Data-Gouv-ML/pcri-informations-sur-les-projets-laureats huggingface dataset:
Opening the black box of microbial interactions: Microbiome editing on seed natural microbial communities (SEEDITING)

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: France
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-06-01
End date: 2026-05-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 211754.88
EU funding (EUR): 211754.88
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Over 80% of human food relies on plants, but up to 40% of crops are lost to pests and diseases. Chemical pesticides have boosted yields but pose health and environmental risks. To address this, the EU aims to replace 50% of pesticides with biological solutions by 2030. As a result of hundreds of millions years of coevolution, plants host a diverse microbiota coming from soil, offering biotechnological potential. Exploring plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions can revolutionize agriculture, enhancing food security. The discovered plant-beneficial microbial interactions could be used to generate tailored microbial communities, capable of protecting plants and reducing the need for pesticides. CRISPR-Cas derived genetic tools to edit the plant seed microbiome in order to decipher the main microbial interactions affecting plant health. SEEDITING aims to adapt these tools, analogous to reverse genetics, from simplified synthetic bacterial communities to native seed microbiota. The main outcomes of the SEEDITING project will be to master an efficient tool for microbiome editing on SynComs (WP1) and to deploy this editing tool on extracted seed natural microbiota (WP2) to observe the consequences of editing on microbiome dynamics and microbial interactions in vitro. Finally, I will assess the impact of seed microbiota editing on the microbial transmission rates to the seedlings and the resulting plant phenotypes (WP3). This project will lead to major breakthroughs in microbiome sciences and plant-microorganisms interactions in agriculture by generating three main outputs opening new research avenues: 1) Validation of a microbiome editing tool transferrable to multiple ecosystems to decipher microbial interactions in natural communities. 2) Identification of microorganisms responsible for the modulation of host phenotypes. 3) Identification of microbial functions responsible for the phenotypes or involved in host colonization and survival.

Keywords: microbial interactions,plant microbe interactions,microbiome editing,crispr cas genetic tools,metagenomics,microbial ecology
Effective Random Methods in Discrete Mathematics (ERMiD)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Advanced grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Mathematics
Panel description: All areas of mathematics, pure and applied, plus mathematical foundations of computer science, mathematical physics and statistics
Countries involved: Hungary
Call: ERC ADVANCED GRANTS (ERC-2021-ADG, 2021)
Start date: 2023-01-01
End date: 2027-12-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2019035.0
EU funding (EUR): 2019035.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

The probabilistic method, pioneered by Paul Erdős, can show the existence of combinatorial objects without hinting how to construct them effectively. Recent developments concerning the constructive version of Lovász Local Lemma (LLL) showed how to modify the probabilistic method to make it effective. This proposal lists four research directions in analysis, combinatorics, and cryptography, where this method opened new possibilities to go beyond our present knowledge. 1. The measurable version of LLL is the question whether the object, guaranteed by LLL, can additionally be measurable? In some special cases the answer is in the affirmative. What are the constraints which guarantee measurability, and when is it impossible to achieve this? Results are relevant for classical problems of measure group theory. 2. A novel approach improving the celebrated sunflower lemma also uses effective probabilistic tools. We will use a similar approach to improve the best estimates for multicolor Ramsey numbers, Schur numbers, and to explore a number of other classical problems. 3. Several new phenomena arise in extremal graphs when either the vertices or the edges are linearly ordered. To investigate them we use methods from effective probabilistic sampling. The answers would be relevant in discrete geometry, algorithm design, etc. 4. An emerging phenomenon in certain cryptographic primitives including secret sharing will be addressed: relaxing the strict requirements of correctness by allowing negligible errors can lead to significant improvement in efficiency. It is a direct consequence of the mostly unknown structure of the boundary of the entropy region. Using tools and results from the other parts of the project we will explore this boundary giving hints for why, and tools for where and when such efficiency gaps might occur.

Keywords: probabilistic method,lov sz local lemma,measured group theory,extremal graph theory,ordered graphs,probabilistic sampling,cryptography
A new framework to interrogate molecular mechanisms mediating antagonistic diatom-bacteria interactions (DIACIDAL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Environmental B iology, Ecology  and E volution
Panel description: For all organisms : Ecology, biodiversity, environmental change , evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology, microbial ecology , marine biology, ecophysiology, theoretical developments and mod elling
Countries involved: United Kingdom
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2024-COG, 2024)
Start date: 2025-08-01
End date: 2030-07-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 2299893.0
EU funding (EUR): 2299893.0
Participants: 2
Project status: SIGNED

Interactions between phytoplankton and bacteria play key roles in mediating carbon and nutrient fluxes in the oceans, yet the mechanistic basis and environmental impacts of such interactions are poorly understood. DIACIDAL addresses crucial unknowns in our understanding of the interactions of one of the most globally abundant phytoplankton, the diatoms, and their bacterial pathogens. This proposal builds on my team’s recent advances developing an innovative sampling pipeline to isolate environmentally relevant bacterial pathogens of diatoms. This work suggests that bacterial pathogenicity towards diatoms is more prevalent than recognised previously. Moreover, we have important new evidence that diatoms can sense bacterial pathogens to evade their attack. Our new framework will be coupled with cutting-edge molecular tools that I have pioneered to study diatom signalling, including biosensors to track real-time signalling responses in single diatom cells. These tools have already made important breakthroughs in our understanding of how diatoms sense their environment. Exploiting these advances, we will use culture-dependent (Tn-Seq, comparative ‘omics, and imaging) and new single-cell culture-independent approaches. By focussing on a model interaction, we will decipher mechanisms mediating bacterial pathogenicity towards diatoms, and elucidate how diatoms sense and evade their pathogens. This will reveal novel effectors and defence signalling systems. Finally, we will leverage the new tools and insights to quantify the prevalence of bacterial pathogenicity and diatom defence in natural ecosystems. This innovative, multidisciplinary program will advance understanding of mechanisms governing bloom dynamics, inform ecosystem models, and shed light on a poorly characterised environmental stressor confronting phytoplankton communities. This also has potential to unlock new translational opportunities for biotechnology e.g. novel antimicrobial and anti-fouling compounds.

Keywords: diatoms,algal blooms,pathogenic bacteria,microbial interactions,functional biology
Personalizing the Unconscious: a Cognitive, Neural and Developmental Investigation (IndUncon)

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: Israel
Call: ERC STARTING GRANTS (ERC-2022-STG, 2022)
Start date: 2023-10-01
End date: 2028-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1500000.0
EU funding (EUR): 1500000.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

Consciousness is often described as the tip of the iceberg, under which a rich unconscious world exists. But is this metaphor accurate?The literature provides a mixture of contradicting findings, with some claiming that almost any cognitive function can be performed without awareness, while others arguing that unconscious processes are limited to routine, simple operations.Currently, there are two gaps in this body of knowledge, though; first, the field has almost solely examined group-level findings, without taking individual differences into account. Second, it is based on studies probing specific processes at specific time points; no study to date has tried to take a more global approach, looking for common mechanisms that persist over time, and potentially over tasks. Here, I aim at bridging over these two gaps, providing a novel framework: I suggest that individuals consistently differ in their Susceptibility to Unconscious Processing (SUP). I hypothesize that SUP is a stable trait that can explain conflicting findings and shed new light on the interplay between conscious and unconscious processes. Starting with a task for which evidence for stable individual differences exist, I suggest three possible neural mechanisms that can explain such differences. These mechanisms will be tested using electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and developmental studies. I also introduce a novel protocol for pitting conscious and unconscious processing against each other, and biasing this competition via feedback.Finally, I will conduct a large-scale study testing the riskier hypothesis that SUP might not only be stable over time, but also across tasks.Together, this study will provide a much needed, unparalleled systematic investigation of the reliability and replicability of key findings in the field. This research strives for a paradigmatic shift in the way we conceptualize, study and utilize unconscious processes, laying the foundations for a new science of the unconscious.

Keywords: unconscious processing personality traits electrophysiology neuroimaging child development
Cost-Effective Charge-Transport Materials for New-Generation Solar Cells (Cremoso)

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: Sweden
Call: ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS2 (ERC-2022-POC2, 2022)
Start date: 2023-05-01
End date: 2024-10-31
Duration (months): 18.0
Total project cost (EUR): 188571.43
EU funding (EUR): 150000.0
Participants: 2
Project status: CLOSED

The European Union adopted an ambitious and much-needed European Green Deal policy to make Europe the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Harvesting solar energy from photovoltaics (PVs) is a promising way to tackle today’s energy issues and to contribute to the European Green Deal. New-generation PV technologies (such as those based on organic semiconductors and metal halide perovskites) offer many benefits compared to traditional silicon-based solar panels in terms of lightweight, aesthetic, and flexibility. As such, they are promising candidates to complement silicon-based PVs for our sustainable future. A key challenge that currently limits the practical application of these new-generation PVs is the high cost of charge-transport materials, a critical component of these new PV technologies. This project aims to address this critical challenge and bridge the knowledge gap on the cost of charge-transport materials for these new-generation PVs. This project is firmly based on our recent breakthrough which successfully developed high-efficiency new-generation PVs with excellent stability (published in Science and patent application ongoing). At the core of this project is rational materials development, coupled with device engineering. Utilizing our prior research experience and our start-up, LinXole, we will develop novel charge-transport materials that are free of synthetic complexity and, eventually, low enough in price to be commercially viable. This project will achieve a new paradigm for low-cost new-generation PVs, contributing to the European energy transition. We have also built a strong team with complementary expertise for this project, including researchers, business developers, entrepreneurs, and innovation advisors. As such, we are keen to contribute to market expansion by delivering technology solutions for modern energy services.
Kinetic Limits of Many-Body Classical Systems (KiLiM)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Mathematics
Panel description: All areas of mathematics, pure and applied, plus mathematical foundations of computer science, mathematical physics and statistics
Countries involved: Italy
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2023-COG, 2023)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2029-08-31
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1396400.0
EU funding (EUR): 1396400.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

This project studies the transition between dynamical laws governing the physical world at different scales. Our focus will be on large systems of interacting particles with random initial data, underlying the kinetic theory of gases and dilute plasmas. Central to this theory are the Boltzmann equation, and its appropriate modification for charged particles given by Landau. Their description of approach to equilibrium and irreversible behaviour is a legendary success in the physics of time-dependent phenomena. Nevertheless, the rigorous foundation of such equations remains a largely immature aspect of the theory. This is a major problem in mathematical physics and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. The effective equations of kinetic theory are an approximation of particle systems ruled by the time-reversible laws of classical mechanics. But their validity should become exact in a suitable limit of large system size. In the last decade, there has been substantial progress in the derivation of kinetic equations from first principles. Such work is restricted to rarefied regimes. Results are available for models of interacting monatomic gases of identical particles. Besides the macroscopic equations leading the average behaviour, results have been obtained for fluctuations, large deviations, and for the random evolution of tracer particles. Equilibrium fluctuations are in itself of great interest, including results on long time scales which justify physically relevant applications. Most of the results hold only for an overidealized model of hard-sphere interactions. None of them is, with the present techniques, extendable to realistic interatomic potentials. The goal is to bridge this gap by proving the validity of kinetic theory for some of the most common interaction models in physics: such as the Boltzmann equation for Lennard-Jones type forces, the Vlasov-Boltzmann equation for mixtures, and the Landau equation for screened Coulomb potentials.

Keywords: kinetic theory,boltzmann grad limit,boltzmann equation,landau equation,bbgky,rigorous methods for nonequilibrium statistical mechanics
Coupling volcAnotectonics, numeRical modelling, experimentAl constraints, and Volcanic thermAl emissions to unravel crustal maGma miGratIOn (CARAVAGGIO)

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: Germany,United States,Spain
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-11-01
End date: 2027-10-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 265647.84
EU funding (EUR): 265647.84
Participants: 4
Project status: SIGNED

Volcanic eruptions can have catastrophic consequences to the planet or to nearby residents and infrastructures. Although our understanding of magma ascent and volcanic eruptions has vastly improved in recent decades, many aspects of magma transport in Earth’s crust elude us, such that incomplete interpretation of signals monitored during magmatic unrest prevents the development of robust models to track magma transport and forecast the timing and location of volcanic eruptions. Hence, new efforts are needed to integrate volcanic structures with novel remote sensing monitoring techniques and cutting-edge laboratory measurements to develop comprehensive models of magma transport. CARAVAGGIO aims to develop and validate an innovative, interdisciplinary, thermo-chemico-mechanical (TCM) numerical model to simulate magmatic dike propagation. The TCM model will permit the integration of realistic volcano-tectonic structure (lithostratigraphic heterogeneities, local faults, etc), laboratory constraints of geomaterial properties (strength, permeability, thermal properties), fluid and heat transfer from magma into fractured rocks, and spaceborne ground temperature measurements. These multi-parametric constraints will increase the robustness of modelled outputs to improve constraints on the conditions leading to magma transport and eruptions. The model will be applied to the ongoing (2021-present) Fagradalsfjall eruption (southeastern Iceland), which has been thoroughly monitored using ground-based and satellite-based instruments, and which has been cored in nearby boreholes by geothermal companies, thus providing an unparalleled level of data to validate the model outputs. The model will be shared with the community via strategic dissemination activities, and scientific achievements will be shared with the public. Ultimately, the outcomes of CARAVAGGIO will enhance future efforts aiming at forecasting the timing and locations of volcanic eruptions.

Keywords: magma propagation,dike,volcanotectonics,numerical modelling,magma migration,experimental constraints,thermal emissions,volcanic eruption,thermo chemico mechanical model,fagradalsfjall eruption
Market Access and Economic Development (ACCESS)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Excellent Science
Programme: European Research Council (ERC)
Theme: European research council
Destination: Consolidator grants
Action type: ERC actions
Panel: Individuals, Markets and Organisations
Panel description: Economics, finance , management
Countries involved: Norway
Call: ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANTS (ERC-2021-COG, 2021)
Start date: 2022-10-01
End date: 2027-09-30
Duration (months): 60.0
Total project cost (EUR): 1896821.0
EU funding (EUR): 1896821.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

A huge challenge for research and policy efforts to accelerate economic development is that firms in poor countries grow surprisingly slowly, making job creation in the “Global South” difficult to achieve. We don’t know why: the existing literature has focused on internal (or “supply-side”) determinants of productivity that firms in poor countries are hypothesized to lack, but these appear to have modest explanatory power. A notable alternative explanation is that many latently productive firms are constrained by forces external to the firm. Recent studies indeed establish that access to input and output markets appear to be important for growth. However, the existing evidence focuses on access constraints arising from poor infrastructure and countries’ trade barriers: firms’ and individuals’ de facto ability to acquire production inputs and sell output is likely influenced by a much broader set of economic, political, and social factors. Similarly, the consequences of market access may extend to “subsequent” economic development outcomes like job creation and changes in inequality. ACCESS puts the causes and consequences of market access in poor countries at the center of inquiry for the first time. The research program is organized around the various stages of the production process: firms’ access to labor markets; firms’ access to suppliers and buyers in intermediate markets; and firms’ access to final product demand. In its last part, ACCESS returns to the origin of the production process to investigate how barriers to the most fundamental form of market access—individuals’ ability to own and operate firms—affects local economies. Novel forms of detailed microeconomic data from a wide range of developing countries—especially Colombia, Liberia, the Philippines, and Uganda; new economic theory; and varied empirical methods are used to begin to uncover the many overlooked barriers to and consequences of market access.

Keywords: firms in developing countries,workers in developing countries,market access,demand effects,relationships between firms,information frictions,ethnic divisions
Teaching the Cosmos in Poetry and Prose: Aratus' Phaenomena and Cleomedes' The Heavens in Late Byzantium (COSMOPOET)

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: Belgium
Call: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01, 2022)
Start date: 2024-09-01
End date: 2026-08-31
Duration (months): 24.0
Total project cost (EUR): 175920.0
EU funding (EUR): 175920.0
Participants: 1
Project status: SIGNED

COSMOPOET aims to rethink the relationship between poetry and astronomy and ultimately, it investigates medieval Greek solutions to the question as to how to explain the cosmos through literary means. This is a project about the interaction of science and literature and about interpreting scientific literature as literature in the context of the intellectual space of the Byzantine schools and the multiple curricula coexisting at the higher educational level. COSMOPOET studies the medieval Greek and early modern manuscript tradition of the didactic poem "Phaenomena" by Aratus of Soli (d. before 239 BCE) and compares it to transmission of the introductory astronomical treatise "The Heavens" by Cleomedes (first century CE). Both texts introduce the reader-student to elementary cosmology and astronomy and prompted the production of commentaries of textual and of diagrammatic nature, as their popularity in Byzantium increased from the late thirteenth century onwards. COSMOPOET studies 1) the textual dimension of both discourses (especially the didactic use of formal literary features such as verse and rhythm); 2) their respective graphic features (e.g., layout and diagrams); 3) the associated paratexts (e.g., epigrams, scholia, marginal and interlinear annotations) and 4) standalone commentaries, and 5) how they change as evidenced in manuscripts copied from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Thus, COSMOPOET formulates and tests the hypothesis that the examination of both paratexts and graphic features of scientific discourse, and of their respective variations through time can answer questions concerning the practices of teaching and learning cosmology and elementary astronomy in Byzantine advanced education.

Keywords: byzantium,cosmos,manuscript culture,astral sciences,education,didactic poetry,paratexts,diagrams,book epigrams,cleomedes,aratus