Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Sounds of Royalty: Accessing Valois Soundscapes (c. 1400) Digitally (VALSOUNDS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Proof of concept grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS2 (ERC-2022-POC2, 2022)
Start date: 2023-08-01
End date: 2025-01-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

The VALSOUNDS project will design a prototype multimedia digital valorisation tool that allows museums and cultural heritage institutions to highlight the sonic aspects of their collections or sites. This will be done through an innovative, immersive (3-D, AR) digital interface with a focus on audio. Existing applications tend to privilege visual communication (images, text), deploying no or inadequate audio components. This ‘sonic gap’ often means missing out on sonic aspects that are crucial for fully appreciating and experiencing the cultural meaning of a given site or object. A significant number of sites has also been irrevocably altered or destroyed, making it impossible by analogue means to produce the sounds required for a historically informed hearing experience. The new field of archaeo-acoustics enables digital reconstructions (‘auralizations’) of lost or altered spaces and sites. Existing case studies concerning the European Middle Ages were carried out primarily on sacred spaces (e.g., Pentcheva & Abel 2017), and only quite recently on court architecture (Sluyts et al. 2021). VALSOUNDS will build on the latter and conduct a case study of Valois palaces (c. 1400). The Valois courts have long been identified as sites of some of the most significant musical developments of their time; but they were also sites of conspicuous architectural innovation, making them a prime object for archaeo-acoustic study. Through a collaboration of acousticians, architectural historians, historical musicologists, heritage sites, performers, and private enterprise, VALSOUNDS reconstructs the Valois courts’ soundscape digitally, and embeds the resulting audio experience in an immersive multimedia environment that will be both sustainable and transferable for similar mediation concepts. This enhanced level of mediation for audio content not only anticipates the marketing needs of heritage sites in the digital age but also lends itself to multiple commercial applications.
PERMAFROST – POLLUTION - HEALTH (ILLUQ)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Clean Environment and zero pollution
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Austria,Italy,Sweden,Netherlands,Norway,Denmark,Finland,Canada,Iceland,Portugal
Call: Tackling human and climate change induced pollution in the Arctic - building resilient socio-ecological systems (HORIZON-CL6-2023-ZEROPOLLUTION-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 6312500.0
EU funding (EUR): 6312500.0
Participants: 17
Project status: SIGNED

Permafrost underlies 22% of the Northern Hemisphere's exposed land surface and is thawing at an alarming rate as a direct consequence of climate change. Permafrost thaw releases large quantities of organic matter and contaminants into the environment. Contaminants, including heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and microbiological agents locked in permafrost, are a risk for both human and animal health. In addition, permafrost thaw dramatically impacts infrastructure in local communities with wide-ranging consequences for health, economy, and society. Yet the social, physical and health components of permafrost thaw have traditionally been studied in isolation, leading to inadequate policy options that ignore the holistic nature of the threat. There is a need for an integrated and participatory approach to the complex issues at the overlap between climate change, permafrost thaw, infrastructure damage, contaminants, health and well-being and for solutions founded on the cultural, natural and social frameworks of local communities. ILLUQ is an interdisciplinary project rooted in participatory research with local stake- and rightsholders. Its mission is to tackle this need by providing the first holistic approach to permafrost thaw, pollution, One Health and well-being in the Arctic and delivering timely products on the risks from contaminant release, infrastructure failure and ecosystem changes to stakeholders. ILLUQ’s endeavor is a direct answer to the pressing needs of communities on potentially disappearing permafrost. It targets the missing link between studies performed by scientists, engineers and consultants in local communities and solutions with local stake- and rightsholders focusing on the long-term implications of decision-making in the context of permafrost thaw, a time frame generally overlooked in existing governance frameworks.

Keywords: permafrost,arctic,participatory research,pollution,one health,ecosystem services,
Devise & explore a novel approach for energy consumption and carbon footprint reduction of ICT services in the era of next-generation mobile telecommunications (6G) (EXIGENCE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Smart Networks and Services
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: SNS (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Ireland,Portugal,Greece,Netherlands,Slovenia,Spain,Germany
Call: System Architecture (HORIZON-JU-SNS-2023, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2026-06-30
Duration (months): 30.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4232242.5
EU funding (EUR): 3984130.75
Participants: 10
Project status: SIGNED

EXIGENCE is committed to reducing the overall energy consumption and carbon-footprint of ICT service delivery. Contrary to existing approaches, which address individual domains, EXIGENCE takes on the behemoth by improving the energy consumption and considering the type of energy sources used by not only the individual tenants in each heterogeneous domain of the ICT value chain but the energy/carbon footprint of the entire ICT ecosystem. The project will conceive a system and define suitable metrics and inter-domain data exposure means for assessing end-to-end ICT service delivery. The insights from this work will be formulated as pivotal sustainability requirements and brought into authoritative standardization bodies (3GPP and ETSI) so as to shape the emerging next-generation mobile system (6G). We conceive a functional architecture encompassing all stakeholders and translate this into suitable interfaces, metrics and mechanisms to enable energy metering during service delivery at each tenant level and aggregate these readings into an overall ICT service energy metric, which we make available to all participants. We provide suitable optimisations techniques for each individual tenant. To further improve energy efficiency during the end-to-end ICT service delivery, we devise incentive-compatible user involvement mechanisms. Overall, EXIGENCE commits to reducing the energy consumption/carbon footprint of ICT services by a factor of three for typical services (e.g., video streaming), by a factor of five for challenging services (e.g., NPN), and bringing the CO2e to Zero for some realistic use cases that will be studied in the project. With a prototype of the conceived system, we validate the developed solutions to demonstrate the achieved improvements. The outcomes and insights derived from the project will be disseminated at suitable venues and further used to influence the burgeon of the 6G system with participation in relevant standardisation efforts.

Keywords: energy consumption,carbon footprint,next generation mobile telecommunications 6g,system architecture
Model-based engineering of Digital Twins for early verification and validation of Industrial Systems (MATISSE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Digital, Industry and Space
Theme: Public-private partnerships
Destination: Chips for Europe Initiative
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Partnership: CHIPS (JU-JTI)
Countries involved: Sweden,France,Austria,Italy,Portugal,Finland,Türkiye
Call: Global call according to SRIA 2023 (RIA) (HORIZON-KDT-JU-2023-2-RIA, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 18080746.14
EU funding (EUR): 5880267.52
Participants: 28
Project status: SIGNED

Thanks to the advances in information technology, modern industrial systems are becoming increasingly intelligent and autonomous; thus their requirements for, e.g., correctness, availability, traceability and reliability, are also increasing. Monitoring, analysis and diagnosis of such industrial systems became pivotal and fueled the development of virtualization and simulation solutions such as digital twins. In a nutshell, digital twins are virtual representations of actual systems or processes that serve as real-time digital counterparts for, e.g., prediction, analysis, testing, and simulation. Developing digital twins is a complex process. On the one hand, it includes developing digital twins at different levels of abstraction of the system to allow one to focus on different relevant aspects (e.g, behavioural, logical, physical). On the other hand, it must ensure the correctness of digital twins with respect to the system specifications and the respective level of abstraction, and the federation enabling the communication between digital twins conceived as exchange and resume of models. This project aims to develop a model-based framework addressing the above-mentioned challenges by i) automating the creation of digital twins for the simulation, monitoring and testing of functional and non-functional properties ii) continuous validating digital twins to meet the required properties and iii) developing a multidomain and automated digital twin toolchain for the verification and validation of complex industrial systems based on digital twins. We foresee that this project will positively impact the efficiency of such systems by reducing their time to value and by increasing their final quality.

Keywords: digital twin,digital industry,model based engineering,runtime verification and validation,field based testing
Dissecting the impact of epithelial stem cell niches on oral cancer heterogeneity (OralNiche)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Physiology in Health, Disease and Ageing
Panel description: Organ and tissue physiology, comparative physiology, physiology  of ageing , pathophysiology, inter - organ 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: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2021-STG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-06-01
End date: 2027-05-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1768583.0
EU funding (EUR): 1768583.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The oral epithelium is a unique tissue with a high degree of structural heterogeneity and distinct microenvironments (niches). However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the site-specific proliferation and differentiation of oral epithelial stem cells (OESCs) remain poorly understood. Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), one of the most common oral cancers, is a heterogeneous cancer type. Occurrences of metastatic lesions and treatment response differ from oral site to site, indicating a causal link to the heterogeneous nature of distinct OESC pools. In the OralNiche project, we will for the first time systematically and comprehensively characterise the OESC pools, dissect key mechanisms underlying oral epithelial site-specificity and define their contribution to OSCC heterogeneity. To achieve this, we will combine novel mouse models and patient material with cutting-edge methodology, including whole mount imaging, single-cell sequencing and organoids. Initially, we will profile the proliferative activities of OESCs and explore how stemness is regulated within defined niches in homeostasis, OSCC and chemotherapy-induced mucositis. Subsequently, we will functionally assess cellular cues that modulate stemness in the oral epithelia and generate a comprehensive single-cell atlas of OESCs and their cellular niches. Lastly, using OSCC patient material, we will validate key observations to define potential new biomarkers and therapeutic targets. In summary, this multidisciplinary approach will reveal how the distinct OESC pools maintain homeostasis, and how they respond to challenges, such as mucositis and OSCC. OralNiche will deliver new knowledge on the impact of tissue site-specificity on tumour heterogeneity and therapy response, which will have significant implications for OSCC patients. Moreover, the knowledge gained and the technological advances proposed will be applicable to other tissues and tumour types and thus provide a model approach in cancer research.

Keywords: oral mucosa,oral cancer,tissue stem cells,lineage tracing,organoids,single cell sequencing
Engineering Spin-Splitting in Atomically Thin 2D Non-Centrosymmetric Crystals (ACCESS)

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: Physics
Countries involved: Spain,Netherlands
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2025-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The information technology and communication sector (ICT) has been undergoing remarkable progress fuelled by integrational advancements in its building blocks, the field effect transistor (FET). The FETs in commercials microprocessors still use more than half a century old energy-intensive conductance switching processes to perform logic operations. It is well understood that the inability to remove the dissipated energy in such switching process will eventually stop the ongoing downscaling of the microprocessors in the next few years. Spintronic-based devices, working by virtue of energy efficient switching the spin-polarization, are considered to bring a paradigm shift in logic operations. Such devices use charge-to-spin interconversion (CSI) which is maximized in materials with strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC). The main goal of ACCESS is to engineer inversion symmetry and SOC in vertical heterostructures of two-dimensional layered materials (2DLMs) to facilitate the CSI process. We shall fabricate dual gated hBN encapsulated FETs using the 1T' phase of transitional metal dichalcogenides and its twisted bilayers to tune symmetry and SOC. ACCESS will exploit the Edelstein effect and intrinsic Berry curvature dipole to generate current-induced magnetization and detect it via unidirectional magnetoresistance (UMR) and nonlinear Hall effect (NHE) measurements. The CSI in our samples will be further tuned by dynamically varying vertical displacement field and the charge carrier density in the channel. By this way, ACCESS will harness the topological properties of 2DLMs for applications in future spintronics devices, capable of magnet-free spin-to-charge interconversion. Besides its scientific goals, ACCESS also focuses on strengthening the researcher’s transferable skills and providing him a high-quality interdisciplinary research training, helping him to build a promising scientific research career.

Keywords: energy efficiency,spintronics based logic,2d layered materials,symmetry breaking,spin orbit coupling,charge to spin interconversion,unidirectional magnetoresistance,nonlinear hall effect,
Gut Influences on Brain and Mind (GUT-FEEL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Panel description: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics
Countries involved: Germany
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2025-STG, 2025)
Start date: 2026-01-01
End date: 2030-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1499980.0
EU funding (EUR): 1499980.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

A “gut feeling” is an intuition arising without conscious reasoning. This idiom reflects a profound biological truth: the gut is directly connected to subcortical systems that regulate arousal, mood, and behavior. However, brain-body theories often overlook these connections and their influence on arousal, a key mechanism through which the gut affects cognition. Moreover, we lack a detailed understanding of how different time scales of gut activity -from rapid contractions (seconds to minutes) to slower hormonal fluctuations (minutes to hours)- interact with brain dynamics, mood, and cognition. Critically, this gap also extends to mental health, where gut signals are increasingly recognized for their crucial role, yet a comprehensive mechanistic framework linking specific symptoms to altered brain-gut interactions remains absent. GUT-FEEL will address these challenges by systematically investigating gut-brain interactions across the vigilance, affective, and physiological dimensions of arousal, using pharmacological manipulations of the gut and brain. By combining non-invasive measurements of stomach activity with a dense, hourly sampling of gut hormones, I will probe how fast and slow gut signals interact with brain activity, captured simultaneously through electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. This novel approach will allow me to untangle the complex web of interactions between the gut and the brain, both in healthy individuals and in those with depression. By positioning the gut as a critical modulator of brain function, GUT-FEEL will reshape our understanding of the intricate links between the brain, body, and mind. This groundbreaking approach will push the boundaries of cognitive neuroscience and pave the way for gut-focused therapeutic interventions, revolutionizing how we understand and treat mental health conditions such as depression. In doing so, GUT-FEEL is set to redefine the future of brain-body research.

Keywords: stomach,gastric,hormones,gut,fmri,eeg,depression,electrogastrogram
Reading the mind’s eye: AI-inspired personalised brain models of mental imagery (MINDSEYE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: The Human Mind and Its Compl exity
Panel description: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics
Countries involved: Netherlands
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2023-ADG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2029-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2498288.0
EU funding (EUR): 2498288.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

How do we create mental images? Despite extensive research, we still miss an overarching mechanistic understanding of mental imagery: How do the various brain regions involved in mental imagery contribute to the unified percept in our mind's eye? Why do we experience imagery so differently ranging from no to extremely vivid mental images? In this project, we propose a novel perspective on mental imagery, viewing it as a personalised computational process that takes into account individual brain characteristics. The task of this computational process is to progressively transform abstract object descriptions (input) into sensory-like visual representations (output) through feedback connections in the brain’s processing hierarchy. To unravel the stages of this conversion process, we will employ advanced fMRI techniques to measure neural activity across the entire brain at an unparalleled level of detail. Using sophisticated analysis methods, we will decode topographic and semantic information about the content of mental images from activated brain areas. To investigate the causal involvement of specific areas, we will transiently disrupt their activity using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Informed by the fMRI and TMS data, we will develop the first personalized AI-inspired neural network model of mental imagery. This model will simulate the emergence of sensory representations backwards through the processing hierarchy and predict the perceived vividness of generated images for each individual. By implementing the model into a Brain Computer Interface, we will enable participants to see imagined objects on a screen during fMRI scanning. This opens up new applications, such as training the strength of mental imagery by providing neurofeedback based on predicted vividness. This interdisciplinary project, at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and AI, will provide an integrative framework of the generation of subjective experiences in the mind's eye.

Keywords: mental imagery,deep neural networks,brain stimulation,functional magnetic resonance imaging fmri,brain computer interface bci,cortical layers,visual hierarchy
Pension reforms and healthy ageing in Italy and Europe: quasi-natural experimental analysis of linked health and pension datasets (PRA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Human Mobility, Environment, and Space
Panel description: Human geography, demography, health, susta inability science, territorial planning, spatial analysis
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2021-COG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1880430.0
EU funding (EUR): 1880430.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many European countries to spend money that they do not have. This is creating unprecedented levels of debt and will inevitably lead to pressure for retrenchment in social welfare, with pensions seen as a key target. While some nations will seek to protect pensions, others will not. How will these pension reforms impact on healthy ageing? Will such reforms pension save money or perversely pass costs onto healthcare and other welfare systems? We propose an ambitious research programme to inform these critical questions. Our proposed research combines analysis of the Surveys on Health, Retirement and Ageing in Europe (SHARE) in 19 EU countries with specific quasi-natural experiment studies of pension reforms increasing pensionable ages (UK 1995 Pension Act and Italy 2011 Fornero Reform) and reducing pension payments (Netherlands 2013 Pension Reductions and Greece Katrougas Law 2016). Additionally the project will create innovative administrative-record linkages in Italian pension and health system data to quantify occupation-specific mortalities and unequal survival times. Overall, it builds on the PI’s strong track-record in evaluating health impacts of austerity and natural experiment research designs. The anticipated findings will test critical ideas about a ‘health-promoting pension system’ and about which occupational groups may merit additional compensation due to lower survival times. It will help inform critical policy debates by revealing the hidden and unanticipated health consequences of pension reforms and associated inequalities.

Keywords: pension,austerity,ageing,mental health