Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Novel and Scalable microbial products for REgenerative agriculture (N-Spire)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Innovative Europe
Programme: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
Theme: EIC Accelerator
Destination: Challenges
Action type: EIC actions
Countries involved: Belgium
Call: EIC Accelerator Challenge: Novel technologies for resilient agriculture (HORIZON-EIC-2023-ACCELERATOR-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-02-01
End date: 2026-01-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 4393963.75
EU funding (EUR): 2499999.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Crop farmers in the EU are facing significant pains due to increasing regulations, such as the EU Farm-to-Fork strategy (F2F), which targets ambitious reductions in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These regulations will reduce dependence on foreign resources and reduce environmental damage from excess fertiliser use. Disruptive innovation will be necessary, to protect the security of European food supply, from reductions in crop yield and quality. Biofertilizers derived from living organisms represent a more sustainable alternative for crop yield improvement and have the potential to phase out chemicals. Several commercial products exist; however, their adoption in row crop farming is limited. The majority of products are not cost-effective, they exhibit low shelf-life, perform inconsistently under field conditions and the formulations are not compatible with farming practices. To solve this, N-Fix has developed N-Spire, an innovative project taking an integrated approach to revolutionize the agricultural industry by transitioning from conventional farming practices to a new and scalable agronomic system. The primary objective is to improve soil health and contribute to a more sustainable and regenerative agricultural sector. N-Spire involves the integration of Hydrothermal Carbonization, Solid-State Fermentation, and formulation techniques into a unified manufacturing technology platform. This combination yields a natural bioactive fertilizer that harnesses the synergistic advantages of hydrochar as an organic fertilizer and the capabilities of beneficial organisms. N-Spire will have significant impacts, contributing to: i) reducing the reliance on chemical fertilisers and pesticides in agriculture, ii) improving soil health while enabling sustainable productivity, iii) valorising agricultural residues as feedstock, iv) enabling carbon sequestration by converting biomass residues into stable organic compounds.

Keywords: microbial manufacturing platform sustainable bioactive fertilisers excess biomass processing
Feel my Steps: Co-Creating Gait Rehabilitation through Sensory Augmentation (FEST)

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: Germany
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS (ERC-2025-POC, 2025)
Start date: 2026-01-01
End date: 2027-06-30
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 150000.0
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

For patients with neurological gait impairment, rehabilitation can be challenging and even frustrating due to a lack of sensory feedback. In many neurological conditions, motor and sensory pathways are equally affected and therefore require a combined therapeutic approach. In this proof-of-concept study, we will validate the functionality and usability of an innovative sensory augmentation system based on the combination of multi-sensory insoles and machine learning models for step prediction, which gives patients feedback on the quality of their stance and gait through sound and vibration. These additional sensory feedback channels will be leveraged in novel therapy approaches which we will co-design together with patients, physiotherapists, and neurologists. The combined system will be tested and validated in real-world environments in rehabilitation hospitals and patients’ homes, with strong emphasis on verifying user acceptance. In addition to enhancing the technology readiness level of our approach towards a field-tested product, we will develop a comprehensive IP strategy and conduct market research and business model analysis to investigate the potential for large-scale and sustainable commercialization.
Reactions in Microdroplets Accelerated by Plasma (REMAP)

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: Chemistry
Countries involved: Italy
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021 (HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01, 2021)
Start date: 2023-09-01
End date: 2025-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 172750.08
EU funding (EUR): 172750.08
Participants: 1
Project status: CLOSED

Chemical reactions are normally conducted in bulk solution. In some cases, the rate of such bulk reactions is quite slow, limiting the throughput of a synthetic route. In recent years, a novel field of research based on microdroplet chemistry is emerging as an analytical tool for reaction monitoring, as well as a mean for accelerating chemical reactions. By using droplet chemistry, reaction rates can be increased by several orders of magnitude compared to the bulk counterpart. It is therefore beneficial to systematically investigate the reactivity of microdroplets and to understand the role of the underlying mechanism and individual parameters that can influence their reactivity (e.g., pH, temperature, concentration and surface effects). A better fundamental knowledge will make microdroplet reactions faster and allow for novel approaches to be developed. The goal of my research proposal is to achieve a broader fundamental understanding of microdroplet chemistry, and use this knowledge to investigate the novel field of plasma-microdroplets interaction, which is expected to open the doors for a completely novel chemical reactivity. The highly reactive species generated by plasmas will be allowed to react with the highly reactive surface of microdroplets. The possible outcome is a substantial increase in reactivity, promoting reaction pathways normally not significant in bulk or even droplets. By exploiting the unexplored field of plasma-droplets interaction, I plan to identify reaction pathways that can significantly increase reaction yields of high added-value compounds, aiming at more sustainable, efficient and competitive industrial synthetic processes, and at the possible conversion of existing waste products into chemicals which could still be useful for our society.

Keywords: plasma chemistry
Design and Fabrication of Micro, Magnetic and Shape-Memory Soft Robots (Micro Soft Robots)

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: Italy,United States
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2026-01-15
End date: 2029-01-14
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 396991.08
EU funding (EUR): 396991.08
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Current drug delivery methods often struggle with targeting hard-to-reach areas within the body, such as the brain. Traditional approaches, including endoscopic and surgical methods, are invasive, carry considerable risks, and face significant accessibility challenges. Systemic-based targeted drug delivery methods, like chemotherapeutics and targeted gene therapies, frequently fail to accurately reach and penetrate the desired tissues. There is a pressing need for innovative and effective techniques that enhance the precision and therapeutic efficacy of drug delivery, ultimately improving treatment outcomes and reducing risks. This project seeks to develop micro-scale magnetic and shape-memory soft robots for diagnostic and treatment applications within the brain's vascular system. These soft robots, measuring between 20 to 100µm, will be fabricated through additive manufacturing (AM) using a shape memory (SM) polymer embedded with magnetic nanoparticles (MP). This composition enables remote-controlled movement and actuation via external magnetic fields. Designed to deliver therapeutic molecules, these robots will allow for the precise release of substances such as drugs directly at the target site, significantly enhancing their effectiveness. Testing will be conducted using microfluidic in vitro models. In the near future, drug delivery to hard-to-reach regions could be as straightforward as performing a minor intravenous injection and spending a few minutes in a device similar to an X-ray machine. The knowledge and experience gained from this project will be crucial for the fellow to establishing a new research group, further enhancing the capabilities of soft robots for additional medical applications like blood clot retrieval and biopsy, thereby driving continuous innovation in healthcare technology.

Keywords: soft robots,micro scale,two photon polymerisation,direct ink writing,magnetisation,remote control
Cold Plasma for Improved Sanitation and Microbial Resistance Inactivation in Sewage Effluents (PLASMARISE)

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: Portugal,Spain,Slovenia
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-05-01
End date: 2026-07-31
Duration (months): 27.0
Total project cost (EUR): 176375.88
EU funding (EUR): 176375.88
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

The PLASMARISE project aims to pioneer the application of cold plasma technology (CP) for wastewater treatment to address two global challenges: Water security and antibiotic resistance. Using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) CP technology, the project will develop a technology to efficiently remove pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) from wastewater, enabling safe water reuse and reducing pollution. PLASMARISE follows a hypothesis-driven approach and comprises five scientific work packages (WPs): 1) Construction of a DBD-CP reactor; 2) Performance evaluation of the DBD-CP generator. Experiments will evaluate the effectiveness of the generator in inactivating pathogens and degrading ARGs under different conditions; 3) Evaluation of DBD-CP in collected treated wastewater samples; 4) Investigation of the effects of DBD-CP treatment on leakage of mobile genetic elements (MGEs): The release of MGEs into treated water will be investigated; and 4) Techno-economic analysis and roadmap for technology deployment: A comprehensive study will assess the economic viability and scalability of the CP -based technology, leading to a technology deployment roadmap and business plan. PLASMARISE offers a novel, interdisciplinary approach that pushes the boundaries of CP technology by integrating it with wastewater treatment. This innovation could revolutionise the water cycle and contribute to water security worldwide. By addressing pathogens in water and ARGs, PLASMARISE is also tackling the critical problem of antibiotic resistance, which impacts both public health and the environment. The results of the project will have broad application, from domestic sanitation to industrial processes, paving the way for more resilient and sustainable water management.

Keywords: cold plasma wastewater environmental biotechnology
New Metabolic Chemistry for Biocompatible Reactions (MICROCHEMIST)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Synthetic Chemistry and Materials
Panel description: New materials and new synthetic approaches, structure -properties relations, solid state chemistry, molecular architecture, organic chemistry
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-05-01
End date: 2030-04-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1994806.25
EU funding (EUR): 1994806.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The field of engineering biology aims to create new metabolic pathways to access chemical products from sustainable feedstocks via fermentation. However, metabolic chemistry is limited to reactions that have evolved in Nature and remains dwarfed by the chemical diversity accessible from petrochemicals by synthetic organic chemists. Urgent solutions must now be sought to bridge this gap and enable the transition of the chemical industry to a more sustainable, climate-positive and net-zero future. Over the past 8 years I have led the emerging field of biocompatible chemistry, which addresses this challenge by interfacing non-enzymatic reactions with metabolism to expand cellular chemistry. This ambitious research has broken boundaries at the interface of chemical catalysis and metabolic engineering, yet the full transformative potential of biocompatible chemistry has still to be realised, and two key fundamental questions remain unanswered: can biocompatible chemistry be fully integrated with cellular metabolism and what are the rules governing biocompatibility? To answer these questions, MICROCHEMIST and my ERC-CoG team will achieve a step-change in what is possible in this emerging field by interfacing chemo-catalysts with the metabolic function of new microorganisms and within new ambitious metabolic designs. This will open up entirely new directions of travel for biocompatible chemistry by (i) harnessing new metabolic chemistry (ii) interfacing multiple metabolic pathways simultaneously, (iii) uncovering the fundamental rules for biocompatible reaction success, and for the first time (iv) fully integrating non-enzymatic reactions within metabolism to create new metabolic products. This unique and highly multidisciplinary approach will revolutionise the fields of both chemical and biological synthesis and accelerate the transition towards a greener and more sustainable chemical industry.

Keywords: chemo enzymatic synthesis sustainable synthesis
Doctoral Network on Atmospheric Dust (Dust-DN)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
Theme: Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Destination: Doctoral Networks
Action type: Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions
Panel: Environment and Geosciences
Countries involved: Cyprus,Greece,Germany,United Kingdom,United Arab Emirates,Spain,France,Switzerland,Portugal
Call: MSCA Doctoral Networks 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-DN-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-11-01
End date: 2028-10-31
Duration (months): 48.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3343197.6
EU funding (EUR): 3343197.6
Participants: 23
Project status: SIGNED

Atmospheric dust gives us one of the most visible and detectable aspects of transboundary transport of atmospheric constituents, impacting visibility, radiation and climate. What is less evident are its impacts on health, transportation and energy production. Atmospheric dust is not fully understood at the fundamental level and models fail to fully reproduce its properties, limiting potential societal benefits that could arise from more accurate predictions. Moreover, dust observations are abundant, but are still under development, and each technique gives a different picture of a phenomenon with multiple facets. Finally, dust affects the environment, society, and several socio-economic sectors. Here, we propose the first doctoral network on a European scale (to our knowledge), bringing together expertise on mineral dust in the atmosphere and multidisciplinary methods. Dust-DN is a strategic, international, and intersectoral alliance of high-profile partners. It will be able to deliver advances in understanding fundamental dust properties, and improve our knowledge and prediction of the socio-economic impacts of dust. We will address the knowledge gaps through creating a cohort of early career scientists within a network between academic and non-academic partners. The doctoral network will be driven by the following research objectives, at the frontier of science on atmospheric mineral dust: (1) Understanding of the fundamentals of dust microphysical properties and processes; (2) Identifying the influence of source regions on atmospheric dust properties; (3) Socio-economic impacts of dust on health, aviation and energy production; and (4) Dust in the global climate system. The partners have unique scientific facilities for addressing these questions, and a number of methodologies will be used, including field observations, remote sensing, numerical modelling and laboratory experiments.

Keywords: atmospheric dust air pollution mineralogy atmospheric composition climatology and climate change renewable energy sources natural resources and environmental economics meteorology
Wave-based imaging of Earth’s liquid core from space (WIMECS)

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: United Kingdom
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01, 2024)
Start date: 2025-09-01
End date: 2027-09-30
Duration (months): 25.0
Total project cost (EUR): 276187.92
EU funding (EUR): 276187.92
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Wave propagation is a crucial tool for media imaging; well known applications include medical ultrasounds, geophysical seismic tomography, oceanic sonar, atmospheric radar. Within geophysics, seismic wave sounding has revolutionised our ability to image snapshots of the deep interior structure of the solid Earth. In this proposal, I outline a new but related approach using magnetic sounding to produce new insights into the dynamics of the Earth’s fluid interior. My proposal builds on two recent advances: the current data-rich era of high quality satellite geomagnetic measurements, and new discoveries from my research on hydromagnetic waves in the electrically conducting Earth’s liquid core. Together, they will allow me for the first time to realise Wave-based IMaging of Earth’s liquid Core from Space (WIMECS). Unlike seismic waves, hydromagnetic waves are sensitive to the magnetic field in the liquid core, acting as a waveguide. Probing this otherwise inaccessible property of the core will advance our understanding of the geodynamo, the mechanism that generates the Earth’s magnetic field. These advances will not only improve our knowledge of the structure and history of the Earth including the dynamics of the planetary-scale magnetic field, but also of how the magnetic field shields life on the Earth’s surface from harmful solar radiation. This novel imaging method will be made possible through my move to the University of Leeds, hosting one of the world-leading hubs of geophysical fluid dynamics and geomagnetism.

Keywords: geomagnetism,hydromagnetic waves,earth s core
Light interaction with synthetically moving metamaterials (LUMINOUS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Materials Engineering
Panel description: Advanced materials development: performance enhancement, modelling, large -scale preparation, modification, tailoring, optimisation, novel  and combined use of materials, etc.
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2024-ADG, 2024)
Start date: 2026-01-01
End date: 2030-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 3021615.0
EU funding (EUR): 3021615.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Metamaterials rely on spatial structures on the scale of light wavelength to transform and enhance their macroscopic properties. Current metamaterials passively redistribute wave energy in space only, enabling, for example, sub-micron flat lenses and ultra-compact spectrometers. In the last few years, exciting breakthroughs have shown that metamaterials can also power wave-based analogue computation a technology for fast, massively parallel computation at a fraction of the power. With low energy consumption, metamaterials have the potential to address sustainable computing, and the rapid adoption of power-hungry artificial intelligence. The challenge is to exploit the temporal dimension and develop metamaterials that can compute both spatial and temporal derivatives and simulate spatio-temporal potentials. The temporal degree of freedom is already within reach as time-varying metamaterials have been recently demonstrated. Building on this novel field, I have shown that synthetic motion in metamaterials, where materials behave as if they were moving, is possible, and even at superluminal speeds, through the combination of both spatial and temporal modulation. Light interaction with synthetically moving metamaterials (LUMINOUS) is the first experimental investigation of synthetic motion to perform analogue computation. The key to this project is our ability to achieve very large, close-to-unity temporal modulations on the timescale of the optical period of light (~fs), together with digital control of millions of spatial degrees of freedom via structured light, therefore enabling programmable synthetic motion. I will establish the experimental platform for programmable motion and use it to control light flow and light generation. Moreover, using synthetically moving metamaterials as space-time operators, I will solve non-separable differential equations, as well as perform analogue simulation of relativistic phenomena.

Keywords: photonics,time varying metamaterials,analogue computing,ultrafast,indium tin oxide,epsilon near zero