Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Introducing the next computing power revolution: Minima microprocessor technology to reduce the energy need of digital computing by 20 times. (MINIMA)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Industrial Leadership
Programme: Information and Communication Technologies
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Finland
Call: Open Disruptive Innovation Scheme (H2020-SMEINST-2-2016-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2017-06-01
End date: 2019-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2414750.0
EU funding (EUR): 1690325.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the up and coming growth engine for the global economy. But, IoT comes with a great challenge: tens of billions connected devices will generate an exabyte-level (1 exabyte = 1 billion gigabytes) amount of data each day, all of which needs to be processed and wirelessly transmitted in an energy efficient way. This creates a large and untapped global business opportunity for technologies that could bring radical increase in digital computing energy efficiency, while simultaneously increasing the IoT computing capacity. Otherwise, the amount of generated data will overwhelm the current cloud computing centres. Energy efficiency is needed because the prospect of regularly changing batteries on tens of billions of devices is impractical and very costly, whereas hardwiring every IoT device is not feasible either. Minima Processor Oy, a Finnish high-tech SME backed with €2,2 million seed investment, is introducing the next computing power revolution: Minima patented IoT microprocessor technology that reduces the energy need of digital computing by up to 20x compared to legacy solutions. Minima’s disruptive technology can enhance the performance of virtually any device that uses digital computing, thereby making batteries last up to 20 times longer, enabling advanced features, and making IoT devices cheaper to buy and operate. Minima technology has broken world records in microprocessor energy efficiency. The objective of the Phase 2 project is disrupt the IoT market with our fundamentally new technology by finalising our hardware and software development, implementing next generation audio, video and deep learning techniques, and piloting our solution in 3 commercial applications. Minima technology is the key to securing Europe’s leading position in the IoT microprocessor industry. Having already signed pre-commercial licensing agreements with industry leaders, we expect rapid market uptake within the first 5 years after the project.

Keywords: internet of things,energy efficiency,microprocessor,digital computing
BRAIN organoids unTanglement with SERS (BRAINtSERS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Individual Fellowships (IF)-Global Fellowships
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Italy,United States
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-12-01
End date: 2023-12-31
Duration (months): 25.0
Total project cost (EUR): 175255.68
EU funding (EUR): 175255.68
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Neuropsychiatric disorders and neurological diseases have a devastating impact on patients’ lives and represent a heavy social and economic load for global societies. Despite the great social and economic importance, the complex symptomatology together with the lack of objective analysis methodology and the limitation of current biological models have made disorders difficult to classify and study. The recent development of brain organoids derived from human stem cells have enormous potential as a physiologically accurate downscaled in vitro model of the human brain. Even though this system offers promising approach for investigating the phenotypic foundation of these complex disorders, the lack of a reliable and non-disruptive system for investigating their properties limits their applicability in both basic research and pharmaceutical testing. The BRAINtSERS project aims to respond to this need combining advanced brain organoid models together with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), providing a multidimensional dataset of a developing human neuronal tissue resolved both in time and space. In detail, the action will provide: (i) a label-free, highly sensitive technique for quantification and detection of biomolecules in brain organoids, (ii) a minimally-invasive system for cellular phenotyping, thus a non-destructive method for characterization of brain organoids during all developmental stages. Complementarily, the ER will deliver (iii) SERS-active bio-mimetic devices conceived for integration with organoid model and its genesis.

Keywords: spectroscopy,sers,brain organoids
Visually Attractive Photovoltaic Panels without Efficiency Loss (TADF-LDS)

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-2020, 2020)
Start date: 2021-09-01
End date: 2023-10-04
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 224933.76
EU funding (EUR): 224933.76
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Photovoltaic (PV) technology has proven to be the most promising, economic, and clean solution to the global energy crisis. Over the years, tremendous advancements have been accomplished in the solar PV industry in terms of installations, cost reductions and technological advancements. Crystalline silicon (c-Si) panels belong to the first-generation solar PV and hold ~ 95% share of worldwide PV production. The energy conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells in the lab reached a record value of 26.7% in 2017. An important factor affecting the efficiency of Si solar cells is the poor spectral response of Si below 450 nm. Luminescent Down-Shifting (LDS) is an efficient optical approach used for increasing PV device spectral response by converting high energy photons to lower energy photons. LDS can also be used to modify and enhance the visual appearance of solar panels for building-integrated PV applications. To date various luminescent materials like inorganic phosphors and glasses, colloidal QDs, organic dyes and organolanthanides have been studied as LDS layer in different PV devices. Organolanthanide complexes have proven to be attractive candidates to improve the EQE of solar cells compared to other LDS materials due to their uniquely large spectral shift of emission. Their major drawback to date however, is poor light harvesting in the 350 – 450 nm spectral region while simultaneously maintaining high PL quantum yield. To achieve a step change in performance of lanthanide complex LDS materials, we will implement for the first time ligands that exhibit thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), since these may achieve close to 100% ligand to metal sensitization efficiency, even at near-UV and visible wavelengths. This unique method will extend the absorption range of Ln complexes (from <385 nm to <470 nm) with enhanced absorption coefficient, while achieving improved overall quantum yield of Ln complexes and hence overall improved EQE of PV cells.

Keywords: thermally activated delayed fluorescence,luminescence down shifting,lanthanides,energy transfer,solar cells
Resilience and Adaptation in Drylands. Identifying past water management practices for drought-resistant crops (RAINDROPS)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The study of the human past
Panel description: Archaeology, history and memory
Countries involved: Spain
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2017-STG, 2017)
Start date: 2018-01-01
End date: 2023-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1488506.0
EU funding (EUR): 1488506.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

RAINDROPS will investigate cultivation practices that support human resilience and adaptation in drylands, by developing an innovative and reliable methodology for the identification of water management practices from archaeobotanical remains. Irrigation, river floods or permanent water sources are often deemed necessary for cultivation to be practised in drylands. However, there are modern examples that testify to the existence of successful rain-fed cultivation systems, even in hyper-arid environments. Quantification of the extent of these practices in the past has the potential to dramatically change our understanding of human adaptation and agriculture. By establishing a protocol for the accurate identification of rain-fed cultivation, RAINDROPS will pave the way for the investigation of this practice in the past. Highly controlled data on phytolith ratios, and carbon, oxygen and silicon isotopes from macro- and micro-remains from experimental fields of finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.] and sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] will be validated with ethnographic evidence before being applied to selected key archaeological case studies. RAINDROPS will advance research in: (a) archaeobotanical methodology; (b) resilience theory; (c) physiology of drought-resistant crops; and (d) TEK of cultivation systems in drylands. This will for the first time allow a thorough evaluation of the relative importance of different water management practices in dryland cultivation in the past, and their significance for human adaptation to arid environments. The experimental work on finger millet and sorghum, at present two of the most important dryland crops, will provide valuable information on cultivation practices and plant physiology that will also inform current research on improvements of drought-resistant species –thereby contributing to work on improving the livelihood for over two billion people currently at risk from arid or changing environmental conditions

Keywords: drylands,plant physiology,drought resistant crops,water management practices,ethnoarchaeology,rain fed cultivation,archaeobotany,phytoliths,stable isotopes
Commercialization of novel soft neural interfaces (E-DURA)

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: Switzerland
Call: ERC-Proof of Concept (ERC-2017-PoC, 2017)
Start date: 2018-09-01
End date: 2020-02-29
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 149994.0
EU funding (EUR): 149994.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

E-DURA aims to assess the commercial viability of a new class of soft, multimodal neural implants called e-dura. Current technologies are rigid and present physical, electrochemical and biological mismatches that prevent prolonged periods of implantation. Our technology represents a significant improvement over state-of-art on all those criteria. Moreover, our extensive network of academics and industry professionals represents an advantage in commercializing e-dura, thereby addressing a market estimated to reach 11.8 billion Euro by 2020. Within E-DURA, we will prototype a device suitable for human implantation and build the business case around our innovation.

Keywords: neural interface,implant,neuroprosthetic,material science
Affective neurocognitive model for the ‘Uncanny Valley’ (NEUROBUKIMI)

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: Netherlands
Call: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015, 2015)
Start date: 2016-08-01
End date: 2018-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 177598.8
EU funding (EUR): 177598.8
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The Uncanny Valley hypothesis (UV), proposed already 45 years ago, suggests that too humanlike robots or other artificial characters will elicit feelings of eeriness (Jpn. ‘bukimi’) in human observers. Existing psychological and neuroimaging studies have focused on the humanlikeness dimension of UV but neglected its emotional experience, which was at the heart of the original hypothesis. This interdisciplinary project will develop a thorough model for the emotional dimension of UV, consisting both of subjective verbal descriptions and observed neuronal activation patterns. A series of neuroimaging experiments will be carried out at the Brain and Emotion Laboratory of Maastricht University (UM): the first experiment will test the neuronal correlates of negative emotions elicited by semi-realistic virtual characters, and the second experiment will take a step beyond the original UV hypothesis by comparing the neuronal activation patterns of real and virtual emotional expressions. A self-report questionnaire for verbalizing the emotional experience of UV will be developed during a secondment period at Eindhoven University of Technology (Tu/e). By explicating the emotional experience of UV and by providing open tools for both research and industry, this project will be an important turning point for the future development of all humanlike technologies. Consistently, direct and concrete contacts with the animation industry are planned during the project. My supervisor Prof. de Gelder from UM is one of the thought leaders in the field of affective cognitive neuroscience, and my secondment supervisor Prof. Ijsselsteijn from Tu/e is renowned for his work in human-technology interaction. I am an experienced researcher with a dual background in both of these disciplines, as well as specific background in UV topic. This interdisciplinary synergy will maximize this project’s impact on the European society and help establish my position as a leading independent scientist.

Keywords: uncanny valley
Advancing the Best Ideas and People in the Public Service (Apolitical)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: New business models for inclusive, innovative and reflective societies (H2020-SMEINST-1-2016-2017, 2016)
Start date: 2017-02-01
End date: 2017-07-31
Duration (months): 6.0
Total project cost (EUR): 71429.0
EU funding (EUR): 50000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The average OECD country spends 40% of its GDP on government, i.e. $30tn globally and $6tn in the EU. 90% of senior public servants say they urgently need new ideas, models or partners to tackle emerging challenges. 80% of public service innovators feel unappreciated, alone or frustrated by the hard, slow process of finding people and resources to support their work. Our solution Apolitical is an international platform connecting the best ideas and people in the public sector. We are like TripAdvisor meets LinkedIn for policy and government. Apolitical joins two separate dimensions to help governments make the best decisions. Our platform connects knowledge and experts in different policy areas with a network of public servants who make the decisions and implement ideas. The overall objective of the Apolitical Phase II Project is to scale-up our international platform to achieve a critical mass of users and traction (200,000-300,000 civil servant users, 30,000 paid government subscribers, 50 documented cases of new policies being implemented due to Apolitical). This will help us attract significant private investment. The specific objectives of Phase I Feasibility are: Technological Feasibility Study, Assessment of the Market, Business Model, Risk and IP as well as a Work Plan for Phase II and Business Plan. Each of our key channel topics touch on at least two of the topics important to this call: inclusion, innovation or reflection - in some cases all three. Many of these topics also intersect with one another, with progress in one leading to non-linear gains. Apolitical is initially building rich knowledge and network verticals around each of these issues, and over time around all topics important to government. Crucially, increasing government’s effectiveness indirectly also enables business and civil society to innovate more effectively and support more inclusive societies.

Keywords: business model disruption in public service,game changer in policy making,individual government employee empowerment,disruption of public decision making,empowering public service professionals
Coupling dynamic population immunity profiles and host behaviours to arboviral spread (ARBODYNAMIC)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
Panel description: Ecology, biodiversity, environmental change, evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, microbial ecology, marine biology, ecophysiology, theoretical developments and modelling
Countries involved: France,United Kingdom
Call: ERC Starting Grant (ERC-2018-STG, 2018)
Start date: 2019-01-01
End date: 2024-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499896.0
EU funding (EUR): 1463646.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Arboviruses infect millions of people each year, however, mechanisms that drive viral emergence and maintenance remain largely unknown. A combination of host factors (e.g., human mobility), mosquito factors (e.g., abundance) and viral factors (e.g., transmissibility) interconnect to drive spread. Further, for endemic arboviruses, complex patterns of population immunity, built up over many years, appear key to the emergence of particular lineages. To disentangle the contribution of these different drivers, we need detailed data from the same pathogen system over a long time period from the same location. In addition, we need new methods, which can integrate these different data sources and allow appropriate mechanistic inferences. In this project, I will use the most globally prevalent arbovirus, dengue virus, as a case study. I will focus on Thailand where all four dengue serotypes have circulated endemically for decades and excellent long-term data and isolates exist, to address two fundamental questions: i) How do population-level patterns of immunity evolve over time and what is their impact on strain dynamics? I will use mechanistic models applied to historic serotype-specific case data to reconstruct the evolving immune profile of the population and explore the impact of immunity on viral diversity using sequences from archived isolates from each year over a 50-year period. ii) How do human behaviors, vector densities interact with immunity to dictate spread? I will work with geolocated full genome sequences from across Thailand and use detailed data on how people move, their contact patterns, their immunity profiles and mosquito distributions to study competing hypotheses of how arboviruses spread. I will compare the key drivers of dengue spread with that found for outbreaks of Zika and chikungunya. This proposal addresses fundamental questions about the mechanisms that drive arboviral emergence and spread that will be relevant across disease systems.

Keywords: arboviruses,human behavior,antigenic evolution,immunity
Mitotic scaling to cell size diversity during vertebrate embryonic development (MitoScaling)

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: Switzerland
Call: Individual Fellowships (H2020-MSCA-IF-2017, 2017)
Start date: 2019-09-01
End date: 2021-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 187419.6
EU funding (EUR): 187419.6
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Cell division is a common process to all cell types in a multicellular organism. During mitosis, equal chromosome segregation in anaphase is regulated by an Aurora B phosphorylation gradient, centered at the midplane between the two chromosome sets. The gradient gives positional information that allows nuclear envelope reformation (NER) only when chromosomes are far enough from the kinase activity. Considering the 120μm human zygote and a 15μm fibroblast, how can the gradient scale with cell size over such wide range of sizes? To unravel the scaling mechanism, I will measure the biophysical parameters of this phosphorylation gradient using a FRET sensor and optogenetics to manipulate the gradient with fast spatiotemporal kinetics. I will address three key questions: i) Does the gradient sense cell size? ii) If so, how is size information used to scale the gradient? iii) How is gradient scaling translated into NER positioning? I will focus on three zebrafish cell systems with extreme sizes and dynamics: 1) embryonic cleavage divisions, where cell size halves with every cell division; 2) EVL cells, which are stretched quickly into flatter cell sizes, implying fast scaling dynamics; 3) asymmetric division in neuronal precursor cells, where the two sides of the spindle midzone must scale differently to generate daughters of different sizes. With this approach, I will generate unprecedented information on the regulation of anaphase chromosome separation in its natural context. This entry point in anaphase will provide a conceptual frame and a tool kit to address a more general problem: how do other mitotic machineries scale with cell size? A wider question for my long-term future research.

Keywords: mitosis,gradient,scaling,cell size,vertebrate embryogenesis
Pushing forward irradiation monitoring efficiency in the PV industry (ESA 2.0)

Framework: Horizon 2020 — Societal Challenges
Programme: Secure, clean and efficient energy
Action type: SME instrument
Countries involved: Italy
Call: Stimulating the innovation potential of SMEs for a low carbon and efficient energy system (H2020-SMEINST-2-2016-2017, 2016)
Start date: 2017-03-01
End date: 2019-08-31
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 956802.5
EU funding (EUR): 669761.75
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

As the photovoltaics (PV) industry has exponentially grown towards large scale installation over the last years, the need for accurately monitoring the solar resource of PV power plants has increased. Historically, the PV industry has relied on monitoring stations for irradiance measurements, i.e. bulky and expensive equipment featuring pyranometers, pyrheliometes and sun trackers. However, because of their severe economic and operational limits, this solution does not allows for fine grained detection and intelligence of system failures causing losses of production, and thus of revenue, and low efficiency of maintenance operations. Our project aims at bringing to the market an innovative smart and handy environmental sensor featuring innovations in terms of technology, capabilities and cost that significantly exceed limits and downsides of irradiation assessment tools commercially available. By enabling a simple and efficient single-tool monitoring it empowers plant managers for precise and accurate characterization of the PV performance, that directly translates into room for optimizing profitability. Two major European companies have expressed a strong interested in the our sensor and are willing to run pilot tests in their PV installations: one is LightSource, the leading developer of solar PV projects with 30% market share in the large scale solar sector in UK; the other is Enel Green Power, the Italian-based multinational developer and manager of 1.6 GW of large-scale solar plant across Europe, Africa and Americas. These two giants cumulatively manage 1.1% of total solar capacity installed worldwide.

Keywords: renewable energy,energy resources,instrumentation and measurements,solar pv,solar irradiation monitoring,irradiation monitoring tools,solar pv plant performance monitoring