Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Smart Detectors for Darkfield X-ray Imaging (SmartX)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Synergy grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Germany,Spain,Switzerland
Call: ERC SYNERGY GRANTS (ERC-2024-SyG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-04-01
End date: 2031-03-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 10840961.0
EU funding (EUR): 10840961.0
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

The main objective of this project is to improve the early detection and accuracy of lung disease diagnosis by developing a novel detector concept for dark-field X-ray imaging - a novel method with great potential for the assessment of pathological changes in the alveolar microstructure of the lung as recently discovered in initial patient studies. Our research will focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the third leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for more than 3.2 million deaths each year. Traditional chest X-rays, while critical for diagnosis, are often inadequate for the early and accurate detection of mild to moderate COPD due to their limited sensitivity. Similarly, computed tomography (CT) scans are limited in detecting early stages of COPD and are associated with much higher radiation doses. This highlights a significant diagnostic need, as current methods, including spirometry and conventional imaging, cannot reliably assess the severity of COPD. Our goal is to develop a breakthrough detector technology that overcomes the key challenge of darkfield imaging: the need for a 50% absorbing grating. By utilizing the latest advances in nanoscintillation materials and single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) sensor technology, we intend to directly resolve the interference patterns characteristic of darkfield imaging. This new technology not only promises to reduce the radiation dose required by current darkfield techniques by 50%, but also enables integration with single-photon spectral detection. This initiative is a high-risk, high-reward project with the potential to revolutionize X-ray imaging technology, particularly lung imaging, after more than 125 years of practice. Most notably, it will lay the technological foundation for routine integration into the next generation of medical X-ray and CT imaging technology.

Keywords: x ray darkfield imaging,lung diseases,x ray detection technologies,photonics,computed tomography,respiratory diseases,scintillation materials
International Advocacy for the Strategic Alignment of MSCA Cooperation Mechanisms in Key Partner Countries and Regions (MSCAdvocacy)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: MSCA other
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: Germany,Greece,Portugal,Italy,Austria
Call: MSCA International Cooperation 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-INCO-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-05-01
End date: 2025-04-30
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1997875.0
EU funding (EUR): 1997875.0
Participants: 5
Project status: CLOSED

The aim of the MSCAdvocacy project is to provide direct support to better align MSCA cooperation mechanisms of 20 key partner countries and 6 regions with the European Commission’s Global Approach to Research and Innovation. The project will become the strategic link between 1) the European Union’s external policy objectives, 2) bilateral and bi-regional S&T agreements with key partner countries and regions, 3) the corresponding R&I cooperation roadmaps and action plans, and 4) MSCA promotion in the field. With MSCA being the central international component of Horizon Europe (HE), its researcher mobility programmes directly contribute to the objective of the EC’s Global Approach such as strengthening commitment to international openness and fundamental values, rebalancing towards a level playing field and reciprocity, ensuring a free exchange of ideas and fostering research in key areas such as a green transition, the digital transition, global health, and innovation. However, in several key partner countries and regions MSCA do not seem to reach their full strategic potential in line with the objectives mentioned above. Hence, the project will do its part in supporting the strategic alignment of participation and cooperation mechanisms for MSCA to the priorities set on policy level. This will be achieved by 1) reviewing broader policy orientations and monitoring existing cooperation mechanisms with the target countries and regions relevant for MSCA; 2) conducting a Coordination and Support Mission to the targeted countries and regions in order to promote MSCA cooperation opportunities; 3) adressing analyses, reviews, and policy briefs to bilateral and bi-regional R&I policy dialogues; 4) and providing recommendations for long-term strategic promotion in MSCA consistent with EU R&I bilateral and bi-regional cooperation roadmaps and action plans.

Keywords: msca,international cooperation,randi policy dialogues,national contact points,marie sk odowska curie actions,randi cooperation action plans and roadmaps
MIRACLE the platform for virtual biopsies; introducing Metabolic MRI-as-a-Service for oncologic care (MIRACLE)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Transition
Destination: Open to supporting projects in all areas of science, technology,...
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Netherlands,Germany,Poland
Call: EIC Transition Open 2021 (HORIZON-EIC-2021-TRANSITIONOPEN-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-05-01
End date: 2025-07-31
Duration (months): 39.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2498128.75
EU funding (EUR): 2495127.0
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

Imagine a future where the limitless possibilities of virtual biopsies in cancer diagnostics can be explored. A future in which cancer patients would have access to MRI enabled virtual biopsies in order to receive the best possible treatment decisions anywhere on the globe. MIRACLE is developing a first-of-kind add-on device for MRI scanners that will be used to acquire a virtual biopsy of the tumor providing not only structural information on tumor dimensions for (tissue conserving) surgery, but also unique metabolic information on the efficacy of specific systemic therapies. Ultimately, this fully non-invasive, accurate and rapid predictive approach can guide patients to the best fitting treatment plan given their personal circumstances and tumor characteristics. WaveTronica (WT) together with the University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU), German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) and Medical University of Lublin (UMLUB) aim to build this future by bringing the first Metabolic MRI-as-a-Service solution to the market. Past projects and research led to the development of a Proof-of-Concept MRI coil capable of detecting metabolic biomarkers non-invasively using the strongest clinically available MRI system, as demonstrated in FET- OPEN-01-2016-2017-801075 - the Non-Invasive-Chemistry-Imaging (NICI) and FET-OPEN-03-2018-2019-2020 - FET Innovation Launchpad - MIRACLE. The MRI coil is a plug-and-play add on for existing MRI machines resulting in an accessible and affordable virtual biopsy tool that can identify cancer biomarkers and tumor activity without shedding a drop of patient blood. This project converts a complex research tool into an accessible diagnostic service (Metabolic MRI-as-a-Service). MIRACLE is supported by the Dutch reimbursement company VGZ, Tesla DC, and oncologists showing there is a strong market demand. Now the challenge lies in bringing the breast coil PoC hardware and software to the next level using breast cancer as a use case.

Keywords: virtual biopsy high field strength mr imaging breast cancer chemotherapy efficacy prediction metabolic signal detection as a service business models
OPERATIONALIZING AI ETHICS FOR LEARNING AND PRACTICE: A GLOBAL APPROACH (AIOLIA)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area
Programme: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System
Theme: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System
Destination: Reforming and enhancing the European R&I System
Action type: Coordination and support actions
Countries involved: France,Germany,United Kingdom,Greece,Netherlands,Belgium,Canada,China,Korea, Republic of,Japan,Lithuania,Serbia,Italy,Sweden,Spain
Call: Next generation AI and Human Behaviour: promoting an ethical approach (HORIZON-WIDERA-2024-ERA-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-02-01
End date: 2028-01-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2999895.0
EU funding (EUR): 2999895.0
Participants: 22
Project status: SIGNED

AIOLIA gives a robust 3-tier response to the complex challenges posed by the need to operationally interpret the EU AI Act and global AI regulation. (1) Recognizing the gap between ethical values and their practical application in engineering, AIOLIA pioneers a bottom-up approach to operationalize AI ethics with regard to human condition and behaviour. Following a selection of real-world use cases, AIOLIA translates high-level principles into actionable and contextual guidelines co-created by leading academic, policy, and ethics-aware industrial partners who represent diverse professional and geographic European and international contexts. (2) AIOLIA's commitment to context-sensitivity is deepened by crafting modular, inclusive training materials following the ADDIE methodology designed to cater to diverse learning needs. Hosted on the Embassy of Good Science, AIOLIA materials will range from lectures, videos, and mock reviews to such innovative formats as podcasts, Tiktoks, and a chatbot teaching AI ethics. (3) AIOLIA's outreach is amplified by encompassing 7 research ethics and integrity networks and 3 prominent computer science networks. This strategic alignment enables us to effectively recruit training participants and disseminate human-centric ethics guidelines to a wide spectrum of stakeholders, from ethics experts to early-stage researchers and policymakers worldwide. Resolutely European, AIOLIA's vision propagates beyond EU, embracing global cooperation with leading universities and think tanks in China, South Korea, Japan, and Canada. Utilizing UNESCO platform with its reach to Africa and South Asia, AIOLIA’s guidelines evolve into an analytic toolbox for key international AI dialogues and processes. This global perspective ensures that AIOLIA's impact is not only significant but also sustainable, contributing to fair scientific cooperation and providing concrete and culturally informed ethics instruments to shape the next generation of AI systems.

Keywords: artificial intelligence,ai ethics,human behaviour,human cognition,training,education,international cooperation
Circadian regulation of tanycytes: its role in the regulation of rhythmic physiology in health and in circadian misalignment (Circanycyte)

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: Life Sciences
Countries involved: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 211754.88
EU funding (EUR): 211754.88
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the brain, our internal clock, synchronizes physiology to the Earth’s rotation using signals from the environment such as light and food intake. However, in industrialized cities, these same signals at wrong times uncouple the internal clock from the environment, leading to circadian misalignment, such as in night and shift workers, who have elevated risks of developing obesity and metabolic syndrome. Nevertheless, effective measures to delay or limit health costs for these people are yet to come. Recently, I described novel vasopressinergic SCN neuronal (SCNAVP) fibers in the vicinity of non-neuronal hypothalamic cells known as tanycytes that have the ability to sense and transport metabolic cues. Whether the sensor and transporter functions of tanycytes are regulated in a circadian manner by the SCN, and whether this regulation plays a role in the development of metabolic impairments during circadian misalignment, are unknown. Thus, in the Circanycyte project, we will seek to 1) determine how SCNAVP neurons control tanycytic function, 2) explore the role of SCNAVP neuron-tanycyte communication in circadian alignment and metabolic fitness, and 3) determine the contribution of SCNAVP neuron-tanycyte miscommunication to the development of metabolic syndrome during circadian misalignment. To accomplish these aims, I will undergo training in cutting-edge technologies (e.g. Ca2+ in vivo imaging of tanycytes, with simultaneous optogenetic manipulations), while I exercise my leadership and management skills by working in a top laboratory, using the experience as a launching pad for international collaborations in frontier science in the EU. My original angle of research, hypothesizing that tanycytes, which extend processes outside the blood-brain barrier, are key targets of the SCN to regulate metabolism, is a strategic choice that promises to uncover new actionable pharmaceutical targets to fight desynchronization-related disorders

Keywords: circadian rhythms,tanycytes,neuron glia interactions,circadian misalignment,metabolic syndrome,obesity,suprachiasmatic nucleus,medio basal hypothalamus
Wildfires and Climate Change: Physics-Based Modelling of Fire Spread in a Changing World (FIREMOD)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting 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: United Kingdom
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2024-STG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-03-01
End date: 2030-02-28
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1480466.0
EU funding (EUR): 1480466.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Fire has long been a ubiquitous and essential part of the global environment, as many ecosystems and societal life fundamentally depend on fire. Despite this, we still lack a fundamental theory of fire spread, which becomes crucial in a changing world if we want to understand and predict the occurrence of uncontrolled fires. Uncontrolled fires are a global phenomena that are becoming commonplace as changes in moisture and local temperature driven by climate change affect local fuel properties and ecosystems. As we construct more housing and industry in areas that were previously wildlands, the Wildland-Urban Interface becomes more critical as wildfires now affect infrastructure and urban systems. The societal, scientific, and engineering problem of uncontrolled fires is a complex one: it requires the harmonisation of both engineering and environmental science methods, including combustion engineering, real time modelling, data assimilation and management, and the development of techniques that can adequately support the needs of fire management. The aim of this proposal is ambitious, but essential to understand and predict the occurrence of uncontrolled fires: We need a fundamental physical model to understand the process of fire spread. It needs to be validated, and it needs to work for all conditions and fuel types. We will develop this physical model focusing on three different methods, in parallel: i) Study fire across temporal and spatial scales to understand changing fire regimes, including vegetation dynamics. ii) Understanding of fire on multiple scales will help with scaling up from small-scale fine mesh models to much larger grid sizes. iii) Integrate the effect of smouldering combustion into modelling of fire spread. The scientific outcomes of our work will ensure that there is a fundamental step-change in the approach of modelling wildfire ignition and spread, with the proposed methodology and tools then widely available for scientists to adapt.

Keywords: fire dynamics,multiphysics modelling,wildland urban interface
Wafer Scale Ultra-Clean Van der Waals Heterostructures (2D-TRANSFER)

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: United Kingdom
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2024-POC, 2024)
Start date: 2024-12-01
End date: 2026-05-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Two dimensional materials (2DM) and their van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures have opened new opportunities to develop atomically thin electronic and optoelectronic devices with a wide range of functionalities. While thousands of research papers demonstrate proof-of-concept studies with improved and novel performance using small-scale exfoliated crystals, a number of challenges still remains when these are attempted to be scaled up on wafer-scale with CVD grown 2DM. One of the key challenges is the transfer process of 2DM from their growth substrate to another 2DM or a target substrate for intended use. Currently, this process is performed using organic polymers to support 2DM, which introduces considerable amount of contamination and mechanical damage to the transferred layers. We propose to circumvent the existing issues of the transfer process by employing a new technique recently invented in NGI, which completely avoids use of organic compounds. This approach enables production of heterostructures with perfect interfaces free from interlayer contamination and correspondingly excellent (opto)electronic behaviour. In addition, eliminating polymeric supports allows new possibilities for vdW heterostructure fabrication: assembly at temperatures up to 600°C, and in different environments including ultra-high vacuum (UHV), liquid submersion and improved mechanical stability. This project will apply our novel approach for wafer-scale use, considering requirements of industrial companies, such as the choice of 2DMs and wafers, quality standards, throughput and reliability. The improved inorganic transfer technology will be then licensed to a selected 2DM foundry. In addition, we will develop an instrument for wafer-scale 2DM transfer that employs our innovative approach, which will be made available via spin-out company. Successful completion of the project can bring life to a wide range of industrial exploitation of 2DM in industrial nanotechnology applications.
The multiple LAYERS of childhood adversity (LAYERS)

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: Denmark
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2023-COG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2029-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2000000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Health inequality is a major societal challenge, and evidence suggests that health inequality is established in childhood and may even transcend generations. Childhood is a sensitive period with rapid growth and development, and adversity during this period may have long-lasting health effects. More importantly, multiple forms of adversity intersect with each other, and disadvantaged children are often exposed to adversity across multiple biological, health, social, neighbourhood and environmental layers, but the childhood adversity literature has almost exclusively focused on social adversity. This is a major gap in our understanding, and empirical data which transcends multitude layers of adversity and follows individuals over entire life courses or across generations is lacking. With LAYERS, I am in a unique position to meet this challenge by creating a unified data infrastructure for life course analyses of multiple layers of childhood adversity in 2M people over three generations combined with an interdisciplinary fusion of methods from data science, epidemiology, econometrics, and systems science within a newly developed complex systems framework. This innovative combination of data and methods will allow for a systematic generation of knowledge on the patterns of health inequality that emerge in early life and transcend generations, the mechanisms which generate these patterns, and the dynamics that make them change over time. To translate these insights into actionable public health, LAYERS will establish a real-world policy data lab which integrates evidence from nationwide policies and simulations. Combined, these interconnected elements will redirect the next frontier in health inequality research towards the multiple layers of adversity which generate inequality over the life course and across generations. Ultimately, this will help us break vicious circles of adversity by identifying children and families who would benefit from targeted support.

Keywords: health inequality childhood adversity trangenerational health high dimensional data complex systems theory data science natural policy experiments