further dig deeper into the potential side effects for young buyers, such as limited access to attractive locations. YoHo will combine Norwegian register data, natural experiments, and theoretical modeling in line with the state-of-the-art housing literature to answer questions of large importance for society, the economic situation for households, and future research into affordability and homeownership. Access to the housing market is an ongoing societal challenge in many countries that involves the general public, policymakers, and academics. The work in YoHo is at the core of this challenge, with the potential to make a meaningful contribution to the debate. The research will be conducted under Professor Florian Heider's guidance at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, which aims to produce original, high-quality research and research-based policy advice in all finance areas, and a regular and permanent exchange with members of governments, parliaments, central banks, and supervisory authorities in Germany and Europe.

Keywords: homeownership,macroprudential policy
TRAining the next generation of iCE researcherS (TRACES)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Doctoral Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Italy,France,Germany
Call: MSCA Doctoral Networks 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-12-01
End date: 2028-02-29
Duration (months): 63.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3990096.0
EU funding (EUR): 3990096.0
Participants: 17
Project status: SIGNED

In 2019, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) identified in-flight icing as a priority 1 issue for large aeroplanes with the aggregated European Risk Classification Scheme score being amongst the highest of all safety issues. In-flight icing can occur when an aircraft flies through clouds of supercooled droplets, namely, drops of liquid water with a temperature below the freezing point, which freezes upon impact. Aircraft icing can lead to a reduction of visibility, damage due to ice shedding, blockage of probes and static vents, reduced flight performance, engine power loss, etc. In addition to safety concerns, inservice icing events can lead to major disruption of air operation and aircraft maintenance. The more frequent occurrence of severe thunderstorms due to climate change results in more in-flight accidents also at cruising altitudes, with more than 100 engine failures in recent years. Recently, icing-related issues are being observed in newer, more efficient aircraft engines due to the lower temperature of operation. The main goal of TRACES EJD is to provide high-level training in the field of inflight icing to deliver a new generation of high achieving Early Stage Researchers in the diverse disciplines necessary for mastering the complexity of ice accretion and its mitigation in aircraft and aeroengines. This goal will be achieved by a unique combination of hands-on research training, non-academic placements at major EU aviation industries and courses and workshops on scientific and complementary so-called soft skills facilitated by the academic/non-academic composition of the consortium. Innovative Ice Detection and Ice Protection Systems based on disruptive technologies will be designed by the ESRs during Project Working Group. EASA will provide training on certification procedure and together with major industries in the field will assess the ESRs projects during a team Design & Certify exercise.

Keywords: in flight icing aircraft rotorcraft digital certification ice particles ice properties