Projects

EAJADE is a training and staff exchange network for accelerator R&D within elementary particle physics. The recent update of the European strategy for particle physics emphasises the need for a “Higgs factory” — a lepton collider able to study the Higgs boson in detail. Such a machine is both a precision instrument and a discovery machine for potentially groundbreaking physics. All Higgs factory proposals require wide international collaboration for their implementation and 5-10 years of design refinements and technical developments before construction. The relevant expertise and infrastructures are globally distributed, and a wide interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial network is essential to make progress and train future experts in the field. EAJADE makes use of international staff exchanges as a vehicle to efficiently boost technical progress, exploit facilities world-wide, create unique training opportunities, and build strong collaborations with Japanese and American scientists, and with industry partners in Europe. Accelerator R&D and the realisation of future machines like a Higgs factory are truly global endeavours relying on expertise in a broad set of fields and a number of state-of-the-art technologies. Future facilities also need to carefully address their CO2 footprint, study the use of renewable energy sources and of energy efficiency, and aim to become models of sustainability. These challenges require intersectoral efforts and development of best practices. EAJADE is expected to lead to important and innovative advances for accelerators and the related high-tech industry, with substantial benefits also for other disciplines where accelerators are about to become key instruments. It will also help develop a more performant and sustainable European knowledge-based economy, by providing top-level training to many physicists and engineers, and through the efforts to reduce the energy consumption of accelerator technology used in numerous facilities.

The main purpose of this proposal is to explore random planar metrics. Two canonical models of random continuum surfaces have been introduced in the past decade, namely the Brownian sphere obtained as the scaling limit of uniform random planar triangulations, and the Liouville Quantum Gravity metric obtained formally from the exponential of the Gaussian free field on the sphere. Our objective is to broaden our understanding of random planar metrics to the case of metrics with “holes” or “hubs”, and to the causal (when a time dimension is singled out) paradigm. We also plan on studying random maps in high genus and to connect to models of 2-dimensional hyperbolic geometry such as the Brook–Makover model, random pants decompositions or Weil–Petersson random surfaces. We believe that the tools developed in the context of random planar maps, such as the systematic use of the spatial Markov property, the utilization of random trees to decompose and explore the surfaces, or the fine study of geodesic coalescence can be successfully applied to the aforementioned models. We expect spectacular results and we hope to reinforce the connections between those very active fields of mathematics. This proposal should give rise to exceptionally fruitful interactions between specialists of different domains such as probability theory, two-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, and theoretical physics, as well as mathematicians coming from other areas, in particular from combinatorics. To ensure the best chances of success for the proposed research, we will rely on the unique environment of University Paris-Saclay and neighboring institutions.

Nonlinear optics is a thriving research field with numerous practical applications in advanced laser sources, all-optical frequency conversion, optical computing, generation of entangled pairs and quantum cryptography, supercontinuum and terahertz-radiation generation. Traditionally reserved to bulk, tabletop optical systems increasing drive in the photonics community to scale these applications to fit on a chip. The main bottleneck in the convergence of nonlinear optics and integrated photonics is that the volume of nonlinear crystals needs to be reduced by at least a factor 7. Achieving such a volume reduction requires a major scientific breakthrough. The PANDORA project tackles this issue with the following combination: (a) a material with a high nonlinear figure of merit -- gallium phosphide (GaP); (b) apply orientation patterning to engineer and exalt the intrinsic nonlinear properties of GaP; (c) shape the resulting crystal -- OP-GaP -- into guiding structures that allow ultimate compactness. The cornerstone of the project is a recent result obtained by the PI and his team, showing that OP-GaP waveguides have the potential to outperform all existing nonlinear crystals with a form factor compatible with photonic integration. The PANDORA project proposes to build upon this result and draw out the full potential of OP-GaP as a single material platform for integrated nonlinear optics.

MaDiTraCe’s main goal is to enlarge and integrate the portfolio of technological solutions reinforcing the reliability of critical raw material (CRM) tracking and the transparency of complex supply chains. The project aims to develop and test independent digital and geo-based approaches for CRM traceability and to integrate them with a generic certification scheme for CRMs throughout mineral supply chains from the mine to the manufactured and recycled products. The project intends to increase the TRL of experimental or largely untested methods in both domains, digital and material sciences. A special attention will be payed to the complexity of mineral supply chains with points of material aggregation and of transformation (processing, refining…) including circular economy (recycling). This methodology will enable downstream industrials to prove the reliability of their sustainability claims, complying with regulation in force (notably EU Battery regulation, German Supply Chain Act) and anticipating implementation of regulation to come (EU Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence). MaDiTraCe’s fundament is a strong stakeholder process (WP1) with upstream and downstream industrials from mining to manufacturing industry and large networks involved via the consortia (EIT-RM) and clusters (ISMC) participating in the project. Continuous interaction with this industrial and policy-oriented stakeholder community on the traceability technology (WP2 and WP3) and the certification schemes (WP4) developed in the project will ensure to stay in line with industrial needs and expectations with respect to regulatory compliance. It will also facilitate implementation and exploitation (WP5) of the project outcomes.

The massive increase in device connectivity and generated data has resulted in the proliferation of intelligent processing services to create insights and exploit data in a multi-modal manner. Currently, the most powerful data processing operates in a centralized manner at the cloud, which provides the ability to scale and allocate resources on demand and efficiently. Centralized processing and cloud hosting, bound and limit their services and applications to operate in a resource restricted manner, relying usually on large single entities to provide, i) Authentication, ii) Data storage, iii) Data processing, iv) Connectivity, v) Vendor-locked environments for development and orchestration. This significantly limits the user from its data governance and even identity management. Similarly, existing solutions for edge device authentication require a centralized entity to trust them and authenticate them, rendering a non-portable identification paradigm. OASEES aims to create an open, decentralized, intelligent, programmable edge framework for Swarm architectures and applications, leveraging the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) paradigm and integrating Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) processes for efficient decision making. The OASEES vision is to provide the open tools and secure environments for swarm programming and orchestration for numerous fields, in a completely decentralized manner. An important aspect in this process is identification and identity management, in which OASEES targets the implementation of a portable and privacy preserving ID federation system, for edge devices and services, with full compliance and compatibility to GAIA-X federation and IDSA trust directives and specifications. This situation solidifies the need for an integrated enabler framework tailored to the edge’s extreme data processing demands, using different edge accelerators, i.e. GPU, NPU, SNN and Quantum.

Next generation enablers, such as IoT, AI and cloud computing, open new opportunities to deal with world’s current and future societal, environmental, and economic challenges. However, they come with significant data management challenges. According to IDC, the total amount of data generated only by connected devices will exceed 40 trillion gigabytes by 2025. In most of the current systems, data storage and analysis happen on centralized locations on the cloud. This is pushing network capacity to its limits. Furthermore, centralized storage and processing lead to single point of failure situations, which are critically inefficient in case of disasters and crisis. Our world is continuously living natural disasters, health crisis, climate change and security threats that show the importance of resilient and energy-efficient information systems. COGNIFOG targets those challenges and proposes to build a Cognitive Fog Framework to: (i) reduce energy consumption and latency in next generation IT systems by reducing the network traffic, by analysing data at the edge in a distributed manner, closer to where they are generated, rather than routing them through the communication networks to a data center; (ii) reduce OPEX and faster service provisioning by providing a cognitive, self-adaptive framework with minimum or no human intervention, with dynamic provisioning of computing, storage and networking resources along the far-edge-to-edge-to-cloud path; (iii) ensure European leadership by providing an open interoperable framework with open APIs for application developers to rapidly create and deploy applications benefiting the edge-cloud continuum on top of heterogenous IoT/IT systems. COGNIFOG will validate project results in three representative application domains: critical collaboration missions, smart health and smart industry. With a consortium of 12 European partners, leaders in their domains, COGNIFOG will be a cornerstone in the cognitive fog computing domain

Industrial Biotechnology (IB) is a Key Enabling Technology for the circular bio-economy, industrial renewal and European manufacturing autonomy. Its development forms a vital part of EU’s strategy to become climate neutral in 2050. For IB to become a major manufacturing technology, it must widen its use of advanced digital technologies. These will improve R&D efficiency, reducing time-to-market and costs. Moreover, for manufacturing, advanced digital technologies will drive distributed, autonomous and highly adaptable production systems. To support digitalization of IB, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 will create new services delivered by European research infrastructures (RI). These services will address several challenges, focusing on the acceleration of bio-process development pipelines. Drawing on the complementary skills of its consortium, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 will develop data-driven approaches, exploiting AI to empower novel decision support systems and digital twins, the latter being to better design bio-processes and enable their real-time online control. To complete these services, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 will also develop data and metadata standards to generate high quality, interoperable multi-scale bio-process data, the technical basis for trusted data networks and process analytical devices to provide real-time online monitoring of bio-processes. Once deployed, these RI services will provide Users with access to cutting-edge technologies that can be used singly or in an integrated way, covering whole R&D pipelines. Integrated services will be delivered by a distributed RI, conferring Europe with a unique R&D test-bed for bio-process development and a competitive advantage with respect to global competition. To succeed, BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 brings together 6 EU RIs, 1 global company, 2 innovative EU SMEs and several research teams around an ambitious 4-year workplan that will be implemented in consultation with IB stakeholders, using a co-design strategy to specify goals.

IMPRESS (Interoperable electron Microscopy Platform for advanced RESearch and Services) aims to co-develop and deliver advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM) instrumentation, methods and tools that will revolutionize the way in which TEMs are used by all new and well-established scientific communities, integrate them with other instrumentation at analytical research infrastructures (RIs) and create new business opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. The core of the project is the development of a standardized cartridge-based interoperable platform for TEM that is based on common interfaces and data formats, is flexible and adaptable and allows users to perform advanced correlative experiments using different instruments and to co-develop methodological options that are not yet satisfied by commercially available electron microscopes. The solutions will be delivered at technology readiness level 8 through a pre-commercial procurement. The project also involves the co-development of new electron sources, techniques based on adaptive optics and event-driven detectors, application-relevant in situ/operando sample environments and software for simulation of experiments and remote access based on artificial intelligence. By the end of the project, these developments will be integrated with the new cartridge-based platform, in order to make them available to all users of RIs and other TEMs owners. An open knowledge and innovation hub for TEM will be created and a training programme will promote the new solution, to initiate RI staff in their use and to provide both materials and life science communities with optimized tools for tackling societal challenges, especially in the energy and health sectors. The project will exploit synergies and collaboration with five RIs of European dimension for the benefit of users from diverse scientific communities and will pave the way towards a new cooperative model for the development and operation of RIs for TEM

Two facility concepts have been considered as potential pathways to the future of particle physics at the energy frontier in Europe: FCC-hh, a 100 TeV circular hadron collider and CLIC, a 3 TeV linear lepton (i.e. electron-positron) collider. The recent European Accelerator R&D Roadmap includes a novel option, a 10 or more TeV muon collider, which expands the lepton collider energy reach and promises compact dimensions, high efficiency and limited cost. Muons are point-like particles, in contrast to hadrons; a 10 TeV muon collider would have a comparable physics case, for a number of physics processes, to a 100 TeV hadron collider. The muon collider promises high benefit but also faces a significant risk, as it is the first of its kind and uses novel advanced technologies. The MuCol design study will address the core challenges identified in the Roadmap, develop the concept and technologies and demonstrate: • the physics case of the muon collider is sound and detector systems can yield sufficient resolution and rejection of backgrounds; • no principle technological issues will prevent the achievement of a satisfactory performance of the accelerator or the detectors; • the muon collider provides a highly sustainable energy frontier facility compared to other equivalent colliders; and • exploiting synergies with other scientific and industrial R&D projects, can provide Europe a leading edge in discovery potential and development of associated technologies. The final report will include a thorough assessment of benefits and risks of the accelerator and detector complex, including an evaluation of the scientific, industrial and societal return beyond high-energy physics, the cost scale and sustainability of the complex and the impact arising from an implementation on the CERN site. This will allow the next European Strategy for Particle Physics Update (ESPPU) process to make informed choices for the selection of the next large collider to be built in Europe.

Microbiomes comprise communities of microorganisms (i.e., microbiota that includes bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi and microalgae) and their "theatre of activity" (i.e., structural elements, metabolites, signal molecules, mobile genetic elements, as well as surrounding environmental conditions). Microbiomes play a key role in maintaining life on Earth by providing a range of essential ecosystem services and are indispensable for the health of plants, animals and humans. Thus, there is a wide consensus that by harnessing microbiome functions society would be better placed to tackle global challenges such as food security, health and wellbeing, food waste management, and climate change mitigation. To facilitate the science necessary to achieve key advances in microbiome research, methodologies and technologies to capture or create, ensure stable long-term maintenance, and experimentally perturb microbiomes are required. Research infrastructures currently lack optimized methodologies and technologies to preserve and provide access to microbiome samples and massive amounts of associated data MICROBE is designed to address these issues by building upon and connecting: (1) technical solutions for microbiome preservation, propagation and functionality assessment, (2) novel ecological concepts (i.e. “core microbiome” and “microbial keystone taxa”), and (3) data infrastructures. In addition, MICROBE will address essential framework issues such as standardization, ethical and legal requirements and new business opportunities. Participation of relevant European research infrastructures, i.e., BBMRI-ERIC, MIRRI, ELIXIR and EMBRC-ERIC, to ensure that community needs are properly addressed and that developed solutions are efficiently taken up by the infrastructures themselves and by their user communities. Long term ambition is to ensure widespread uptake in microbiome research communities and thus support the development of novel microbiome-based applications.

Europe urgently needs to find pathways towards agroecological transition of agroecosystems in support to food security, climate change resilience, biodiversity and soil carbon stocks restoration. In PHENET, the European Research Infrastructures (RI) on plant phenotyping (EMPHASIS), ecosystems experimentation (AnaEE), long-term observation (eLTER) and data management and bioinformatics (ELIXIR) will join their forces to co-develop, with a diversity of innovative companies, new tools and methods - meant to contribute to new RI services - for the identification of future-proofed combinations of species, genotypes and management practices in front of the most likely climatic scenarios across Europe. Ambitioning to go beyond current highly instrumented but often spatially and temporally limited RI installations, PHENET derived services will allow wide access to enlarged sources of in-situ phenotypic and environmental data thanks to (i) new AI-based multi (agroecology-related) traits multi-sensors devices (ii) to unleashed access to high resolution Earth Observation data connected to ground based data, (iii) FAIR data support for connection with (iv) new generation of predictive modeling solutions encompassing AI and digital twins. Developments will be challenged by and implemented in a series of eight Use Cases covering a large range of agroecosystems but also of ecosystems to demonstrate portability of solutions. Several of these Use Cases will mobilize on-farm data. A large effort will be devoted to training RI staff and beyond through a sustained collection of training material fed by experts. Outreaching activities will aim at enlarging the range of RI users. PHENET will not only strengthen RI but will also have major impact on the development of innovative companies on phenotyping, envirotyping and precision agriculture as well as on the emergence of climate smart crop varieties and innovative practices fitted to climate change and agroecological transition.

Ethics and integrity are key dimensions of excellence in research and crucial for public trust in science. BEYOND will reinforce efforts to promote adherence to the highest standards of research ethics and integrity (RE/RI) and prevent research misconduct (RM) by developing and disseminating regulatory and educational interventions that elucidate institutional and individual responsibilities for ensuring and fostering research environments conducive to ethical research. To that end, BEYOND will adopt a complex ecosystemic perspective on research ethics and integrity that recognizes the multiple responsibilities of researchers and other stakeholders to enrich the overly simplistic Bad Apples approach that underpins most existing measures to prevent research misconduct. BEYOND will EXPLORE the existing literature on behavioural ethics and moral psychology as well as the socio-economic consequences of research misconduct and ENGAGE all involved stakeholders in a public consultation. To GUIDE and EQUIP all stakeholders in the research ecosystem, BEYOND will utilize this knowledge to develop 1) psychologically informed contextual interventions to promote RE/RI and prevent RM from the perspective of individual and institutional responsibilities, 2) methodologies to measure the short-, medium- and long-term impact of RE/RI trainings on attitudes and behaviours of students and researchers, 3) a best practice manual and guidelines to supplement standard operating procedures from a complex research ecosystemic perspective as well as a 2030 roadmap towards improving the RE/RI culture and 4) new training materials and tools to supplement existing educational efforts. BEYOND will mobilize all stakeholders via the three thematic networks involved in the consortium (ENRIO, EUREC, The Guild) and the stakeholder advisory board to ensure widespread dissemination of results and facilitate their institutional uptake and embedding.

This proposal describes concept development and conceptualisation of a EuroFAANG (European Functional Annotation of ANimal Genomes) infrastructure to realise the full potential of genotype to phenotype (G2P) research across species, breeds and populations of farmed animal species in Europe. To achieve accurate G2P predictions, it is necessary to be able to refine and characterise highly complex traits as sets of intermediate informative phenotypes along the entire cascade from genome to cell, organism, environment, population and across different environments. The goal of the EuroFAANG infrastructure is to streamline use of interdisciplinary capabilities for G2P research in terrestrial and aquatic farmed animals and provide transnational access to all of the relevant facilities, expertise and knowledge to European stakeholders. This will address the need to bring together national facilities at the pan-European level in the field of animal genetic resources, phenotyping and breeding, and animal health, which was identified as a gap in the infrastructure landscape by the 2021 ESFRI Roadmap. The proposal builds on the foundation provided by the five current H2020 EuroFAANG projects, AQUA-FAANG, BovReg, GENE-SWitCH, GEroIMO and RUMIGEN and connects with existing infrastructures for data management and animal agriculture in the European research infrastructure landscape. The institutions and organisations involved have world-leading expertise in fundamental and applied farmed animal science and consolidated established connections to European stakeholders in farmed animal science. The outcomes of this proposal will lead to better alignment of the development of the research infrastructures landscape for the advancement of excellent farmed animal science and frontier G2P research in Europe and globally.

The overall concept of INTERCEPT-T2D is to establish whether an inflammatory-mediated profile contributes to the onset of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) complications, thus enabling the identification of patients most at risk of complications and the design of personalized prevention measures. T2D is a heterogeneous disease, which is an obstacle to the delivery of an optimal tailored treatment. Consequently, patients’ individual trajectories of progressive hyperglycemia and risk of chronic complications are so far difficult to predict. In this context, onset of diabetic complications represents the most important transitional phase of T2D development toward premature disability and mortality. Chronic systemic inflammation has been suggested to be a major contributor to the onset and progression of T2D complications. INTERCEPT-T2D will bring a new and clinically relevant dimension in T2D care considering at diagnosis inflammatory parameters that are of importance for the transition to T2D-related complications. The combination of state-of-the-art genomics and cell-biology technologies with targeted clinical interventions should lead to potent patients’ stratification. It should allow the identification and prognosis of a novel class or subclass of patients characterized by an “Inflammatory-mediated T2D” endotype. The project has access to the best-documented longitudinal human European cohorts of patients with T2D, with reliable clinical and biological data allowing to trace the transition and evolution towards organ complications. This, added to the exploitation of an extensive health data warehouse, will enable us to establish the inflammatory trajectory of citizens with T2D from diagnosis to the development of complications. To explore the ability to prevent the transition phase of T2D towards organ complications, INTERCEPT-T2D will conduct a phase II clinical trial with an anti-inflammatory therapy targeting NLRP3 Inflammasome activity in patients with T2D.

Advances in healthcare IT systems have resulted in complex socio-technical architectures, which deliver integrated and patient-centered services. All these transformations, in addition to clinical benefits, they also introduce risks including security risks that need to be understood and managed, reduced to acceptable levels. There are numerous reports of new types of security vulnerabilities for this kind of architectures, which challenge the effectiveness of the current security tools. MEDSECURANCE will conceive novel methodologies, infrastructures, and technologies that enable an effective, harmonious and continuous development and evolution of secure system engineering management activities in Internet of Medical Things (IoMT). Our objective is to advance knowledge and basic understanding of decision making in diverse IoMT threat landscapes based on different system and component level interactions. This is accomplished via the development of a novel holistic strategy that considers the interdependence of several IoMT subsystems, information exchange, risk thresholds, and regulatory ramifications. We provide scalable and verifiable secure system engineering management solution(s) that capture, communicate, and act on these complexities in order to improve decision-making in cyber defence while automating cybersecurity assurance. Our solution(s) will be co-developed and validated with our medical industry user partners, and complemented by engagement of healthcare industry stakeholders in support of the recommendations to existing guidelines that will also be developed in the project.

INSAFEDARE aims to provide a toolkit to enable cost-effective and high assurance decision-making in the context of the processes that all stakeholders may follow as part of regulation of medical devices. The toolkit consists of scientific guidance on assurance, tools to retrieve datasets and assist application validation and a publicly available guidance work-group for sustainable support of the discipline. INSAFEDARE will investigate use, challenges, and opportunities real world and synthetic data-driven validation of devices. The project will provide guidance on quality and safety assurance of datasets as a tool for validation, and devices that have validated using data driven approaches. INSAFEDARE will investigate use of synthetic datasets and will identify how they can be used to establish assurance before the formal, established certification process, reducing the risk for developers and waste for regulatory bodies. Furthermore, the project will publish the findings as a public guidance, laying the ground for a standard development working group; and develop training and syllabus that can enhance the skills of stakeholders. Finally, the project will develop a tool for the discovery, integration, and query of multiple datasets, and a tool for supporting the sustainable, dynamic, and through-life surveillance of devices, capturing the impact of new evidence offered by newly published datasets.

EUonQoL aims to develop, pilot and validate the EUonQoL-Kit, a patient-driven, unified system for the assessment of quality of life (QoL) based on evaluations and preferences of cancer patients and survivors. The EUonQoL-Kit will be developed from a patient perspective, administered digitally, available in the EU27 and Associated countries languages, and applicable in future, periodic surveys to contribute to the EU’s mission on cancer. At the core of the EUonQoL there is the adoption of a multistakeholder, co-design methodology, engaging patient representatives, healthcare professionals, administrators, policymakers, and citizens in all project related activities. Existing QoL tools will be reviewed, scoping all relevant sources. This review will be used in the context of the codesign consensus with stakeholders’ and patients’ preferences to identify gaps and establish all QoL dimensions that are relevant from the perspectives of patients, clinicians, and society. A multidisciplinary panel of leading experts will develop the EUonQoL-Kit to be validated in a digital pilot survey of 4,000 patients and survivors enrolled through a network of EU cancer centres. An analysis of factors potentially impacting QoL, will also be performed. EUonQoL will explore strategies for the implementation and exploitation of the EUonQoL-Kit, while coordinating a QoL-Patient-Centred Care (PCC) cluster across Cancer Mission projects to develop a system-wide PCC policy, built on sustained stakeholder engagement and targeted outreach, as the basis for routine QoL data collection. EUonQoL is composed of research institutions, cancer centres, as well as scientific, professional, and patient representative organizations involved in cancer research, all with extensive experience and robust scientific background in developing self-reported QoL measures. This partnership fuels the ambition of EUonQoL to translate QoL data into future changes in cancer care policy and clinical practice.

The overall goal of DISCERN is to understand the causes of three poorly understood cancers in Europe; renal, pancreatic and colorectal cancer, and help to explain their geographical distribution, including their high incidence in central and eastern Europe. This will be achieved by combining large-scale European biorepositories comprising population-based cohorts and tumour case-series with state-of-the-art molecular profiling techniques and machine learning approaches. In particular, DISCERN will identify potential new causal risk factors for the three cancers using novel exposomics and proteomics scans, as well detailed geospatial and environmental exposure information from 16 large-scale epidemiological cohorts including almost 900,000 individuals. It will also explore biological mechanisms on how these risk factors are potentially causing these cancer types with a focus on promoting factors in normal tissues using deep sequencing, single cell multi-omics and spatial proteomics. The causal effects of identified cancer risk factors and the cellular signalling responses they trigger will be further evaluated using a panel of stem cells and colon, renal and pancreatic 3D organoids. The results from DISCERN will be disseminated to citizens, patients and policy makers through collaborating patient and participant organizations. DISCERN will provide the critical evidence base required to develop new prevention strategies to tackle the growing burden of renal, pancreatic and colorectal cancer in Europe. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on "Understanding".

Many physics models are described by waves or more generally dispersive equations (Schrödinger equations) with propagation in a non homogeneous and bounded medium. Toy models (mostly in flat backgrounds) have been developed by mathematicians. However, many questions remain open even on these simplified models in the presence of inhomogeneities and boundaries. In particular, the works of mathematicians in the last decade have allowed to exhibit some pathological behaviours which appear to be quite unstable. A first point in this proposal will be to expand the understanding of the influence of the geometry (inhomogeneities of the media, boundaries) on the behaviour of solutions to dispersive PDE’s. When these behaviours appear to be unstable, a natural question is whether they are actually rare. The last years have seen the emergence of a new point of view on these questions: random data Cauchy theories. The idea behind is that for random initial data, the solution’s behaviours are better than expected (deterministically). The second point of this project is precisely to go further in this direction. After identifying these pathological behaviours, is it possible to show that for almost all initial data, almost all geometries, they do not happen? Understanding how to combine the powerful techniques from micro-local and harmonic analysis with a probabilistic approach in this context should allow a much better understanding of these physically relevant models. Summarising, the purpose of my project is to develop tools and give answers to the following questions in the context of dispersive PDE’s (and to some extent fluids mechanics) Can we understand the influence of the geometric background (and boundaries) on concentration properties and the the behaviour of solutions to dispersive evolution PDE’s? Can we define generic behaviours for solutions to waves and fluids PDE's ? Can we show that some very pathological behaviours (which do happen) are actually very rare?

Mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy is a nearly universal way to identify chemical and biological substances and to perform non-invasive diagnostics. More specifically, the 6-15 µm wavelength range can be exploited to detect small traces of environmentally hazardous and toxic substances for a variety of applications including defense, security and industrial monitoring. While current optical systems in the mid-IR range are based on bulky assemblies of discrete devices, a challenging task is to make mid-IR spectroscopy accessible in remote areas, driving the development of compact and cost-effective solutions to replace table-top systems. In the project we aim at addressing new routes for high resolution spectroscopic systems based on dual-comb spectroscopy by developing innovative frequency comb sources. The strategy developed in ELECTROPHOT is based on the unique properties of graded index Silicon Germanium (SiGe) photonics circuits, which are their transparency in a wide spectral range together with the ability to fine tune both the electronic bandgap and refractive index of SiGe alloys, to make large progress in mid-IR photonics. Based on these capabilities, the original idea of the project is to exploit simultaneously optical nonlinear and electro-optic comb generation, to generate compact frequency comb sources providing simultaneously wideband operation with fine and tunable resolution. Interestingly the photonics circuits will leverage from reliable and high-volume fabrication technologies, already developed for microelectronic integrated circuits to provides a new playground in mid-IR photonics.

The coupling of cold atoms to nanophotonic devices has recently opened a variety of novel opportunities for controlling light-matter interactions. Tailored dispersion relations offer unique features beyond conventional settings. In particular, photonic-crystal waveguides enable tight transverse confinement of the propagating light, strong atom-photon coupling in single pass and tunable long-range atom-atom interactions. While this research area is extensively studied theoretically, experimental progress has been much more modest. This project aims at turning the emerging neutral-atom waveguide-QED paradigm into a mature field. The primary challenge will be to develop a versatile apparatus where ensembles of cold atoms can be trapped in the proximity of slow-mode photonic-crystal waveguides, using a specific material, original structure designs and novel atom-delivery techniques. The main project objectives are then threefold: - The demonstration of deterministic photon-photon interaction in a lossless single-pass configuration and its application to efficient quantum state engineering - The realization of multiphoton-state engineering via atomic entangled states and subradiant and superradiant dynamics. - The exploration of a novel “bandgap physics” uniquely accessible with the developed photonic-crystal platform for strong atom-atom and photon-photon interactions. The successful realization of the project based upon the interdisciplinary interface of cold atoms and nanoscale waveguides could elevate this approach to a new route for strongly interacting photons and atoms, with unique possibilities for integrated quantum technologies, quantum non-linear optics as well as for many-body quantum physics.

Recent research has shown that the spatial organisation of convection (and hence clouds) at the mesoscale (20-200km) dramatically affects the Earth’s energy balance and hydrological cycle. This raises the question as to how the organisation of convection will change with warming, and how it will influence the climate. A poor understanding of the physical drivers of the mesoscale organisation of convection, compounded by an inability to simulate and observe such processes, has hampered our ability to articulate this challenging question, let alone answer it. In MAESTRO I propose to develop observational approaches and analysis frameworks specifically designed to test mechanisms hypothesized to control the mesoscale organisation of both shallow and deep convective clouds. Advances in airborne remote sensing will be exploited to map the spatial structures of clouds and water vapor, to interpret their coupling through the analysis of coherent structures within the clear-air environment around clouds, and to understand their dependence on environmental conditions. This will help understand why and how convective clouds organise at the mesoscale, why the organisation co-varies with water vapor, clouds and radiation locally and remotely, and why it co-varies with climate conditions. By connecting observations from the airborne measurements to satellite observations and meteorological analyses, the generality of the insights from the field measurements will be tested and tempered. Finally, observational insights will be used to assess the new and emerging generation of climate models whose resolution is fine enough to represent the mesoscale organisation of convection and its interaction with climate. MAESTRO will lead to new experimental techniques for studying atmospheric processes, to an improved conceptualization of the interplay between convective organisation and climate, and to a critical assessment of the new generation of climate models for climate change studies.

Despite the tremendous advances in single molecule localization microscopy mainly obtained on fixed cells, a major step is highly needed to transform it into a genuine live-cell nanoscopy allowing to understand biological processes in their full multi-scale nature from the individual molecule, to the cell, to the multicellular tissues. Currently, there is no solution to image with an acquisition speed compatible with the dynamics of living cells (>kHz), over a large volumes (>10000 μm3), with a significant in-depth imaging capability (>10 µm) without compromising the resolution (<10 nm) especially in the axial dimension. I will demonstrate that these challenges can be met without trade-off by proposing a disruptive approach which requires the entire illumination and detection strategies to be considered anew. Building on my achievements in super-resolution microscopy, I propose a disruptive optical implementation where a full-time coding approach allows to retrieve the space information, not only meeting the needed acquisition rate, but also bringing the richness of functional information (spectral, lifetime). In a first conceptual breakthrough, a new sweeping modulated illumination is introduced, where each point along the direction of the modulation can be retrieved through a unique frequency, without any ambiguity. By applying this frequency tagging in all dimensions, every single molecule event is described by a unique set of 3 frequencies. This unicity triggers a second change of paradigm, as emitters positions within a large field of view can now be retrieved in a camera-free setting. Fast acquisition can be performed by single monodetector, but the power of this temporal approach will be decupled by the ultimate technical advances of new neuromorphic detections. This unique in-depth information at the nanoscale will allow to finally decipher the structural and functional interplay in key biological mechanisms in living cells with unprecedented benefits.

How and when plate tectonics (PT) developed on Earth, and why the Earth is currently the only rocky planet of the solar system with PT, are two of the main enigmas of Earth and Planetary Sciences. The evolution of a planet is conditioned by heat transfer in its most viscous envelope, the mantle. This heat transfer is mostly due to convection, and strongly depends on the convective patterns, which in turn depends critically on mantle rheology. However, the link between rock rheology at small time- and length-scales, and mantle « effective » rheology at the long/large scales of mantle convection is still missing. I propose that it resides in the meso-scale structure of the mantle and lithosphere that are acquired through convective motions and partial melting. Hence, deciphering the evolution of the Earth or any other planet requires describing and understanding the interplay between « texture » (i.e. material multi-scale organization), rheology, two-phase flow and convection. Our team recently showed that aqueous nanoparticle colloids, fluids commonly used by soft matter physicists, can reproduce planetary phenomena such as one-sided subduction, and the two-phase flow dynamics of mid-ocean ridges. Building on this, SOFT-PLANET will combine convection in these soft materials with state-of-the-art visualization techniques to relate surface morphology (including faults, wrinkle ridges and volcanism), lithospheric structure and internal flow patterns, and characterize the development of texture and rheology from the nano-scale to the macro-scale of convection. SOFT-PLANET will map the different regimes of convection that can develop, and will derive a physical understanding of each. This new physical framework, together with geomorphology observations, will be used to decipher the current state of Venus, and the divergent evolution of Venus, Mars and the Earth.

In METASPIN we envision a radically new low-power artificial synapse technology based on spintronics nanodevices that will prevent catastrophic forgetting, i.e. the loss of memory of previously learned tasks upon learning new ones, a major flaw currently faced by all artificial intelligence applications. We will develop a new class of neuromorphic hardware that will use magneto-ionics to support synaptic metaplasticity, i.e. a feature inspired by the human brain based on assigning a ‘hidden value’ to the states of artificial synapses to encode how important each state is. This will make it easier or harder to reconfigure the synaptic state upon learning a new task, giving a hierarchy to previously learned information and thus preventing catastrophic forgetting. The synaptic states will be given by the two magnetisation orientations in ferromagnets with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, and by ferro/antiferromagnetic order in materials where the two phases coexist. In all cases, magneto-ionic gating will be used to locally modulate intrinsic magnetic properties to assign ‘hidden states’ to each synaptic state. The magneto-ionic hidden states will translate into a modulation of the switching probability between synaptic states, introducing the metaplasticity functionality. In parallel, we will develop ANNs learning schemes, adapted to our device physics and inspired by biological synaptic activity, that can learn with mitigated catastrophic forgetting. The ultimate goal of this project is to integrate this advanced synaptic technology and learning algorithms into an ANN demonstrator to test multitask learning on proof-of-concept tasks inspired by medical AI, and assess the impact of metaplasticity in catastrophic forgetting.

This project aims to bring ionic air-breathing propulsive systems beyond the pioneeristic phase, exploring their capabilities and improving their performance. Non-thermal plasma for atmospheric propulsion is a subject of recent investigations: model airplanes and vertical lifters have recently flown with this type of propulsion, but the potential of this technology is much higher. Many open aspects in this field deserve to be investigated, from fundamental research on ion production to geometric optimization of electrodes and integration of propulsion systems in existing aircraft. To this purpose, a complete research program is proposed, starting from breakthroughs in fundamental research to be achieved through theoretical, numerical and laboratory studies. The following steps will lead to develop improved and optimized propulsive units, with the objective of designing and building an airship model (technological demonstrator) with ionic propulsion. A further objective is the conceptual design of a full-scale stratospheric airship: for this aircraft the high risk approach of the project will give rise to different possible choices about propulsion, depending on the results achieved in the first steps. In particular, for this airship concept at least fully ionic propulsion and combined conventional/ionic propulsion will be considered. A major long-term impact is expected for ion-powered airships, which could act as stratospheric platforms replacing many satellite functions, such as telecommunications, remote sensing, disaster risk management in civil protection, offering these services at much lower costs, with the benefit of being recoverable systems. A fully successful program may lead to top-level, fully ion-powered airships: thanks to the propulsive units without moving mechanical parts, powered by solar energy, they would have extremely long operation times, low maintenance and very low pollution levels.

ATYPIQUAL’s main objective is to unveil a room temperature quantum technology platform based on a novel generation of Atomically Precise graphene nanoRibbons (APRs) and demonstrate its feasibility through technologically relevant devices. By definition, quantum technologies exploit the peculiar quantum properties of matter such as superposition, tunneling, and entanglement to develop tools and devices with new, non-classical functionalities. However, derived using conventional top-down techniques, these technologies lack atomic precision and are much more sensitive to environmental disturbances as compared to the electrical current switching in transistors. As such, they often require ultra-low temperature operation and impose important constraints on their general applicability. This makes their manipulation and integration to chip-scale substrates a major challenge. ATYPIQUAL is a highly interdisciplinary project that proposes a radically different high-risk bottom-up approach that uniquely offers to naturally 'hard-wire' complex quantum states into atomically precise carbon nanostructures: APRs. They exhibit novel physical properties beyond graphene such as topological quantum phases and spin polarization, all tailorable by their topology and edge structure. However, the demonstration of these electronic properties requires atomic precision control that can only be achieved through recent advances in bottom-up synthesis. We shall exploit atomically precise bottom-up on-surface synthesis to develop these novel advanced APRs offering on-demand multi-functionalities while relying on a single graphene nanoribbon backbone. By developing the required material processing and device fabrication steps and demonstrating the first technologically relevant feasibility examples, ATYPIQUAL will set the stage for a new quantum technology platform for atomically tunable multifunctional devices with applications in next-generation electronics, photonics and spintronics.

The ultimate limit on the accuracy of any measurement is set by quantum mechanics, this also means that quantum effects can be used in metrology and sensing to go well beyond any classical approach. For classical systems, statistical error is proportional to 1/sqrt(N) with N the number of measured particles. Measurements in quantum systems can overcome this limit and reach the Heisenberg limit proportional to 1/N. However, quantum standards and sensors are challenging to put in practice and their working conditions are nowadays intrinsically incompatible (e.g. magnetic field and superconductivity). Therefore, limiting their reach in terms of users and their development as accurate and enhanced quantum technologies. The vision we propose in FLATS is to use twisted bilayer graphene as a multiphenomena platform to develop present electrical quantum metrology standards, working under compatible conditions, and to develop the new generation of metrological sensor, going beyond the International System of units (SI). Their common platform will allow their integration as a single multi-use on-chip quantum lab. To achieve this, we will first create a European twistronics plateform for an unprecedented control of the relative angular alignment between graphene/BN layers. We will develop novel and original quantum electrical standards with twisted heterostructures. Our on-chip metrological quantum lab also enables the implementation of metrological sensors beyond the SI. This will be the first step towards quantum-enhanced measurements for metrological applications.

The development of super-resolution (SR) microscopy in recent years has revolutionized cell biology, breaking the diffraction limit of light microscopy by order of magnitude. However, SR is currently incompatible with high-content imaging. RT-SuperES will provide a groundbreaking and affordable technology with automated SR capabilities beyond the state-of-the-art. To this end, we will generate a library of endogenously-labelled SNAP-tag fusion proteins in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs), and deploy a real-time decision-making module, which will continuously monitor our SNAP-tagged cells using fast fluorescence imaging, and, once a change is detected, will fix the desired cells, and switch to SR mode. By bringing together seven world-leading experts from four different countries, combining basic and applied research and industry, we propose several firsts: a) The first endogenously-labelled clone library of SNAP-tag fusion proteins; b) Utilize machine learning (ML) for real-time automated decision making, autonomously switching from fast conventional to SR imaging; c) Combine high content with SR imaging; d) Integrate novel, cutting-edge technologies, namely SR Radial Fluctuations (SRRF), NanoJ-Fluidics, Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (SMLM) and Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM); e) Collect large scale imaging datasets of cell states in ESCs, and f) Provide cell-cycle stage-dependent nanoscale localization of selected nuclear and chromatin proteins (e.g. H3.3), during early ESC differentiation. RT-SuperES will provide the scientific community with the first-of-its-kind commercial real-time SR-highcontent imaging system, and the first library of endogenously SNAP-tagged ESC clones, which are ideal, among many other things, for SR imaging.

Lung function is a central concern in the fight against covid-19. Beyond the pandemic heavy losses and long-term health implications, respiratory diseases represent a major threat for the World Health Organisation. It is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, associated to our way of living and impacting all of society. Current tools for diagnosing and monitoring pulmonary conditions are hindered by poor sensitivity (lung function tests), radiation exposure (computed tomography) or examination cost (magnetic resonance imaging, MRI). They all differently fail to fully assess lung structure and function V|LF-Spiro3D aims at democratizing newly developed and breakthrough 3D MR spirometry with high performance, low-cost MRI techniques to provide a ten-minute morphofunctional MRI protocol to engage patients in a safer, easier and more comfortable way. Based on recent works at Universities Paris-Saclay and Aberdeen, in collaboration with leading MR manufacturer Siemens, SME NMR Service, major French-Dutch hospitals and patient organisations, V|LF-Spiro3D brings together multidisciplinary experts in a patient-oriented approach for both adults and children V|LF-Spiro3D will redesign current MRI architecture to perform 3D MR spirometry at low and very low field. High-performance MRI hardware will be developed with accelerated acquisitions and coupled reconstruction strategies relying on deep learning. Biomechanical lung modelling and deep data processing will be guided by implementation of 3D MR spirometry in clinical facilities to produce unprecedentedly large sets of normative and training data covering six major respiratory diseases By prioritizing both technology transfer and innovation, V|LF-Spiro3D aims to build up a one-stop-shop imaging standard for unrestricted assessment of lung pathophysiology. The impacts are expected to yield benefits beyond lung imaging and boost health deep-tech on point-of-care imaging and multi-parameter-based digital health in the EU

Development of key technologies to address a new wing design for a HER aircraft maturing up to TRL5: manufacturing, assembly, structural concepts and processes, concept studies, configuration and architecture trade offs for a full wing component are part of the activity. As a physical demonstration concept, the detail design and manufacturing of the relevant components of a centre wing section of a HER Aircraft will be addressed. Conceptual wing studies: configuration and architecture (structural arrangement, Systems allocation and disposition, flight control system) trade offs for a full wing. Full wing structural arrangement mock up for innovative wing concepts, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization studies for definition of the optimal structural configuration of wing. Demonstration platform: wingbox, high lift devices, control surfaces, load alleviation devices focusing on the centre section as a demonstration platform: - Integrated Centre section wing box structure with the inner Propulsion stage: Full span (pylon to pylon) torsion box concept representative of more ambitious tip 2 tip concept. Multispar concept, Access manholes and panels, Sustainable aviation fuel and Integrated Fuel vent systems. - Inner section Leading Edges, Integrated Inductive ice protection system integration, Multifunctionality: erosion, impact, Lightning, ice protection, Morphing concepts, Functional tests, Bird strike tests (virtual or real) - Inner section Flap and high lift solutions: Integrated flap solutions. Multifunctionality application to flap. Key processing technologies: Low cost-high integrated out of autoclave technologies. Dry fiber placement and liquid resin infusion for integrated multispar torsion box. Thermoplastic composites processing: In situ consolidation for integrated flap skin and Leading edge applications. Thermoplastic welding and co-consolidation for Integration. Bonding technologies exploration towards certifiable solutions.

The project GR4FITE3 aims to reach Graphite Resilience For lithium-Ion baTtery anodes through a sustainable European End-to-End supply chain. This supply chain includes environmentally responsible European mining of natural crystalline flake graphite from Europe’s largest natural graphite resource, highly innovative, continuous and low energy input upgrading of the mined ore, adding recycled and fully repaired for reuse synthetic graphite and optionally silicon nanoparticles to compose a unique anode active material’s particle architecture, making the high density anodes, creating the cells, developing battery modules, certifying the lithium-ion batteries for safety and viability, and ultimately using these products by the OEMs including an established European electric bus manufacturer and a utility grid developer, among others. The purpose of GR4FITE3 project is to demonstrate the creation of a sustainable supply chain for the European industrial graphite and carbon products for specific use as anode active materials in Lithium-Ion batteries designed for applications in electric vehicles and power sources for utilities, such as solar and wind farms. This project is going to combine the efforts of 10 partner organizations from six European nations, employing both industry and academia. There are also four OEMs and five supporting organizations who have expressed their interest in tracking project’s progress and part-taking in a tangible manner in commercialization efforts associated with GR4FITE3 projects’ outcomes. With this larger group of stakeholders, the project spreads its reach to as many as ten countries and three continents, ensuring its global outreach from the very start.

The quantum mechanical simulation of time-dependent (TD) phenomena is relevant for many technological and medical applications, as in solar cells design, control of radiation damage in biomolecules, photocatalysis, nanoscale conductance devices, and quantum computers. With this proposal, the candidate intends to overcome the most critical limitations of current methods for the calculation of electronic dynamics - most notably of TD Density Functional Theory (DFT) - by pioneering a combination of (1) innovative density functional approximations and (2) an algorithm for time-propagation that treats one electron semi-classically. The common thread linking these parts is the so-called exact factorization, an overarching strategy that has been used by both the candidate and the supervisor in the contexts of DFT and molecular dynamics (MD), respectively. According to this strategy, the wavefunction is rewritten as a product of a “marginal” and a “conditional” amplitude and the corresponding Schrödinger equation is conveniently expanded into two coupled equations, providing a clear decomposition of the chemical environment. Joining together the candidate's expertise in fundamental DFT and the supervisor’s expertise in trajectory-based approaches, the algorithm that will be developed takes inspiration from the method elaborated by the host for ab initio MD simulations and adapts and supplements it in a way suitable to treat the motion of electrons. The project includes validation of the algorithm on simple electronic structures (simple atoms/molecules), whose static and dynamical densities and potentials are computationally accessible and can serve as benchmark. The end goal of the project is to develop a reliable and computationally practical method for the simulation of ultrafast processes that can support and complement the emergent experimental techniques (attosecond spectroscopy), particularly for those cases for which present TDDFT or alternative approaches fail.

In the project “SURFER”, we will demonstrate the coexistence of antagonistic properties namely superconductivity (SC) and ferroelectricity (FE)” and the enhancement of superconducting transition temperature (TC) through coupling with FE in oxide two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs). So far, this coupling has almost only been observed in bulk oxides and in thin films of doped SrTiO3 (STO) where no ferroelectric switching is possible due to the three-dimensional distribution of carriers. The origin of SC and enhanced TC due to coupling between FE and SC is still not clarified, which might be because only one material (STO) system has been studied. In SURFER, we aim to realize ferroelectric and superconducting oxide 2DEGs with enhanced superconducting properties that are also switchable with FE present in these systems. With this aim, we will explore three new oxide 2DEG systems that have not been studied so far which will be fabricated based on different ferroelectric materials (1. STO thin films. 2. BaTiO3, and 3. Niobium (Nb)-substituted KTaO3) by growing on top a thin metal or oxide overlayer. In addition to the experimental realization of oxide 2DEGs hosting such interesting properties, this project will also help us to gain a clear understanding about the origin of SC and enhanced TC, due to FE and SC coupling in oxides which is a longstanding question by investigating the properties of these material systems in detail.

Nature is an indispensable source of bioactive compounds, but not necessarily an ideal provider of bulk or analogs. Total synthesis plays an important role in generating new analogs of natural molecules and as a means to reduce dependency on natural resources. The outbreak of COVID-19 and other viruses has posed a significant global threat, the urgent need arises to study and discover new antiviral. It has become imperative for researchers to develop strategic research plans in order to synthesize medicines to combat these viruses. Quartromicins are well known for their antiviral properties but barely explored due to no known synthesis to date and low isolation yield (0.36-0.06%) makes them an attractive target molecule for the total synthesis for further investigation and development to combat the viruses. With this proposal, we address the synthetic aspects of the main bioactive molecules and their analogs being considered to be repositioned for the effective treatment of viral infections. The first total synthesis of Quartromicins A1, A2, A3, D1, D2, D3 is proposed by a convergent synthetic strategy that involves the use of an enantioselective Diels-Alder reaction, the carbonyl-ene reaction mediated by organocatalyst, and the Heck dimerizing coupling reaction as the key step to the macrocyclization. The endo adduct is proposed to be readily synthesized by the enantioselective Diels-Alder reaction while the exo unit by a carbonyl-ene reaction, both mediated by the organocatalyst. The exo & endo fragments are proposed to be transformed to the corresponding exo & endo-spirotetronate fragments by simple organic transformations. Finally, the symmetrical Quartromicins A1, A3, D1 & D3 and unsymmetrical Quartromicins A2 & D2 can be synthesized by the Heck dimerizing coupling and the Heck double cross-coupling reactions respectively. The late-stage glycosylation strategy shall furnish a library of bioactive molecules essential for medicinal chemistry applications.

To understand the history of the chondritic asteroid Ryugu and whether it had a role in delivering volatiles and organic material to early Earth, SDR will constrain the mineral and geochemical variability of sediment samples from Ryugu on a grain and sub-grain scale. Because Ryugu is a rubble-pile asteroid made of re-accreted pieces of the parent body/bodies, near-surface sediment collected by the Hayabusa2 mission represents many depths within the interior of the parent. However, current analyses of collected reflectance spectra are done at the bulk sample scale which can average over interesting features to determine the major components. As individual grains are prepared to be sent out for proposed science, each grain is being documented from multiple viewing angles using the MicrOmega hyperspectral imager (0.99-3.65 micrometers) developed at IAS. This has created an enormous, rich dataset of ~20 hyperspectral images for each of 350 grains analyzed so far, and this dataset will continue to grow over the coming months. By conducting novel statistical analyses of this dataset of >7000 high-resolution image cubes (22 micrometers/pixel), I will identify co-occurring mineral phases, minor phases, and variation in organic phases that have implications for the aqueous alteration conditions within Ryugu and its parent body. Statistical analyses will include: principal component analysis, k-means clustering, distinctiveness measures, pixel-to-pixel correlation, edge detection, and network centrality. My experience publishing on statistical analyses of existing, noisy datasets has prepared me to extract meaningful information from this large, complicated dataset. This work will culminate in an updated model of formation and alteration on Ryugu’s parent body which relies on the types and position of minerals to infer alteration gradients and constrain the nature, number, and temperature of aqueous alteration events.

Venus is the closest planet to Earth. Despite a similar size and mass, there are differences between the two planets. At the surface, the temperature can reach 730 K with a pressure of 90 bar, and a composition of 96 % of carbon dioxide. Venus hosts a global cloud layer between 45 and 70 km of altitude, with composition and temperature-pressure conditions close to the Earth's stratosphere and complex chemistry with both sulphur and water cycle. This global cloud layer plays a key role in the radiative equilibrium of the atmosphere. Therefore, it is fundamental to study its composition and dynamics at all spatio-temporal scales to understand the atmosphere of Venus. Despite decades of measurements and modelling, there are still many unknowns about the chemistry of the Venusian atmosphere. The Project MuSICA-V (Multi-Scale Investigation of the Chemistry of the Atmosphere of Venus) conducted at LATMOS will develop new and ambitious numerical models using a hierarchy of models: a Planetary Climate Model (PCM), mesoscale and Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) models all coupled to a photochemistry scheme. These three models are performed with different resolutions and would help capture the spatio-temporal variability of the chemistry over different scales as never before, and will increase the understanding of the coupling of the dynamics and chemistry from the large-scale to the small-scales. The proposed effort is perfectly timed and relevant to ongoing and planned international Venus exploration activities: ESA mission EnVision, and NASA missions DAVINCI and VERITAS, were all three selected to launch in the next decade. The main objectives of these missions are to study the surface and the dynamics both inside and below the clouds. The project will simulate predictions for chemistry variabilities to produce observables for past and future missions, to improve the interpretation of the measurements.

Phosphorus (P) is an essential macronutrient for the production of food crops and the demand for P fertilizer is increasing worldwide. Earth's P is being depleted at an alarming rate urging the need for alternative strategies in order to maximize the availability of agronomic resources, optimize crop yields and guarantee food security with less impact on our environment. White lupin is the only crop that can form specific organs constituted by numerous short lateral roots, the so-called cluster roots (CRs), as an adaptation to low P availability in the soil, allowing an efficient acquisition of this nutrient, which is fundamental for plant growth and development. Remarkable advances have been made over the last years in identifying numerous genes involved in different facets of root adaptation to the environment and is known that microRNAs play a pivotal role in regulating gene expression during development and in response to environmental cues. The main objective of LUMIROOT is to elucidate the miRNA-dependent mechanisms regulating the formation of CRs in white lupin contributing to optimize plant resource acquisition based on the already proven role of miRNAs in root developmental processes. I will focus on these networks based not only on their functional importance but also on the broader interest of regulatory pathways controlling the development CRs. I will in deep functionally analyze the role miR396/target genes modules in CR development and reveal novel miRNA regulatory networks acting in CR formation and function. I also aim to develop miRNA-based nanoparticles to modulate in vivo miR396 action, as well as other regulatory miRNA/target networks to assess its potential to improve relevant agronomic traits such as CRs formation. LUMIROOT project will allow opening the way to crop improvement reducing the need for P fertilizers and will help to select regulatory networks with potential use in the improvement of relevant agronomic traits.

The Ambition for Arrowhead fPVN project is Doubling of the European industrial productivity by applying transformative, autonomous and evolvable information interoperability for resilient and adaptive production value networks. Hence, the Arrowhead flexible Production Value Network (fPVN) project will provide autonomous and evolvable interoperability of information through machine-interpretable content for fPVN stakeholders. The resulting technology is projected to substantially impact manufacturing productivity and flexibility. Autonomous and evolvable interoperability will be achieved through common project technology based on three pillars: 1. Microservices paradigm, 2. Utilization of major industrially accepted data models, 3. Automatic translation between the data models. The common technology will be validated and verified in 11 use cases covering the production value networks in the following industrial production domains: • Semiconductor production, • Automotive services, • Aerospace services, • Green energy conversion, and • Process industry production. The results are expected to considerably impact the efficiency of both local and global production value networks thanks to substantial cost and time reduction for setting up, operating, and managing the interactions within production value.

Many different environmental impacts arise from electronics, and the handling of electronic waste (e-waste) is rising quickly to the top of the agenda. E-waste is a significant issue for Europe: Improving its management is an explicit goal of the Green Deal objectives and the Circular Economy Action Plan (3.1. Electronics and ICT). However, due to the requirement to involve the whole value chain, from raw material suppliers to consumers, the complex material background and supply chain, as well as the multitude of competing interests, achieving circularity in the electronics industry is challenging. The main aim of the EECONE project is to reduce e-waste on a European scale. To this end, 54 entities (47 partners, 2 associated partners and 5 affiliated entities) from 16 European countries covering different sectors of activity have joined forces to propose practical ways of reducing the volume of e-waste in the EU. Crucially, the entities that make up EECONE represent all parts of the value chain. EECONE’s approach is interdisciplinary, covering the social, economic, technological, and policy aspects. The environmental impact arising from e-waste can thus be reduced by working in three principal areas: a) Increase service lifetime of electronic products by application of ecodesign guidelines for increasing their reliability and their repair rate, thereby reducing the volume of e-waste. Reduction and replacement of materials to decrease the impact of e-waste. b) Improved circularity by reusing, recycling, and waste valorising materials/elements from electronic products. EECONE’s vision is to develop and embed the constraints linked to managing the end-of-life of electronic products from the very beginning – in the development or process design. EECONE is paving the way as a first step toward a zero-waste electronic industry. The “6R concept will fully guide EECONE” (Reduce, Reliability, Repair, Reuse, Refurbish, Recycle). To deploy its ambitious vision, the EECONE project defines four main objectives: a) Define green. Create clear, simple, open tools to define and design ECS for circularity. Generate, for the first time, a clear framework aiding producers to evaluate their choices and pathways to ecodesign, to foster European leadership in the green transition. b) Make green ECS (Electronic Components Systems): Provide innovative techniques for reducing, repairing, reusing, refurbishing, recycling to decrease e-waste and boost circularity in a new generation of electronics. c) Showcase green solutions: Demonstrate innovation potential, usability, and versatility of the green solution along the value chain. d) Building consciousness: Create an ecosystem empowering the 6R ECS generation. EECONE is a major opportunity to create a European ECOsystem for greeN Electronics and to position Europe as a role model for low environmental impact electronics.

The NEUROKIT2E project aims at proposing a Deep Learning Platform for Embedded Hardware around an established European value chain (providing AI hardware and software). This open-source platform will provide the necessary tools for Europe to play on the same level with its American and Chinese competitors, and take the lead on a competitive aspect (still underdeveloped but which will quickly prove to be essential): embedded AI. The NEUROKIT2E’s offer targets to serve European industry needs as a priority, enabling easy and fast Neural Network design, optimization and implementation on constrained hardware targets. This challenging development will be powered using N2D2 (for Neural Network Design & Deployment) platform, developed by CEA, Coordinator of NEUROKIT2E, for the exploration and development of AI applications, and embed specific hardware components from European players such as NANOXPLORE, STMICRO, , all members of the NEUROKIT2E consortium. NEUROKIT2E will provide essential outcomes such as the end of the dependence of EU stakeholders to American and Chinese tools, the valorisation of EU hardware technologies, the benchmark of hardware and architectures before implementation to ensure the success of embedded AI in devices from energy consumption to sparse resources exploitation, the capacity to overcome the heterogeneity of components through a single, open, sovereign platform while ensuring reliability, safety, transparency. The NEUROKIT2E framework will impact on the AI landscape as the first one dedicated to embedded AI and will position EU stakeholders in this key market. The NEUROKIT2E consortium relies on 5 EU countries active in the hardware and software activities, France, Netherlands, Austria, Germany and Italy, with a balance between private and public research: 13 private companies (4 large industries: THALES, IFAG, TTTECH AUTO AG, STMICRO; 9 SMEs: NANOEXPLORE, KOMPAI ROBOTICS, Almende, Spiki, Deepsensing, HTS, Sensity, CODA, Sorama) ; 5 RTOs (CEA, IMEC-NL, SAL, FBK, Fraunhofer) and 6 universities (FH-CAMPUS WIEN, TUD, UNICT, UNIPA, UNIME, UROS ).

MRV4SOC aims at designing a comprehensive, robust, and cost-effective Tier 3 approach, accounting for changes in as many C pools as possible, to estimate GHG and full C budgets, coupling C and N cycles, quantify Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) accumulation, and assess the results of traditional management practices and C farming. The main challenges addressed in MRV4SOC are: i) monitoring changes in SOC accumulation due to climate change and socio-economic pressures; ii) accounting for C and N cycles in full C budgets; iii) development of scientifically-sound, standard, and transparent Tier 3 methodology at different scales, iv) implementation of high-quality in-situ and RS data for testing methods and scale-up purposes; iv) standardisation of Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification schemes to ensure transparency, robustness, and cost-effectiveness; and v) a lack of trust in Voluntary Carbon Markets. To overcome these challenges, MRV4SOC will develop 6 specific objectives, which will be measurable, verifiable, and monitored through KPIs pointing at specific targets. MRV4SOC proposes a comprehensive 3-year work plan that ranges from the assessment of C pools in 9 land use/ land cover classes located in 14 Demonstration Sites (DS); to the potential integration of the approacMRV4SOC aims at designing a comprehensive and robust Tier 3 approach accounting for changes in as many C pools as possible (above-ground biomass, below ground-biomass, litter, dead wood, soil organic carbon, and harvested wood products) fully aligned with national GHG reporting. MRV4SOC seeks to develop solutions applicable for different spatio- temporal scales and climate change scenarios and validated for a wide variety of ecosystems in arid, temperate, and continental climate zones in collaboration with local stakeholders. The proposed approach will help establish reliable and transparent C farming credits within a cost-effective monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) methodological framework.

With a share of 34 %, bio-waste is the largest single component of municipal waste in the EU. Recycling of bio-waste is key for meeting the EU target to recycle 65 % of municipal waste by 2035. Bio-waste can significantly contribute to a more circular economy, delivering valuable soil-improving material and fertiliser as well as biogas, a source of renewable energy. Biochar is a pure, high carbon form of charcoal, obtained through the pyrolysis of biomass, such as bio-waste. Biochar helps regenerate soils by enhancing water-holding capacity, nutrient uptake, soil fertility stimulating microbial activity and diversity and acts as a carbon sink. However, a lack of understanding and evidence of the agronomic benefits and economic returns mean that biochar faces barriers to become a widespread soil improver. Biogas from anaerobic digestion (AD) is a renewable energy source. Yet the cost of disposal of its effluents (digestates) reduces profitability and uptake of new AD projects, even though the digestate is rich in nutrients and can be used as a biofertilizer. Research shows that the combination of digestate and biochar creates a biofertilizer with increased fertility, improved stability and excellent soil regeneration properties. Furthermore, biochar could be a powerful additive to enhance microbiological activity in AD plants. The FENIX project will optimise Biochar for different soils using AD digestate. FENIX will demonstrate the agronomic and economic returns of its soil improver in field tests (TRL 8) in three countries in the West and South of Europe. FENIX brings together partners that cover the full value chain and with entrepreneurs that will be ready to take up the project results. Successful completion of the project will contribute to the recovery of abandoned poor soils, increase EU’s soil quality and water retention capacity, climate change mitigation, secure and independent energy supply, and sustainable bio-waste management.

Microelectronics components are at the core of our modern economies. The corresponding global market is exponentially growing at an annual pace of 10-15% and should reach the trillion $ by 2030. The techno-economic framework that has been driving this industry is based on Boolean logic, von Neumann architectures (with separated computing and memory units) and CMOS transistors. It is pictured by the famous Moore’s law, describing the continuous shrinking of transistor size. For years, Dennard’s scaling law of the power consumption provided a path to shrinking such transistors, while keeping the power density constant. However, as technological nodes become today as small tens of atoms, we are hitting fundamental limits, leading to heating and preventing this downscaling,. Simultaneously, the power consumption of information and communication technologies (ICT) represents nearly 5% of the world’s energy consumption. To mitigate these civilizational issues, new devices and architectures for ICT must be invented. The consensus reached by the microelectronics community is that to reduce power consumption (i) memory and logic units must be brought together and (ii) the inherent nonvolatile properties of ferroic materials are a valuable asset to avoid the static power consumption. UPLIFT proposes to develop the POC of a non-volatile, spin-based, ultralow power (aJ) logic-in-memory component, coined FESO, which harnesses the ferroelectric control of spin-charge interconversion discovered within the ERC FRESCO. We will pattern devices down to the 100 nm scale and aim for 100 mV output voltages, 1 ns operation speed and endurance >10^9 cycles. UPLIFT will benefit from a well-defined path towards the commercial exploitation, including a decade-long collaboration between the PI and two researchers from Spintec in Grenoble, with whom the PI is launching a start-up company that will exploit the patent portfolio filed within FRESCO. This POC project will serve both as a support and a propeller for the start-up, to be created in Q1 2024.

Book publishing involves many stakeholders and a complex set of inflexible tools and formats. Current workflows are inefficient because authors and editors cannot make changes directly to the content once it has been laid out. They are costly because creating different output formats, such as PDF, ePub or HTML requires manual labor. Finally, new requirements such as the European directive on accessibility incur additional costs and delays. The goal of the OnePub POC project is to demonstrate the feasibility and value of a book production workflow based on a set of collaborative editing tools and a single document source representing the “ground truth” of the book content and layout. The editing tools will be tailored to the needs of each stakeholder, e.g. author, editor or typesetter, and will feature innovative interaction techniques from the PI’s ERC project ONE. The project will focus on textbooks and academic publications as its testbed because they feature some of the most stringent constraints in terms of content types and content layout. They also run on tight deadlines, emphasizing the need for an efficient process. OnePub will define a unified format for the document source, create several collaborative document editors, and develop an open and extensible architecture so that new editors and add-ons can be added to the workflow. Together, these developments will set the stage for a new ecosystem for the publishing industry, with a level-playing field where software companies can provide components while publishers and their service contractors can decide which components to use for their workflows.

The project Programmable Atomic Large-scale Quantum Simulation (PASQuanS2.1) is the first decisive step toward the transformation of the European landscape for programmable quantum simulators, finally delivering internationally leading platforms involving over 1000 neutral atoms in optical tweezer arrays and also in optical lattices. In the context of this Specific Grant Agreement, we will bring together partners from academia and industry (including technology enablers, platform developers, and end-users) to address central technological challenges. We will connect technologies across national borders and use our combined expertise and technologies to scale up the system size, reduce noise and temperature, and improve stability. We will test and transfer know-how between trapped ion and neutral atom platforms and integrate the hardware with application-specific software stacks for analogue solutions of relevant real-world problems, including verification and optimal control techniques. We will facilitate the expansion and networking of the supply chain and startup companies delivering platforms, en-route to the delivery of technology readiness level (TRL) 6-7 quantum simulators, including both cloud-based platforms, and quantum simulators linked with existing high-performance computing infrastructure. We will work with the end-user community across academia and industry to identify new specific applications where quantum simulators provide a practical quantum advantage over traditional high-performance computing. We will particularly address potential applications in materials science, quantum chemistry and in optimisation. We deliver a clear plan for dissemination, exploitation, and communication. This includes developing and protecting intellectual property, and to expand awareness of quantum simulators and their capability and applications amongst policy makers, industry, and the general public.

OpenSuperQplus100 aims at delivering systems and technology for quantum computers based on superconductors. It thus implements the roadmap of the strategic research agenda for the quantum technology flagship as detailed by the OpenSuperQplus framework partnership from which it emerges. It will deliver integrated demonstrators for research and user purposes, one of which will contain at least 100 high-quality qubits. The center piece is a design and fabrication platform for high-quality quantum chips, their environment for multi-chip-modules, and the immediate surroundings of the processors. OpenSuperQplus100 delivers the necessary components and the enabling hard- and software to achieve that goal. This is completed by a test and benchmarking suite, exploring the potential realization of beyond-classical performance in real-world applications. The agenda of OpenSuperQplus100 is looking ahead in developing, testing, and down-selecting technologies that are needed to reach the 1000 qubit level in a subsequent project. The composition of the project with leading companies, RTOs, and academic groups is closely aligned with national agendas which lay the foundation for the OpenSuperQplus100 results. The project contains structured activities in standardization, education, and ethics that will inform larger European discussions. OpenSuperQplus develops structured IP policies and commercialization strategies of its key exploitable results and will serve as a reliable source of information for European stakeholders in industry, academia, politics, and society at large.

The Quantum Secure Networks Partnership (QSNP) project aims at creating a sustainable European ecosystem in quantum cryptography and communication. A majority of its partners, which include world-leading academic groups, research and technology organizations (RTOs), quantum component and system spin-offs, cybersecurity providers, integrators, and telecommunication operators, were members of the European Quantum Flagship projects CIVIQ, UNIQORN and QRANGE. QSNP thus gathers the know-how and expertise from all technology development phases, ranging from innovative designs to development of prototypes for field trials. QSNP is structured around three main Science and Technology (ST) pillars. The first two pillars, “Next Generation Protocols” and “Integration”, focus on frontier research and innovation, led mostly by academic partners and RTOs. The third ST pillar “Use cases and Applications” aims at expanding the industrial and economic impact of QSN technologies and is mostly driven by companies. In order to achieve the specific objectives within each pillar and ensure that know-how transfer and synergy between them are coherent and effective, QSNP has established ST activities corresponding to the three main layers of the technology value chain, “Components and Systems”, “Networks” and “Cryptography and Security”. This framework will allow achieving the ultimate objective of developing quantum communication technology for critical European infrastructures, such as EuroQCI, as well as for the private information and communication technology (ICT) sectors. QSNP will contribute to the European sovereignty in quantum technology for cybersecurity. Additionally, it will generate significant economic benefits to the whole society, including training new generations of scientists and engineers, as well as creating high-tech jobs in the rapidly growing quantum industry.

The quest for the realization of "fault tolerant" quantum computation is currently challenged by the extreme fragility of quantum effects with respect to noise and decoherence. Quantum control, quantum initialization, read-out and enhanced coherence remain the main challenges which need to be addressed in a scalable multi-qubit platform. In the last few years there were tremendous advancements in the field of spin-orbitronics where the spin-degrees of freedom are manipulated with electric fields through the spin-momentum locking of the electrons. In spite of its importance, this property of materials characterized by large and tunable spin-orbit coupling (SOC), such as two-dimentional (2D) oxide materials, is not fully exploited in quantum computation. Here, we propose spin-orbitronics qubits and their experimental realization in single and double quantum dots based on 2D electron gases (2DEGs) formed at SrTiO3-based oxide interfaces. Due to their large spin-orbit splitting and gate-tunability, oxide interfaces are characterized by an exceptional degree of spin-momentum locking, and at the same time by a unique combination of high-mobility and 2D-magnetism. The exploitation of largely tunable SOC and spin-polarization in 2D systems, in combination with tunabilty of the host materials, is very attractive for a novel quantum computation platform as it allows a coherent quantum control of individual electron spins using spin to charge interconvertion. The proposed platform has all the characteristics for the practical implementation of an innovative quantum computation approach which allows upscaling to a large qubit numbers and goes beyond the one-dimensional interconnect schemes with important fundamental and technological advantages based on spin-orbitronics.

The quantum properties of photons -- allowing low-loss long-distance transmission, multiplexing large amounts of quantum information into a single channel, and operations in standard, room-temperature settings -- yield great promise for scalable quantum computing (QC). However, low interaction is their great weakness for quantum information processing (QIP), as quantum circuits require photon-photon interactions. To date, two-photon interactions have only been facilitated either probabilistically with low efficiency or between individual photons via intermediaries with errors much too large for practical QIP. PANDA has an ambitious core goal of building the foundation for a photonic quantum computer: an array of neutral rubidium atoms with subwavelength spacing carefully designed to harness collective effects to implement lossless, deterministic photon-photon interactions. Combined with novel high-efficiency single-photon handling, we will construct a powerful platform for strong, efficient, controllable non-linear operations with many QIP applications. These include deterministic two-photon quantum gates with unprecedented efficiency and repeat rates. We will especially apply our platform to continuous-variable (CV) QIP, particularly Measurement-Based QC, which fully utilizes quantum light field advantages, but has been hindered by the lack of deterministic non-Gaussian photon state generation and is not addressed in the Quantum Flagship. Using our platform for deterministic photon subtraction will address this and, with a CV theory roadmap we will develop, pave the way for photonic QC. Our two-photon gates will also be applicable to Discrete-Variable QIP, placing PANDA in a complementary position to many possible portfolio projects. PANDA incorporates world-class experimentalists and theorists from leading research groups and SMEs with the expertise required to develop core technology that will both yield marketable IPR and fulfill our ambitious objectives.

Solid-state materials hosting topological insulating (TI) states have been intensely studied following predictions that their bulk and surface features may serve as robust platforms for spintronics, quantum computing, and magnetoelectric responses. 3D topological crystalline insulator (TCI) states protected by crystal symmetries have also been predicted, and through first-principles (DFT) calculations, thousands of candidate TIs and TCIs have been identified, including correlated charge-density-wave and magnetic variants. Though topological materials can readily be mathematically classified, we still do not know the bulk experimental signatures and advantageous properties of most topological states, limiting their practical applicability in chemistry, materials science, and quantum devices. To unlock the immense promise of solid-state TIs and TCIs, I propose to leverage the group theory of crystal symmetries to produce a “Rosetta Stone” to translate the mathematical topological classification into robust and intuitive experimental observables, such as the spin and charge trapped by defects and new electromagnetic responses. First, we will devise theories of topological spin-, orbital- (valley-), and layer-resolved bulk, surface, and crystal defect responses in 3D TCIs and introduce numerical methods for their identification in real materials. Next, we will for the first time construct a position-space, symmetry-based methodology for systematically enumerating and analyzing superconducting (SC) TCIs, which may host excitations advantageous to the storage and manipulation of quantum information. We will introduce the fundamentally new notion of SC symmetry groups to characterize SC TCIs by exploiting tension between their position- and momentum-space descriptions. This will uniquely allow us to side-step specifying the mechanism or strength of the SC order. For both lines of inquiry, we will apply data mining and DFT to identify and characterize material candidates.

Biomedical screening at single-cell and bioparticles level has the potential to transform clinical diagnostics, but the research and development in this field are scattered in different disciplines: biophotonics, micromanipulation, machine learning, in vitro diagnostics, and clinical regulations are traditionally imparted in separate training programs. NEXTSCREEN aims to train and establish a network of researchers with the expertise required for the development of next-generation screening methods, based on automatic imaging and classification of samples moving along a liquid stream. The researchers have the objectives to reduce the cost and complexity of imaging flow cytometry; empower it with novel contrast mechanisms; build high-resolution automatic microscopes at the diffraction limit and beyond; develop real-time data processing tools able to detect and recognize the samples, circumventing the need for manual annotation. Using these technologies they will characterize blood cells and bioparticles, screening large cellular populations, with the goal to identify and characterize cancer biomarkers, in samples derived from liquid biopsies. The ultimate goal is to initiate the development of diagnostics tools, that could be adopted in clinical settings on a large scale, democratizing the use of automatic screening. The project brings together academic and industrial research groups, that are leading the field of imaging flow cytometry, with complementary know-how in high-resolution microscopy, high-precision microfluidics, biotechnologies, and weakly-supervised deep learning, that will facilitate the development of data-driven cells and bioparticle screening.

The main objective in DEMO is to provide high-level hands-on, computational and transferable skill training to 13 Doctoral Candidates (DC) through a Joint Doctorate Program and to create a new generation of experts in hybrid catalysis. DEMO uses light (C1-C4) alkanes as example to study the conversion of a sustainable molecule (biomethane) into a relevant chemical in industry (methanol). This project combines 9 world-class research groups, experts in chemical engineering, organic chemistry, catalysis, modelling and spectroscopy from 7 countries. The 9 partners in academic (3), research centre (3), SME (2) and industrial (1) fields will provide recruited DCs with unique perspectives, preparing DCs for their personal career in research with specific skillsets. DEMO will integrate machine learning, organic chemistry, ab initio modelling, high-throughput and reactor engineering and in situ spectroscopy to discover enzyme-like species in Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs). Specifically, DEMO will follow an interconnected strategy to discover optimal catalyst candidates: a) virtually generate a dataset with active species in MOFs and screen via Machine Learning; b) test the dataset value of a large sample dataset via experimental high-throughput engineering and modelling; c) understand testing outputs through in situ spectroscopy, titration kinetics and modelling; d) optimise protocols for synthetic materials towards biological analogies and engineer reaction conditions to search solvation phenomena. This way, DEMO expects to have a broad impact on the scientific community, EU industry and society by providing high-quality training in hybrid catalysis.

We live in a crucial historical moment, with tremendous challenges ahead, from climate change to the energy crisis. ELIAS emerges from the belief that AI will be a key discipline to help us tackle these challenges. At the same time, the development of AI entails deep ethical and societal concerns that need to be addressed. As for fundamental research, ELIAS will address key scientific questions about how AI can reduce computational costs, serves to model effects of policy decisions on society, and impacts individuals. ELIAS will strive for a deep integration of the fundamental research that takes place in academia and the more applications-focused research from industry. ELIAS builds on and expands the highly successful and internationally recognized European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS). ELIAS will further develop the excellence criteria and the pillars in ELLIS and implement actions that will support AI researchers and young talents at different stages of their careers. Furthermore, ELIAS will develop a Sciencentrepreneurship track, with the purpose of attracting and empowering talents at the interface of scientific innovation and business and establish original AI solutions that move towards a sustainable long-term future for our planet, contribute to a cohesive society, and respect individual rights. The outcome of ELIAS will be to establish Europe as a leader in AI research in which impact on the environment, society and the individual are integral considerations during development. We will measure the success of this endeavor in terms of key indicators, including the number of new cross-institutional collaborations, the number of cross-disciplinary collaborations, the number of industry-academic partnerships, publications in top conferences and journals, patents, and the number of projects that have resulted in deployed technologies.

LiDAR – or Light Detection and Ranging – technology is popping up everywhere. Industry experts are predicting an ever-greater enabling role for LiDAR in everything from advanced driving support systems to autonomous driving, to autonomous mobility applications, to gas sensing, etc. The demand for the technology is at an all-time high, and it is expected to experience a steadily accelerating adoption across markets. NiteLiDAR will break new ground in LiDAR technology by allowing higher levels of integration including optical phased array based solid-state beam steering and on-chip frequency-modulated continuous-wave based ranging, thus moving away from mechanical components, which will bring down the cost of LiDAR. To achieve this, NiteLiDAR will leverage on beyond-state-of-the-art knowledge being generated around photonic integrated circuits (PIC) and electronic integrated circuits (EIC), while addressing current gaps, and tackling the paucity of knowledge around the largely underexploited LiDAR-on-a-chip technology. NiteLiDAR, therefore, creates a platform solution vouching for the European leadership in next-generation LiDAR technologies. The mission of NiteLiDAR is to train 10 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) with out-of-the-box thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset in the field of LiDAR technologies as a specific expertise, and photonic and electronic integration (i.e., semiconductor) skills and expertise in a broader perspective, which are KEY for the implementation of the EU Chips Act, and - wider - for the European semiconductor autonomy.

The green transition of energy systems requires the implementation of a number of novel emerging energy conversion technologies based on turbomachinery with two-phase flow. However, the current level of knowledge and understanding of two-phase flow in turbomachinery is at a very low level, urgently calling for the need of education of scientists that can support the development of such technologies. The aim of Training42Phase is to educate the future leading scientists within turbomachinery with two-phase flow, thereby providing the scientific and technological basis required for the development of the next generation of turbomachinery. The project consortium includes all the key partners needed to address these challenging tasks and provide our group of 10 doctoral candidates with the best foundation for solving these challenges – leading European universities, and industrial partners from large international companies and SMEs, representing technology suppliers and providers of digitalized solutions. Training42phase will provide a first of its kind excellent training for 10 doctoral candidates within the following fields: 1) Innovative technological solutions that enable the design of cost-effective and reliable turbomachinery with two-phase flow. 2) Cutting-edge multi-disciplinary training in all fields related to the modelling, design, optimization and performance prediction of turbomachinery with two-phase flow, including aero-thermal modelling and design, stress and fatigue analysis, structural dynamics, hybrid/data-driven failure mechanism models, advanced optimization methods and data-driven analytic techniques based on machine learning. 3) Application of turbomachinery with two-phase flow to emerging novel technologies. 4) Top-level training in transferable skills, such as research and data management, scientific integrity and ethics, intellectual property rights and entrepreneurship, business planning, career planning and grant proposal writing.

The proposal focuses on the Next Generation AI topic of the call HORIZON-CL4-2022-HUMAN-02-02. The vision of dAIEDGE Network of Excellence (NoE) is to strengthen and support the development of the dynamic European edge and distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem as an essential ingredient in the growth and competitiveness of European industrial sectors. The dAIEDGE Network aims to reinforce the research and innovation value chains to accelerate the digital and green transitions through advanced edge AI technologies, applications, and innovations, building on Europe's existing assets and industrial strengths. In parallel, it will fortify the edge AI research and industrial communities through technological developments beyond state of the art and become a dependable and strategic pillar for the European AI Lighthouse. This will be achieved by mobilising and connecting the European AI and edge AI constituency, the relevant stakeholders, European partnerships, and projects, to provide roadmaps, guidelines and trends supporting the next-generation edge AI technologies. The key aim is to support and ensure rapid development, market uptake and open strategic sovereignty for Europe in the critical technologies for distributed edge AI (hardware, software, frameworks, tools). The dAIEDGE NoE will play a catalyst role in building a solid edge AI virtual network of research facilities and laboratories to benefit the European research and industrial community. The NoE multidisciplinary concept provide an arena for matchmaking, exchanging ideas, tools, and services, by bringing together the leading research centres, AI-on-demand platforms, digital innovation hubs, AI projects and initiatives. The ultimate goal for the dAIEDGE NoE is to support Europe to become a global centre of excellence with unique human-centred edge AI competence addressing the social and economic challenges and the needs of the citizens and society.

Manufacturing, construction, and agriculture are major driving forces for the European economy and prosperity. Maintaining its competitiveness in these sectors demands highly efficient and flexible processes, and this can be achieved through digitization. Novel intelligent robotic capabilities that can be deployed side-by-side with humans and can operate and adapt to dynamic environments can accelerate this process. However, existing robotic systems cannot fit well into such settings as they are not versatile and flexible enough to automate certain tasks, cannot collaborate safely with humans in open and dynamic environments, nor are they easily and economically adaptable to process changes. The SOPRANO project coalesces multidisciplinary research and innovation in human-robot collaboration and intelligent multi-agent systems, aspiring to design the next generation of manufacturing floors, construction sites, and agri-food production, where humans and intelligent machines will seamlessly work together. It proposes to scale collaboration from the single human-agent dyad to a peer-based synergy between multiple interconnected robotic systems featuring different physical and cognitive properties, supporting various tasks in collaboration with human workers, robotics and other agents. SOPRANO will validate the technological offering in three novel and open-access use cases addressing both large-scale industries and small to medium enterprises, adding value to EU key sectors and instrumenting community building surrounding the open-source technologies in the EU industrial ecosystem. During the project, we will also enable external SMEs and start-ups to benefit from the project technologies via an open call, which will enable the building of demonstrators using SOPRANO technologies that will open new market opportunities for their products and services.

Natural hazards, such as extreme weather events, are exacerbated by climate change. As a result, emergency responses are becoming more protracted, expensive, frequent, and stretching limited available resources. This is especially apparent in rapidly warming regions. MedEWSa addresses these challenges by providing novel solutions to ensure timely, precise, and actionable impact and finance forecasting, and early warning systems (EWS) that support the rapid deployment of first responders to vulnerable areas. Specifically, MedEWSa will deliver a sophisticated, comprehensive, and innovative pan-European–Mediterranean–African solution comprising a range of complementary services. Building on existing tools MedEWSa will develop a fully integrated impact-based multi-hazard EWS. This call contained five expected outcomes, all of which will be specifically addressed by MedEWSa. Led by JLU, MedEWSa will be an exemplar of the UN Secretary General’s March 2022 call to ensure that everyone on Earth is protected from extreme weather and climate-related hazards by EWS within the next five years. Through eight carefully selected pilot sites (areas in Europe, the southern Mediterranean, and Africa with a history of being impacted by natural hazards and extreme events with cascading effects), four twins will be created: ● Twin #1: Greece (Attica) – Ethiopia (National Parks): wildfires and extreme weather events (droughts, wind) ● Twin #2: Italy (Venice) – Egypt (Alexandria / Nile Delta): coastal floods and storm surges ● Twin #3: Slovakia (Kosice) – Georgia (Tbilisi): floods and landslides ● Twin #4: Spain (Catalonia) – Sweden (countrywide): heatwaves, droughts and wildfires. The twins will bridge areas with different climatic/physiographic conditions, yet subject to similar hazards, and are well positioned to deliver long-term bi-directional knowledge transfer. They will demonstrate the transferability and versatility of the tools developed in MedEWSa.

As its surroundings changes radically and climate conditions deteriorates, Europe and its Members adapt to these current challenges. To this end and in order to maximise their usability, the EC established a framework of a common policy (EU Security Market study) by categorizing potential technologies per security domain, including Critical Infrastructure (CI) Protection. This trend is indicative for the importance and significancy that the EC gives to these matters. Any potential disruption, either intentional as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, may risk smooth operations of such structures that may have a severe impact on a local society and its daily activities or well-being. Current advancements in various technologies can be particularly beneficial in CI protection especially when they can provide a timely support without the necessity of a human in the loop. TESTUDO, aligned with the need of a holistic and autonomous security approach in CI protection domain and with the European Commission’s objectives, will utilize advanced unmanned vehicles along with existing equipment to deliver a highly mature platform for continuous monitoring even at harsh environments and remote territories. Tailored to the needs of the domain and targeting to maximize the platform’s autonomy capabilities, TESTUDO intends to incorporate state-of-the-art technologies for detection, prevention and prediction increasing their cognitive capabilities for different types of hazardous events. In addition, optimization techniques will identify the resources needed for the execution of high-level missions contributing to the total autonomy of the deployable system. A multidisciplinary group of technical innovators for AI-based models, CBRN, cyber-security detection, Digital twins and XAI along with the CI-related experts will collaborate to deliver an innovative action and solution to protect various CIs during a long operational period and completely autonomously.