Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
FoamFlex - Falcon and Sponge for environmental emergencies (Foamflex)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Italy
Call: EIC Accelerator 2024 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-01, 2024)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Marine pollution is considered one of the biggest challenges of today's world. Considering the always increasing focus of authorities and population on environmental protection and oceans' preservation, oil pollution must be challenged at any cost. Just 1 Liter of oil is able to contaminate up to 1 million liter of water and it is known that, every year, 3.5 to 6 million metric tons of oil are lost into global waterways causing disastrous consequences at economic, societal and environmental level worldwide. Although oil spills remediation methods are currently available (such as polypropylene pads, skimmers and dispersants) their efficiency is very low, ranging from 5 to 20% oil recovery rates. To overcome this major problem, Test1 has developed and patented Foamflex, an innovative open-cell oleophilic polyurethane foam with hydrophobic characteristics which is able to efficiently attract and absorb polluting oil. Foamflex can be reused up to 200 times and it is able to absorb 90% oil with a minimum water quantity even generating an impressive 93% cost reduction if compared to polypropylene pads. Foamflex finds its application on both offshore vessels (equipped for oil spills response operations) through the skimmer Foamflex - Falcon 1 and on automated skimmers with the newly developed Automated Carpet Skimmer Foamflex - Falcon 1. With a Serviceable Available Market of Euro179bn, growing at a CAGR of 3.5% and a projected cumulated revenue of Euro50million in the first five years after commercialization, Test1 aims at becoming the worldwide leader of environmental protection and preservation from oil spills. This will be possible leveraging on the partnership with Eni and on the Pocs planned with companies such as Saudi Aramco, British Petroleum (BP), Lamor and Saipem which confirm the uniqueness of the product and boost the initial market traction of our innovation.

Keywords: oil pollution,marine protection,coast protection,new materials
First fully customisable no-code Plug&Play smart modular robots with 100% guaranteed collision free Robotics-as-a-Service technology to automate the EU manufacturing SMEs deployable in 24 hours (SmartModBot)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Germany
Call: EIC Accelerator 2024 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-01, 2024)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2450000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2450000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

European manufacturing SMEs suffer from skilled labour shortage. International competitiveness is threatened. This problem is solved by production automation for low volume/high mix orders, which is usually associated with high up-front costs, the need of expert knowledge, and is thus realised by large firms mostly – 90% of SMEs are not yet automatized. RobCo has developed a unique holistic platform based on smart modular robots, enabling a paradigm shift from designing the task around the robot (nowadays) to design the robot for a task. RobCo’s end-to-end platform integrates a no-code programming tool & a robots-as-a-service business model, for the first time offering SMEs reconfigurable robots that are adaptable in 24 hours to new use cases on a Plug & Play-basis, & which are built in 50% of the time & are 50-70% cheaper than competing products. Thus, RobCo’s approach empowers European SMEs with flexible production automation, and the workers do skilled work instead of repetitive tasks.

Keywords: modular,robot,ai,no code,labour shortage,manufacturing automation,robot as a service,retooling,plug and play,anti collision,genetic algorithm,digital twin,low volume high mix orders
Vaja - reimaging solar farms (Vaja 1)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: EIC Accelerator 2024 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2024-ACCELERATOR-01, 2024)
Duration (months): 21.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 2500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Vaja’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a net-zero world with disruptive innovations for solar farms. Our innovations are based on the concept of “wind-adaptive solar farms”. This disruptive approach uses innovative mechanics that allow the solar panels to change position in a controlled manner to adapt to strong winds, instead of being rigidly mounted to resist the wind. Wind-adaptive solutions remove 80-95% of the maximum wind force and snow load acting on the system, which has enabled Vaja to design a solar farm mounting system that: (i) increases and evens out the electricity production over the day and year, thereby improving solar farm ROI (ii) reduces the material use, thereby reducing the corresponding CO2e emissions and costs, and (iii) enables efficient and synergetic combinations of solar energy and agriculture Vaja´s solution has a large scale-up potential and has already been granted support from the Swedish Energy Agency. Vaja is well suited for the EIC Accelerator program and especially the challenge call around renewable energy. Our aim is to revolutionize the market for solar panel mounting systems and over time take a significant global market share.

Keywords: energy production,solar energy,photovoltaic,agrivoltaic,agripv,solar tracker,lcoe,co2e emission
Quantum Technologies Accelerating Stochastic Tasks (Q-TASTic)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Other destinations
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: EIC Accelerator 2025 - Short application (HORIZON-EIC-2025-ACCELERATOR-01, 2025)
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2499999.0
EU funding (EUR): 2499999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This project by Quantum Dice, Quantum Technologies Accelerating Stochastic Tasks (Q-TASTic), aims to develop and commercialise the world’s first probabilistic processor, addressing the market need for more efficient computing hardware for stochastic methods. Stochastic modelling is crucial for representing and analysing systems with randomness and uncertainty, helping to solve complex probabilistic problems in various fields like finance, engineering, and epidemiology. These models use random variables and probabilistic processes but face challenges due to the deterministic nature of current computing hardware. Quantum Dice specialises in photonic quantum processes. Our patented source-device independent self-certification (DISCTM) protocol leverages unique properties in our proprietary photonic quantum architecture that allows us to continuously assure the quality of the randomness present in every generated number even if the system is suffering environmental disturbances. These DISC-powered quantum random number generators (QRNGs) can play a key role in advancing probabilistic computing by providing a continuously assured source of randomness that is readily scalable and capable of operating at high speeds. Q-TASTic will develop and deploy a hardware architecture that directly integrates randomness from photonic quantum phenomena to enhance stochastic computations. This innovative solution seeks to significantly accelerate stochastic processes while reducing energy consumption. Implementation of this product will revolutionise stochastic modelling, with far-reaching impacts ranging from drug discovery to climate science to the AI revolution. With this innovation, we aim to offer solutions that revolutionise modern computing by leveraging the unique properties of quantum mechanics.

Keywords: stochastic modelling,next gen computing,probabilistic computing
Flows for Algae Growth: Uncovering the multi-scale dynamics of living suspensions (Flow4Algae)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator 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: Netherlands
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2021-COG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1995211.25
EU funding (EUR): 1994870.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Photosynthetic microalgae hold promise for the sustainable production of high-value products, bioplastics and biofuels. In bioreactors, suspensions of living, soft, and motile cells form an entirely new kind of fluids, which physiologically respond to the environment and the flow conditions. Fundamental knowledge of the flow dynamics of living suspensions is now urgently needed to develop new flow technologies for bioreactors. This project lays out an ambitious multi-scale experimental plan to establish the foundations of the fluid dynamics of living suspensions by revisiting three textbook aspects of flow: (1) turbulence, (2) the dynamics at solid and free interfaces and (3) the response to shear. This endeavour faces a new paradigm in complex flows, where fluid dynamics and cell physiology on different length scales, are deeply entwined. I will tackle this problem with a unique set of multi-scale experiments combining advanced flow diagnostics and rheology tools with new microfluidics and 3-D cell tracking recently developed in my group. These experiments will yield the first tracking measurements of living microalgae in a turbulent flow, and reveal what happens when motile cells on the small scale meet the turbulence cascade. Tracking experiments will provide new insight into the interactions of microalgae with free and textured surfaces, and, combined with rheology, show how shear flow affects cell motility and inversely how motility affects the response to shear of the suspension. Together, these experiments will uncover the interrelations between flow, cell physiology and growth, and determine how cell motility can be leveraged to optimize the turbulent mixing conditions in bioreactors, avoid biofilm formation and mediate cell harvesting.

Keywords: fluid mechanics,biofluids,micro swimmers,experimental fluid dynamics
Food Provision through Sustainable Farming Systems and Value Chains (VISIONARY)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food systems from primary production to consumption
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Spain,Romania,United Kingdom,Germany,Denmark,Poland,Hungary,Italy
Call: Uncovering lock-ins and levers to encourage farmers to move to and stay in sustainable, climate-neutral and biodiversity-friendly farming systems: from experiments to systemic mechanisms (HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01, 2021)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3153557.5
EU funding (EUR): 3153557.5
Participants: 13
Project status: SIGNED

VISIONARY wants to make a difference in food system transitions, by identifying what factors underlie the path dependencies and ‘lock-ins’ in current unsustainable food systems, and showing how these can be overcome. VISIONARY will tackle both, policy and business shifts as drivers that are necessary to make a change at the system level. The project aims to improve the sustainability of agriculture by promoting practices in food production systems that are more environmentally friendly, economically viable and socio-culturally appropriate. VISIONARY focuses on existing initiatives, practices and (policy) interventions (case studies) that are still niche or small-scale, and investigates the barriers to scaling up and out. Case studies cover value chain examples with a differing complexity, different environmental policy transitions pathways and existing agri-food system examples, namely the shift to organic farming and more plant-based protein production and consumption. At its core, VISIONARY uses methods from experimental and behavioural economics to identify barriers and appropriate behavioural interventions (nudges, education, incentives) for farmers and consumers. The novelty of VISIONARY lies in the combination of experimental methods with a systems thinking approach, considering the whole agri-food system as an influence on farmer decisions. The innovative combination of quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of methods is our important methodological contribution to more system based research. Comparability will be achieved by applying the same or similar methods across case studies in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Spain, Denmark and the UK. In order to achieve improved capacities, for researchers in behavioural and experimental research, as well as for policy makers and value chain actors to, utilise such research, VISIONARY will work with these actors in Science-Policy-Interfaces set up alongside the case studies.
Deciphering the impact of bioelectrical communication on human neuromuscular organoid maturation. (eNeuroMus)

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: Germany
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2026-04-30
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 173847.36
EU funding (EUR): 173847.36
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Stem cells and organoids have revolutionized our ability to build tissues and organ-like structures ‘in a dish’. Organoid models of a wide range of human tissues are increasingly applied to drug and treatment development and to fundamental and translational studies. However, the challenge of simultaneously growing more than one different tissues in a single functional organoid remains. Human neuromuscular organoids (NMOs) represent a landmark discovery toward building more complex and physiologically relevant human tissues in vitro. NMOs closely capture the cellular repertoire and structural and functional properties of the neuromuscular system, but, similar to other organoids, they do not reach adult tissue stages of maturation, at least in part, due to lack of connectivity and in vivo-like sensory inputs, including bioelectrical cues, essential in physiological phenomena. In a multi-disciplinary approach, the eNeuroMus project aims to test the hypothesis that delivery of brain-like input, currently excluded from NMO models, will enhance the complexity and maturation status of NMOs toward adult tissue stages. To this end, NMOs will be interfaced with conformable multielectrode arrays, based on organic conducting polymers, to expose NMOs to brain-like input via electrical stimulation and to record NMO electrophysiological activity in a growth stage-dependent manner. To decipher the effects of electrical stimulation on tissue maturation, electrophysiology assays will be combined with cutting-edge technologies, including spatial transcriptomics, optogenetics and advanced imaging. This analysis pipeline will result in a rich dataset, unravelling the long-term effects of electrical stimulation and the molecular pathways involved in the maturation of human neuromuscular organoids. Overall, the eNeuroMus project will deliver a novel and sophisticated framework for engineering the next generation of biohybrid organoids as tools for modelling human development and disease.

Keywords: organoids,neuromuscular system,tissue maturation,organic bioelectronics,electrical stimulation,bioelectrical cues,neural networks
Legal Annotations Within Scandinavia (LAWS)

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: Social Sciences and Humanities
Countries involved: Denmark
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2026-12-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 230774.4
EU funding (EUR): 230774.4
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The Legal Annotations Within Scandinavia (LAWS) research project will examine medieval legal manuscripts for notes left in the margins by readers; these additions include evidence for the changing understanding of the law across the medieval and post-medieval periods. The marginalia in these texts include reader reflections and erasures and I will examine these marginal annotations for insights into the ongoing reception and interpretation of the laws, including the circumstances of its evolution. This is particularly important because unlike the rest of Continental Europe, medieval Scandinavian legal manuscripts were less influenced by the Bolognian and Parisian law models, and similarly the reader annotations do not follow the customary glossing patterns. This provides an opportunity to examine a unique reading and legal culture that existed literally in the margins, some of which will only be visible and legible now after centuries due my use of the multi-spectral imaging scanner at the Arnamagnæan Institute. The main objectives of my research project are therefore to: 1) To examine the medieval legal texts in the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection for evidence of use by medieval and post-medieval readers; 2) To develop a detailed record of the marginalia, both standard and nonstandard, present in the legal texts in order to track the changing understanding of medieval legal terminology; 3) To consider the broader questions of literacy and the Nordic legal cultures as seen through two important 18th-century manuscript collections, which serve as a representative sample of the time; and 4) To produce an exhibition comparing the patterns of use on these medieval Scandinavian manuscripts to those used, read, and annotated in medieval England and Continental Europe. My research will be divided into two distinct Work Packages, corresponding to Year 1 and Year 2; in the course of this, I will submit two articles for publication and curate a major exhibition.

Keywords: medieval law,literary culture,manuscripts
A machine learning conservation apPROach to evaluaTE extinCTion risk in freshwater biodiversity (PROTECT)

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: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 181152.96
EU funding (EUR): 181152.96
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

Accurate assessments of species’ contemporaneous extinction risk (CER) are vital to quantifying the current biodiversity crisis and prioritising conservation efforts. However, the most comprehensive global dataset of CER - the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species - is taxonomically biased due to the lengthy assessment process, leaving understudied taxa, such as those in freshwaters, under no formal PROTECTion. Prediction-based models based on novel machine learning methods enable large-scale automated assessments of CER, reducing data deficits rapidly. The main goal of this project is to identify predictors of CER in freshwater habitats, focusing on the largest family of freshwater gastropods, the Hydrobiidae. First, we will use a deep-learning approach to automatically predict the Red List status of hundreds of hydrobiid species from multiple regions and ecosystems that have not been evaluated yet, basing the predictions on ecological and macroevolutionary data. Second, high-throughput sequencing methods will be conducted for the first time in this taxon to compare microevolutionary diversity with population trends derived from long-term field surveys. Last, by establishing a multifactorial prediction-based method, the project will identify which features (ecological, macro-, microevolutionary or all) are meaningful to inferring CER in freshwater organisms. The implications of this proposal are threefold and relevant to scientific, technological and societal concerns. Our findings may provide a basis for comparing predictors of CER across taxa. They will also open up a more integrative framework for conservation actions, moving beyond species-by-species categorisation. Focussing on the "Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment" area from HORIZON 2021-2027, this project addresses knowledge gaps in species threats and safeguards freshwater resources, illustrating this with understudied taxa.

Keywords: iucn red list,macroevolution,microevolution,ecology,iucnn,high throughput sequencing,museum collections,hydrobiidae