Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Flexible Lead-free Perovskite Solar Cells Implementation in Photovoltaic Shading Systems (PEROSHADE)

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: Italy
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2024-POC, 2024)
Start date: 2025-05-01
End date: 2026-10-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 167142.86
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

One of the key measures being undertaken by the EU to tackle climate change and reduce CO2 emissions is to massively increase the amount of energy produced from renewable sources, particularly solar energy. In this context, perovskite solar cells represent a low- cost technological solution of great interest because they open to new possible photovoltaic (PV) applications. However, the most effective PV perovskites contain more than 10% by weight of lead, which oversteps the limits adopted in most countries to regulate the use of heavy metals in electronics. Within the ERC FREENERGY project framework, we have demonstrated tin as a non-toxic, valid replacement for lead. We want to explore the possibility of exploiting the ERC results to integrate perovskite on fabrics to make photovoltaic shading systems such as awnings and canopies. PV shading systems offer a twofold advantage: they generate energy and protect from the sun, thus mitigating the need for cooling systems. PV awnings can exploit spaces not currently used for this purpose, such as windows, balconies and patios, thus allowing energy harvesting while minimising land requirements and visual impact. By harnessing solar energy on-site, these structures can directly power lighting, heating, cooling and other electrical systems, reducing the reliance on external electricity grids. In addition, the successful implementation of PV modules onto textiles can enable the development of various new products (e.g. photovoltaic camping tents), thus paving the way for additional business opportunities.
Decoding Plant-Microbiome Interactions at Single-Cell and Spatial Resolutions (MICROMETER)

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: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-09-01
End date: 2028-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 260347.92
EU funding (EUR): 260347.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Plant-microbiome interactions are crucial for plant health, promoting growth and enhancing resilience under stress conditions. These interactions are highly heterogeneous, shaped by diverse plant cell types and the complex spatial distribution of microbes. However, our current understanding remains predominantly at the tissue level, lacking the resolution to fully capture this heterogeneity. As a result, the genetic networks that govern how plants foster beneficial microbiomes remain largely unexplored. This Fellowship aims to address these gaps by employing cutting-edge single-cell multiomics and spatial mapping technologies. Using Arabidopsis thaliana and the well-characterized 35-member synthetic microbial community (SynCom35) as model systems, I will integrate single-cell transcriptome and chromatin accessibility assays to map transcriptional and epigenetic changes in root cells in response to microbial colonization. This approach will provide novel insights into the cellular mechanisms and genetic networks underlying plant-microbiome interactions. Additionally, by utilizing and further developing PHYTOMap, a multiplexed 3D spatial gene expression analysis platform, I will simultaneously spatially map plant gene expression and microbiome distribution. By integrating single-cell and spatial omics data, I will reconstitute spatially-resolved plant gene regulatory networks that interact with specific microbiome members. Furthermore, I will functionally characterize these predicted regulatory networks, aiming to lay the foundation for genetic engineering to enhance plant interactions with beneficial microbes, offering new strategies for optimizing plant growth and resilience. Altogether, this research will significantly advance our understanding of plant-microbiome interactions at single-cell and spatial resolutions, providing a foundation for innovative approaches to enhance crop resilience and agricultural sustainability in response to global challenges.

Keywords: plant microbiome interaction,plant immunity,single cell omics,spatial mapping,spatial omics,microscopy,imaging,molecular genetics,signaling pathway,genetic engineering,rhizosphere microbiome
European Research Infrastructure on Semiconductor Chips (INFRACHIP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Research infrastructures
Theme: Research infrastructures
Destination: Services and infrastructures
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Ireland,Greece,France,Portugal,Austria,Sweden,Germany,Poland
Call: Research infrastructure services to enable R&I addressing main challenges and EU priorities (HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 14457463.0
EU funding (EUR): 14457463.0
Participants: 18
Project status: SIGNED

InfraChip is to implement the first integrated, distributed research infrastructure as a wider European research platform for the sustainable development of next-generation and future semiconductor chips. InfraChip will mobilise a critical mass of people, expert knowledge and technology blocks, and capital investment on state-of-the-art equipment to address the EU’s twin digital and green transition and ensure Europe’s capacity to innovate at the early to medium readiness levels. Building on existing RI communities, namely ASCENT+ on Nanoelectronics, EMERGE on Sustainable Flexible Electronics and EnABLES on Powering the Internet of Things (IoT), the InfraChip initiative will advance the state-of-the-art by supporting comprehensive user projects for multi-and-trans-disciplinary path-finding research on sustainable Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)driven by the secure edge. These challenge-driven projects will target the introduction of new materials, proof-of-concept and feasibility studies of new manufacturing processes or disruptive technologies. To accelerate the translation of results from the lab to the fab, InfraChip will channel project activities to Testing and Experimentation Facilities, European Digital Innovation Hubs and Pilot Lines. InfraChip will also develop talent and train a skilled workforce through its Research Accelerator Programme and additional hands-on courses and education resources to support early career innovators and the high-value semiconductor industry. As a whole, InfraChip will significantly contribute to research and innovation capacity within the objectives of the European Chips Act.

Keywords: semiconductor,flexible electronics,more than moore,beyond cmos
Two-photon all-optical interrogation of auditory cortex circuit supporting working memory representations (MemoryRecAll)

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): 195914.88
EU funding (EUR): 195914.88
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Working memory refers to the brain capacity for encoding sensory stimuli and maintaining information suspended for imminent processing, over a short timespan (few seconds). This ability is crucial for numerous simple and intricate tasks in humans and animals (keeping in mind a sequence, learning, speech…). Despite its importance, the mechanisms underlying this process remain largely unknown. Different theoretical models have been proposed to recapitulate working memory. Among them, attractor dynamics within recurrent networks facilitate self-sustained activity that holds information as a form of memory. Working memory, since its first descriptions, has been pinpointed to higher-order associative frontal and prefrontal regions of the brain. However, growing evidences suggest widespread representations, spanning also sensory cortices. A recent research causally demonstrated the necessity of the primary auditory cortex to perform an auditory-based working memory task. The main objective of the proposed project is to reveal the existence of working memory representations in auditory cortex and to analyze the circuit supporting them, employing the concept of attractor dynamics. This goal will be achieved by combining ultrafast acousto-optic two-photon (2P) calcium and voltage imaging, precise optogenetics and animal behavior. This approach will provide information regarding the spatial organization and identity of neurons responding during the retention phase of the task and enables the subsequent manipulation of such neurons with unprecedented spatiotemporal accuracy. Perturbation experiments will test the predictions of attractor dynamics theory in relation to working memory representation and probe synaptic connectivity within functionally identified neurons. In conclusion, I will combine cutting-edge optical approaches with analytical methods to causally dissect the network underlying working memory representations in auditory cortex.

Keywords: working memory,auditory cortex,two photon microscopy,two photon optogenetics,voltage imaging,connectivity,attractor dynamics
Metabolism-driven division of minimal cell-like systems (MetaDivide)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Synergy grants
Action type: ERC actions
Countries involved: Netherlands,Germany
Call: ERC SYNERGY GRANTS (ERC-2024-SyG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2030-12-31
Duration (months): 72.0
Total project cost (EUR): 5000000.0
EU funding (EUR): 5000000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Building a synthetic cell from molecular components is one of the grand scientific and intellectual challenges of the 21st century, and requires interdisciplinary skillsets to design and integrate biochemical modules at different levels of hierarchy. Great progress has been made in the fundamental understanding and reconstitution of key features, such as metabolic reaction networks and replication machinery. However, their successful synergistic integration in minimal cells still lags far behind, due to often largely different experimental approaches. MetaDivide will bring together two groups of world-leading scientists with complementary expertise in biochemistry and biophysics to address this gap. Poolman and Schwille will combine their mastery of membrane systems and protein machineries to establish a blueprint for coupling metabolic networks to cellular modules for spatiotemporal regulation and force-induction for division. By this, we aim to reconstitute in a minimal system one of the most stunning and central features of cellular life: The autonomous division of proto-cellular compartments by encapsulated self-organizing macromolecular machinery, driven by a self-sustaining energy metabolism. We will test our hypothesis that the otherwise separately researched features of life: Metabolism, Cell Division and Genome Segregation are mechanistically linked in the emergence of cellular life. Besides the great technical advance in synthetic biology, this will be a huge accomplishment in the understanding of biological mechanisms in today’s organisms, which in living cells are often obscured by their immense molecular complexity. Moreover, our new fundamental insights on the main principles underlying cellular life will advance application-driven research: By elucidating the mechanisms of out-of-equilibrium reaction networks and cell division, we will obtain insight that may inform the future development of generic small molecules to curb bacterial proliferation.

Keywords: bottom up construction of cells,membrane transport,cell division,physicochemical homeostasis,vesicles,membrane growth
Unjust Enrichment and Public Policy (UEPP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Starting grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Institutions, Governance and Legal Systems
Panel description: Political science, international relations, law
Countries involved: Israel
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-04-01
End date: 2028-03-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1159231.0
EU funding (EUR): 1159231.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

The basic maxim of the law of unjust enrichment states that a person should not be unjustly enriched at another’s expense. This broad principle is currently primarily used to solve local problems and disputes between specific individuals through private litigation. The proposed project offers a paradigm shift and the use of the fundamental principle prohibiting unjust enrichment to solve broad societal issues, both as a private and a public law doctrine. This is a double paradigm shift. From the direction of the law of unjust enrichment, it requires a reconceptualization of this area of law, to adjust it to solve entirely new types of problems. From the direction of public law, it offers to refresh the way we currently look at deep societal ills such as global warming, the spread of fake news or the production of harmful goods and services. In all these contexts, and many others, current legal frameworks tend to focus on the harmfulness of certain activities. The proposed framework offers, instead, to start the analysis with undeserved and ill-obtained gains. Phenomena like global warming and fake news are problematic because they are harmful, but persistent, and so difficult to regulate, because they are immensely beneficial to strong interest groups. A regulatory perspective focusing on gains can therefore prove instrumental in fighting some of the most important legal battles of our time. This paradigm shift involves a broad project and requires a multistage research program, conducted by the PI together with a team of post-doctoral researchers. This is a high-risk high reward project; if successful, it can provide critically missing elements in the legal toolkit, that will improve our ability to solve pressing legal issues.

Keywords: private law,public law,regulation,unjust enrichment
Blood microRNAs ADAM10-target: novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease by electrochemical sensors (mirADAM)

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: Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2025-03-01
End date: 2026-02-28
Duration (months): 12.0
Total project cost (EUR): 90576.48
EU funding (EUR): 90576.48
Participants: 1
Project status: TERMINATED

ADAM10 (A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease 10), the main α-secretase of the non-amyloidogenic cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), is a common player in Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and Alzheimer´s disease (AD). ADAM10 levels are altered in platelets, plasma, serum, and CSF of elderly with AD, suggesting its potential role as an AD biomarker. It is well known that there is an association between impaired insulin signaling and the amyloid cascade, as ADAM10 is also increased in T2D and insulin increases the expression and activity of this protease. However, few studies present efforts to understand the regulation of miRNAs ADAM10-targeted in these diseases, and its application on electrochemical sensors. This proposal aims to explore and validate circulating miRNAs that are deregulated, directly related to the pathophysiology of AD, T2D, or AD+T2D, and are ADAM10-targeted, as well as to assess the value of specific miRNAs panels on the diagnosis and prognosis of AD, leading to the application of these findings on a diagnostic device. All ethical aspects involved will be respected. Frozen serum samples will be provided from biorepositories and by a biobank. RT-qPCR assays will be performed for serum miRNAs screening differentially expressed in healthy control, T2D, AD, and T2D+AD subjects. Then, miRNA cross-sectional validation studies will be designed, and the capability of accurately detecting these miRNAs in a microfluidic platform will be tested. Data analysis will be conducted through ANCOVA, conditional logistic regression, and panels of ROC curves. This proposal attempts to provide evidence regarding the role of ADAM10 as a relevant link between two diseases of pandemic proportions, whilst identifying specific blood miRNAs ADAM10-targeted with diagnostic and prognostic potential to AD, leading to the application of these findings on a diagnostic device, highlighting its advantages as a less invasive, easier, faster, and lower-cost proceeding.

Keywords: micro rnas adam10 biosensors
Nanobodies blocking immunosuppressive unexplored proteins from the tumor endothelium to promote anti-tumor immune response (NANOBITER)

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 GRANTS (ERC-2024-POC, 2024)
Start date: 2025-05-01
End date: 2026-10-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), approximately 80% of patients have a poor response or develop resistance to current immunotherapies (IT), highlighting a critical need for more effective treatments. To date, most ITs focus on targeting cancer or immune cells, often overlooking endothelial cells (ECs), the body's largest organ. In the running ERC Adv Grant project MystIMEC (#101055155), we demonstrated the immunosuppressive nature of tumor ECs and their pathobiological role in tumor progression. With up to 90% of new drug candidates failing in clinical trials, often due to suboptimal target selection, the host lab has taken a fundamentally different approach to discovering novel therapeutic targets. Leveraging cutting-edge in-house developed AI and gene prioritization tools together with EC-selective lipid nanoparticle-based genetic silencing in a mouse lung tumor model, we discovered and validated 26 previously unexplored immunosuppressive genes (with poor functional annotation, ca 1/3 of human coding genome) as candidate therapeutic targets specific to ECs: silencing these genes promotes anti-tumor immune responses and reduces tumor growth. This ERC-PoC proposal builds further on these findings, aiming to develop nanobody (Nb) therapeutics for three promising targets with the greatest therapeutic efficacy. These targets are either secreted or membrane-exposed and therefore amenable to Nb-based inhibition, a treatment modality successfully used in the clinic. The results will provide the first Proof-of-Concept that our visionary approach to discover and validate unexplored immunosuppressive genes is an efficient, innovative, game-changing strategy. After generating Nbs, we will screen for the top two candidates with the strongest neutralizing effects in vitro (amongst other criteria). Finally, as Proof-of-Concept, the two selected Nbs will be validated in an in vivo lung tumor model for their efficacy to enhance anti-tumor immunity and to reduce tumor growth.
Near-Field Enhanced Dynamic Sensing for 6G Networks (NEDS-6G) (NEDS-6G)

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: Information Science and Engineering
Countries involved: Sweden
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-08-01
End date: 2027-07-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 252180.0
EU funding (EUR): 252180.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The advent of sixth-generation (6G) networks promises transformative advancements in communication capabilities through the integration of large array structures such as ELAA, RIS, D-MIMO, and cell-free MIMO. However, the shift towards near-field (NF) characteristics in these systems poses challenges for traditional far-field-based location and sensing methods, necessitating a new approach for dynamic sensing in 6G networks. This project, Near-field Enhanced Dynamic Sensing for 6G Networks (NEDS-6G), aims to develop innovative algorithms and methodologies to address these challenges and unlock the full potential of 6G technology. The primary objective of NEDS-6G is to achieve subcentimeter-level positioning accuracy for static and dynamic objects within 6G networks. This project will focus on establishing realistic NF dynamic channel models, developing efficient sensing methods, and validating these techniques through experimental measurements. Three work packages will drive this research forward: (1) NF dynamic channel modeling with well-characterizing inherent NF properties in large array structures. (2) positioning and tracking static and dynamic targets by developing accurate yet efficient sensing methods making full use of the NF characteristics. and (3) experimental validation through real-world measurements to investigate their real-world performance and compare them with existing technologies. By characterizing dynamic NF properties, leveraging advanced signal processing techniques, and possibly integrating AI-enabled methods, this project aims to push beyond the current state-of-the-art in dynamic sensing for 6G networks. The proposed methodologies seek to enhance resource allocation efficiency, improve localization accuracy, and boost overall system performance, paving the way for the next generation of wireless communication technologies.

Keywords: radio localization and sensing,large array structures,near field,channel modeling and characterization,experimental validation,curved wavefronts,spatial non stationarity,spatial consistency