ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

The widespread adoption of the Internet and its influence on our daily life is unquestioned. Global Zettabyte traffic has rendered photonics as indispensable for the communication infrastructure. While direct signal detection has been dismissed in radio communications decades ago, it prevails in short- and medium-reach optics in virtue of its simplicity. In such an environment photonics can only rely on incremental improvements, whereas it desperately seeks for disruptive concepts. COYOTE envisions a novel coherent homodyne transceiver concept for analogue signals and access to higher-order formats with efficiencies of 10 bits/symbol. On top of this, high-fidelity transport of multi-band 5G radio signals in the millimetre-wave range up to 100 GHz will be enabled by analogue coherent photonics while mitigating energy-hungry digital signal processing. COYOTE takes one more leap and dares the contradictory full-duplex data transmission in virtue of its novel reception engine to ultimately guarantee a lean solution with greatly simplified yet flexible “hardware”. The key asset of COYOTE’s coherent engine will be a locked laser with improved coherence characteristics together with a flexible modulator-detector element, which is capable to emulate direct-detection systems in a transparent way while giving birth to novel networking concepts. Exploration of the 3D Stokes and 2D quadrature spaces through a segmented receiver architecture will boost the spectral efficiency to >10 bits/s/Hz. It is the lean and yet efficient coherent transceiver methodology of COYOTE that will remove the currently existing boundary between direct-detection and coherent systems in the midst of network reaches. By coherently “reviving” these telecom segments of integrated wireline-wireless access networks, optical interconnects for intra-datacentre connectivity and even quantum communication, an order-of-magnitude improvement in terms of spectral efficiency x reach product will be gained.

1 500 000 €

Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31

This project aims to improve our understanding of deep integration agreements, which have generated an extraordinary amount of controversy in recent years. Unlike ordinary trade agreements, deep integration agreements do not just focus on reducing tariff barriers but seek to achieve much broader economic integration. Prominent examples include the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiated between the EU and the US and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiated between the EU and Canada. I proceed in three complementary parts, focusing on the most controversial deep integration issues. In a first part, I consider provisions regarding investor protection including the Investor-State Dispute Settlement System. My ambition is to provide a comprehensive theoretical treatment of international investment agreements, which sheds light on their fundamental purpose and assesses their real-world design. In a second part, I turn to efforts towards regulatory cooperation such as CETA’s Regulatory Cooperation Forum. Here, my goal is again to provide a broad theoretical analysis, which identifies the scope for regulatory cooperation and makes suggestions for their real-world design. In a third part, I study intellectual property rights protection, specifically the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In particular, I propose to take a canonical model of intellectual property rights agreements to the data and quantitatively assess the efficiency and equity implications of TRIPS.

1 433 281 €

Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31

In the past few years, there has been a growing popular backlash against international institutions. Examples include the 2015 Greek bailout referendum, the 2016 Brexit referendum, or the 2016 election of a US President seemingly determined to withdraw US support from various international treaties. The implications of these mass-based disintegration efforts reach far beyond the countries in which they originate. First, the disintegration process is shaped by how remaining member states respond to one member’s bid to unilaterally change or terminate the terms of an existing international agreement. Second, mass-based disintegration bids pose considerable political contagion risks by encouraging disintegrative tendencies in other countries. Unfortunately, our theoretical tools to understand such international disintegration processes are underdeveloped. DISINTEGRATION therefore conducts a broad, systematic, and comparative inquiry into the mass politics of disintegration that pays particular attention to reactions in the remaining member states. It explores when and how one country’s mass-based disintegration experience encourages or deters demands for disintegration in other countries, how these contagion effects are transmitted through domestic elites and domestic discourse, and how the remaining member states ultimately respond during disintegration negotiations. It undertakes large-scale multi-method data collection that exploits the research opportunities offered by two ongoing mass-based disintegration processes: the Brexit negotiations and an upcoming Swiss referendum aimed at terminating a Swiss-EU bilateral treaty. DISINTEGRATION’s main objective is to develop a much-needed theory of mass-based disintegration that helps us understand the transnational dynamics that unfold between governments, political elites and the mass public when one member state attempts to unilaterally withdraw from an international agreement on the basis of widespread popular support.

1 998 626 €

Start date: 2019-05-01, End date: 2024-04-30

Nature uses self-assembly to build fascinating supramolecular materials, such as microtubules and protein filaments, that can self-heal, reconfigure, adapt or respond to specific stimuli in dynamic way. Building synthetic (polymeric) supramolecular materials possessing similar bioinspired properties via the same self-assembly principles is interesting for many applications. But their rational design requires a detailed comprehension of the molecular determinants controlling the assembly (structure, dynamics and properties) that is typically very difficult to reach experimentally. The aim of this project is to obtain structure-dynamics-property relationships to learn how to control the dynamic bioinspired properties of supramolecular polymers. I propose to unravel the molecular origin of the bioinspired behavior through massive multiscale modeling, advanced simulations and machine learning. First, we will develop ad hoc molecular models to study monomer assembly and the supramolecular structure of various types of self-assembled materials on multiple scales. Second, using advanced simulation approaches we will characterize the supramolecular dynamics of these materials (dynamic exchange of monomers) at high (submolecular) resolution. We will then study bioinspired properties such as the ability of various supramolecular materials to self-heal, adapt or reconfigure dynamically in response to specific stimuli. Our models will be systematically validated by comparison with the experimental evidence from our collaborators. Finally, we will use machine learning approaches to analyze our high-resolution simulations and to identify the key monomer features that control and determine the structure, dynamics and dynamic properties of a supramolecular material (i.e., structure-dynamics-property relationships). This research will produce unprecedented insight and fundamental models for the rational design of artificial dynamic materials with controllable bioinspired properties.

1 999 623 €

Start date: 2019-06-01, End date: 2024-05-31