Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
The Tumour Stroma as a Driver of Clonal Selection (DiSect)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Panel description: Organ and tissue physiology, comparative physiology, physiology of ageing, pathophysiology, interorgan 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 Consolidator Grant (ERC-2017-COG, 2017)
Start date: 2018-06-01
End date: 2024-05-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1969768.0
EU funding (EUR): 1969768.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDA) are complex heterocellular tumours characterised by extensive desmoplasia. Tumour and stromal host cells actively engage to establish reciprocal signalling loops, which drive cancer progression, resistance to treatment and evasion of immune surveillance. However, the specificity and directionality of these interactions are incompletely characterised. We have previously shown that tumour cells expressing the main oncogenic driver (KRASG12D) co-opt stromal fibroblasts to elicit a reciprocal signal, which activate tumour cell IGF-1R and AXL receptor tyrosine kinases. Importantly, these signals enable tumour cells to engage additional signalling pathways not activated when oncogenic KRAS is expressed in homogeneous tumour cell cultures. Therefore, to fully appreciate tumour cell signalling, studies should be undertaken within the context of the tumour stroma. Early stages of PDA display a gradual accumulation of mutations where activated KRAS is accompanied by loss of tumour suppressors CDKN2A, TP53 and SMAD4. Simultaneously, there is an accumulation of infiltrating stromal cells. To address how PDA cells differ in their interaction with the infiltrating stroma, we will use in vitro co-cultures to study how PDA cells with frequent genetic aberrations recruit and interact with host stromal cells. We will combine our unique methodologies for cell-specific labelling with global proteomics and phosphoproteomics analysis to discern cell-specific signalling between tumour and stroma cells. Following, we will analyse the impact of the tumour stroma on clonal selection and use computational modelling to identify which cell autonomous and non-cell autonomous signals drive progression. Delineating how reciprocal signalling regulates early tumour cell signalling and clonal selection is critical to define pro-tumorigenic from restrictive stromal elements in order to improve combination therapies.

Keywords: pancreatic cancer,the tumour stroma,early development
Sweeteners and sweetness enhancers: Impact on health, obesity, safety and sustainability (SWEET)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy
Theme: Sustainable and competitive agri-food sector for a safe and healthy diet
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Italy,Spain,Spain,Germany,Austria,Spain,Greece,Slovenia,Greece,Greece,Belgium,Switzerland,Belgium,France,France,France,France,France,Netherlands,Netherlands,Netherlands,Netherlands,United Kingdom,Portugal,Denmark,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,United Kingdom,United Kingdom
Call: Sweeteners and sweetness enhancers (H2020-SFS-2017-2, 2017)
Start date: 2018-10-01
End date: 2024-03-31
Duration (months): 66.0
Total project cost (EUR): 8987579.25
EU funding (EUR): 8987579.0
Participants: 36
Project status: SIGNED

The SWEET project has been designed to i) identify and address the barriers and facilitators to the use of sweeteners and sweetness enhancers (S&SEs) and ii) examine the risks and benefits of using S&SEs to replace sugar in the diet in the contexts of health, obesity, safety and sustainability. Industry experts will integrate technological, health and sweetness databases to provide a platform on which new and emerging S&SEs can be selected for inclusion in food products. The behavioural and physiological impact of specific S&SEs will be examined in acute and repeated dosing studies and natural population differences (by age, region, gender etc) in sweetness perception established. A sensory profile will be developed and genetic determinants assessed. The core randomised controlled trial will adopt a whole diet approach to examine the impact of prolonged sugar replacement on weight control, appetite and energy intake. Underlying mechanistic effects of S&SE use, alone and in combination, will be evaluated using the technology platform developed in acute studies. Outcomes relating to safety and overall health risks will be i) measured in acute and chronic studies and ii) investigated in secondary data (long term interventions, prospective cohorts). The preferences for and perceptions of S&SEs within European consumers, and the barriers to their acceptance, consumption and use will be determined. The environmental cost and sustainability of replacing sugar with S&SEs will also be modelled. Consumers will be engaged to inform research design, and stakeholder driven exploitation and impact plans will be developed to communicate and disseminate project objectives and results to i) address the role of sweeteners in weight control for target audiences (consumers, health professions, scientists, policy makers, regulators) and ii) move effective products nearer to market. A gender action plan will be developed and implemented to promote equity across all research activities.

Keywords: consumer perceptions,consumer preferences
European Glaucoma Research Training Program-Plus (EGRET-Plus)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Innovative Training Networks (ITN)-European Training Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Life Sciences
Countries involved: Germany,Australia,Germany,Germany,Finland,Finland,France,Netherlands,Netherlands,Netherlands,United Kingdom
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN-ETN) (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015, 2015)
Start date: 2016-01-01
End date: 2019-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3870583.92
EU funding (EUR): 3870583.92
Participants: 15
Project status: CLOSED

Glaucoma is the most common age-related neurodegenerative eye-disease in western society and one of the four major blinding eye diseases. If untreated or detected too late, glaucoma will end in blindness, yielding a profound loss of quality of life for the individual and major costs to society. Given the vast complexity of glaucoma, to advance assessment and therapy beyond the current state-of-the-art, we need a new generation of researchers who are deeply knowledgeable about and intimately familiar with the many different approaches for study all aspects of glaucoma and the aging visual system: from functional test to anatomy, from gene to ganglion cell, from retina to brain. However, current knowledge is fragmented and so is the corresponding training. Very few researchers have been adequately trained which severely limits progress. Well-trained teams of dedicated glaucoma researchers are pivotal to integrate and extend the highly specialized knowledge, and to make a real difference for the patient. To overcome this problem, EGRET+ – the European Glaucoma Research Training Program Plus– has the aim of teaching young researchers in how to a) acquire new, quantitative knowledge on glaucoma and the aging visual system, and b) apply this new knowledge to boost innovation in glaucoma care in both the public and private sectors. This will: 1) enable the development of new tools for the early detection and cost-effective monitoring of glaucoma; 2) inspire the development and implementation of new treatments; 3) contribute to our understanding of the relationships between various neurodegenerative diseases, and 4) contribute to improving healthy aging in general. This new knowledge therefore has tremendous potential to positively impact the lives of millions of European citizens.

Keywords: glaucoma,ophthalmology,neurodegeneration,intracranial pressure,intraocular pressure,visual fields,brain,visual pathways,translational genetics,neuro imaging,electrophysiology,fmri
Open and Inclusive Healthcare for Citizens Based on Digital Fabrication (Made4You)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Italy,Austria,Belgium,Netherlands,United Kingdom
Call: Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation (H2020-ICT-2017-1, 2017)
Start date: 2018-01-01
End date: 2020-12-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2191896.62
EU funding (EUR): 1999826.0
Participants: 9
Project status: CLOSED

Made4You facilitates co-design of open healthcare for people with physical limitations. People’s needs regarding their physical limitations are personal, subjective and diversified. To customize health care solutions, a process of personalization is needed, which cannot be provided through the current industrial focus of ‘one size fits all’. Therefore, the project aims to: - Build an ecosystem, linking existing local communities of citizens with disabilities and their families, healthcare professionals and makers and establish collaboration between these separate communities to develop their own open-source and license interventions. - Provide access to open source and digital fabrication tools enabling citizens with disabilities and healthcare professionals, in co-creation with designers and makers (DIY communities and maker spaces) to create customized self-made solutions to improve quality of life or services provided. - Improve the accessibility of open source products; co-production of products that are tailored to people with special needs or disabilities as well as healthcare professionals and bypassing the limitations of the classical industrial production. - Foster the ecosystem through open exchange of knowledge, case stories and manuals. Within the DIY approach, local production and global knowledge sharing is key. - Build guidelines that allow anyone to replicate formats everywhere, considering the socio-technical aspects as well as relevant legal and regulatory frameworks, quality standards, IPR implications, security, safety and privacy issues. The long-term goal is to affiliate a community of designers, users, fablabs and maker spaces who develop similar projects and replicate events and activities in various cities all around Europe or even globally. This process will produce a critical mass of projects that can be used and build upon: a knowledge-sharing platform that aims to achieve mass adoption and global impact.

Keywords: open health,digital fabrication
Doping on Demand: precise and permanent control of the Fermi level in nanocrystal assemblies (DOPING-ON-DEMAND)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physical and analytical chemical sciences
Panel description: Analytical chemistry, chemical theory, physical chemistry/chemical physics
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2015-STG, 2015)
Start date: 2016-01-01
End date: 2020-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1497842.0
EU funding (EUR): 1497842.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the work proposed here is to develop a completely new method to electronically dope assemblies of semiconductor nanocrystals (a.k.a quantum dots, QDs), and porous semiconductors in general. External dopants are added on demand in the form of electrolyte ions in the voids between QDs. These ions will be introduced via electrochemical charge injection, and will subsequently be immobilized by (1) freezing the electrolyte solvent at room temperature or (2) chemically linking the ions to ligands on the QD surface, or by a combination of both. Encapsulating doped QD films using atomic layer deposition will provide further stability. This will result in stable doped nanocrystal assemblies with a constant Fermi level that is controlled by the potential set during electrochemical charging. QDs are small semiconductor crystals with size-tunable electronic properties that are considered promising materials for a range of opto-electronic applications. Electronic doping of QDs remains a big challenge even after two decades of research into this area. At the same time it is highly desired to dope QDs in a controlled way for applications such as LEDs, FETs and solar cells. This research project will provide unprecedented control over the doping level in QD films and will provided a major step in the optimization of optoelectronic devices based on QDs. The “Doping-on-Demand” approach will be exploited to develop degenerately doped, low-threshold QD lasers that can be operated under continuous wave excitation, and QD laser diodes that use electrical injection of charge carriers. The precise control of the Fermi-level will further be used to optimize pin junction QD solar cells and to develop, for the first time, QD pn junction solar cells with precise control over the Fermi levels.

Keywords: electronic doping,quantum dots,lasers,solar cells
Robust, Explainable Deep Networks in Computer Vision (RED)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Computer science and informatics
Panel description: Informatics and information systems, computer science, scientific computing, intelligent systems
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC Consolidator Grant (ERC-2019-COG, 2019)
Start date: 2020-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1999814.0
EU funding (EUR): 1999814.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Deep learning approaches, mostly in the form of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), have taken the field of computer vision by storm. While the progress in recent years has been astounding, it would be dangerous to believe that important problems in computer vision are close to being solved. Many canonical deep networks for vision tasks ranging from image understanding to 3D reconstruction or motion estimation perform incredibly well "on dataset", i.e.~in the very setting in which they have been trained. The generalization to novel, related scenarios is still lacking, however. Moreover, large amounts of labeled data are required for training, which are not available in all potential application areas. In addition, the majority of deep networks in computer vision show deficiencies in terms of explainability. That is, the role of network components is often opaque and most deep networks in vision do not output reliable quantifications of the uncertainty of the prediction, limiting the comprehension by users. In this project, we aim to significantly advance deep networks in computer vision toward improved robustness and explainability. To that end, we will investigate structured network architectures, probabilistic methods, and hybrid generative/discriminative models, all with the goal of increasing robustness and gaining explainability. This is accompanied by research on how to assess robustness and aspects of explainability via appropriate datasets and metrics. While we aim to develop a toolbox that is as independent of specific tasks as possible, the work program is grounded in concrete vision problems to monitor progress. We specifically consider the challenges of 3D scene analysis from images and video, including tasks such as panoptic segmentation, 3D reconstruction, and motion estimation. We expect the project to have significant impact in applications of computer vision where robustness is key, data is limited, and user trust is paramount.

Keywords: computer vision,deep learning,robustness,explainability,3d scene analysis,image and video understanding,structured networks,uncertainty estimation,bayesian methods,hybrid models,datasets and metrics
Scanning Droplet Tribometer for Characterizing Surface Wetting Properties (DropletScan)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Products and processes engineering
Panel description: Product and process design, chemical, civil, environmental, mechanical, vehicle engineering, energy processes and relevant computational methods
Countries involved: Finland
Call: ERC Proof of Concept Grant (ERC-2019-PoC, 2019)
Start date: 2019-11-01
End date: 2021-04-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Superhydrophobic surfaces repel water to great extent, that droplets in contact with such surface have spherical shape, featuring high contact angle (>150°) and low friction. The classic measurement technique for their characterization is contact angle measurement, though that technique faces serious challenges for superhydrophobic characterization, as optical accuracy for high contact angles is poor, and local variations in wetting cannot be easily probed. Here we develop the proof of concept for Scanning Droplet Tribometer as a new measurement method that could overcome these challenges, by measuring friction of droplets. Preliminary data are obtained and very promising. There is interest from industry (see two support letters). In DropletScan ERC PoC project, I will set up a team to develop the protocol and analysis tools, test limitations, build a prototype and validate the results. Furthermore we will analyse the market, identify possible partners, develop a commercial roadmap and strategy, carry out IPR & FTO analysis, write new patent applications and create a IPR strategy.

Keywords: surface characterization,hydrophobic
Retrofitting equipment for efficient use of variable feedstock in metal making processes (REVaMP)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing and Processing, and Biotechnology
Theme: Sustainable, resource-efficient and low-carbon technologies in energy-intensive process industries
Action type: Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Germany,Spain,Spain,Spain,Spain,Germany,Spain,Germany,Poland,Poland
Call: Adaptation to variable feedstock through retrofitting (IA 50%) (H2020-NMBP-SPIRE-2019, 2019)
Start date: 2020-01-01
End date: 2023-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 9903478.25
EU funding (EUR): 7928015.88
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

In the European process industries large amounts of energy and resources are used to produce millions of tonnes of materials each year. Especially in metal making processes, metallic scraps from end of life goods are recycled and used as secondary raw materials in the processes. Usage of scrap is both ecologically and commercially beneficial, since it reduces the depletion of natural resources like virgin ores and avoids landfills with waste material. Today even more important is that the energy consumption and the CO2 emissions of the reduction processes of metal ores can be reduced or even totally avoided when using recycled materials as feedstock. However, the metal production facilities are facing an increasing variability in material and energy feedstock. To cope with this challenge, existing metal production plants need to be retrofitted with appropriate sensors for scrap analysis and furnace operation, to cope with the varying conditions of the feedstock regarding materials and energy. Furthermore, the selection of the optimal feedstock in terms of material and energy efficiency has to be improved by application of appropriate process control and decision support tools. Also solid scrap preheating systems can increase the energy efficiency of the melting processes. To monitor and control the process behaviour in an optimal way, model-based software tools have to be developed and applied. The main objective of the REVaMP project is to develop, adapt and apply novel retrofitting technologies to cope with the increasing variability and to ensure an efficient use of the feedstock in terms of materials and energy. This will be exemplarily demonstrated within three different use cases from the metal making industry. Due to the industrial relevance, the use cases were chosen from electric and oxygen steelmaking, aluminium refining and lead recycling. The performance of the different technologies will be assessed, and the benefits will be quantified.

Keywords: retrofitting,metal making processes,sensors,scrap preheating,process control
The Great Bubble Barrier: An effective solution to plastic pollution (Great Bubble Barrier)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Innovation in SMEs
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: SME instrument (H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1, 2019)
Start date: 2019-09-01
End date: 2020-07-31
Duration (months): 11.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The amount of pollution caused by harmful plastic litter is an enormous problem with global implications: every second 0.25 tons of plastic enter our oceans. This compares to 1,440 trucks per day or 8 million tons per year! Aquatic wildlife gets entangled or ingests plastic, ships suffer damages and micro plastics pose a health risk for the smallest to largest of organisms. The majority of plastic waste in waterways is hidden, as it disappears under the surface. The Bubble Barrier collects plastics close to the source before entering the oceans: in canals, rivers and channels. The Great Bubble Barrier B.V. (TGBB) invented and developed an innovative solution to the plastic waste problem called “the Bubble Barrier”; a sustainable and cost-effective barrier constructed by a bubble screen that collects plastic waste in waterways before it reaches the ocean. The Bubble Barrier is an ideal solution to combat plastic pollution as it provides a collection method for plastics in rivers and canals without hindering ship traffic and fish movement. The Bubble Barrier is a game-changing innovation that will accelerate the clean-up of rivers and canals. To showcase the added value of the Bubble Barrier to the European market outside the Netherlands a demonstration project needs to be executed. The market of focus consists of both national, regional and local government parties as well as commercial parties, which are combined in consortia. The project’s funding requirement is ca. €1.43 million. TGBB is a social enterprise with a strong network, including the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), Dutch water management boards, local governments and municipalities. Similar networks in the EU have shown interest in the demonstration of the Bubble Barrier for their specific use-cases. TGBB will commercialise the Bubble Barrier technology resulting in additional job creation of 32 FTE and a revenue of €5,3 million in 2023.

Keywords: collecting plastic waste,rivers,plastic soup,plastic,oceans,circular economy