Project acronym 2DQP
Project Two-dimensional quantum photonics
Researcher (PI) Brian David GERARDOT
Host Institution (HI) HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE3, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Quantum optics, the study of how discrete packets of light (photons) and matter interact, has led to the development of remarkable new technologies which exploit the bizarre properties of quantum mechanics. These quantum technologies are primed to revolutionize the fields of communication, information processing, and metrology in the coming years. Similar to contemporary technologies, the future quantum machinery will likely consist of a semiconductor platform to create and process the quantum information. However, to date the demanding requirements on a quantum photonic platform have yet to be satisfied with conventional bulk (three-dimensional) semiconductors.
To surmount these well-known obstacles, a new paradigm in quantum photonics is required. Initiated by the recent discovery of single photon emitters in atomically flat (two-dimensional) semiconducting materials, 2DQP aims to be at the nucleus of a new approach by realizing quantum optics with ultra-stable (coherent) quantum states integrated into devices with electronic and photonic functionality. We will characterize, identify, engineer, and coherently manipulate localized quantum states in this two-dimensional quantum photonic platform. A vital component of 2DQP’s vision is to go beyond the fundamental science and achieve the ideal solid-state single photon device yielding perfect extraction - 100% efficiency - of on-demand indistinguishable single photons. Finally, we will exploit this ideal device to implement the critical building block for a photonic quantum computer.
Summary
Quantum optics, the study of how discrete packets of light (photons) and matter interact, has led to the development of remarkable new technologies which exploit the bizarre properties of quantum mechanics. These quantum technologies are primed to revolutionize the fields of communication, information processing, and metrology in the coming years. Similar to contemporary technologies, the future quantum machinery will likely consist of a semiconductor platform to create and process the quantum information. However, to date the demanding requirements on a quantum photonic platform have yet to be satisfied with conventional bulk (three-dimensional) semiconductors.
To surmount these well-known obstacles, a new paradigm in quantum photonics is required. Initiated by the recent discovery of single photon emitters in atomically flat (two-dimensional) semiconducting materials, 2DQP aims to be at the nucleus of a new approach by realizing quantum optics with ultra-stable (coherent) quantum states integrated into devices with electronic and photonic functionality. We will characterize, identify, engineer, and coherently manipulate localized quantum states in this two-dimensional quantum photonic platform. A vital component of 2DQP’s vision is to go beyond the fundamental science and achieve the ideal solid-state single photon device yielding perfect extraction - 100% efficiency - of on-demand indistinguishable single photons. Finally, we will exploit this ideal device to implement the critical building block for a photonic quantum computer.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 135 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym ALTERUMMA
Project Creating an Alternative umma: Clerical Authority and Religio-political Mobilisation in Transnational Shii Islam
Researcher (PI) Oliver Paul SCHARBRODT
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Summary
This interdisciplinary project investigates the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. The project examines the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in their religio-political mobilisation. The volatile situation post-Arab Spring, the rise of militant movements such as ISIS and the sectarianisation of geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East have intensified efforts to forge distinct Shii communal identities and to conceive Shii Muslims as part of an alternative umma (Islamic community). The project focusses on Iran, Iraq and significant but unexplored diasporic links to Syria, Kuwait and Britain. In response to the rise of modern nation-states in the Middle East, Shii clerical authorities resorted to a wide range of activities: (a) articulating intellectual responses to the ideologies underpinning modern Middle Eastern nation-states, (b) forming political parties and other platforms of socio-political activism and (c) using various forms of cultural production by systematising and promoting Shii ritual practices and utilising visual art, poetry and new media.
The project yields a perspectival shift on the factors that led to Shii communal mobilisation by:
- Analysing unacknowledged intellectual responses of Shii clerical authorities to the secular or sectarian ideologies of post-colonial nation-states and to the current sectarianisation of geopolitics in the Middle East.
- Emphasising the central role of diasporic networks in the Middle East and Europe in mobilising Shii communities and in influencing discourses and agendas of clerical authorities based in Iraq and Iran.
- Exploring new modes of cultural production in the form of a modern Shii aesthetics articulated in ritual practices, visual art, poetry and new media and thus creating a more holistic narrative on Shii religio-political mobilisation.
Max ERC Funding
1 952 374 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym AMPLITUDES
Project Novel structures in scattering amplitudes
Researcher (PI) Johannes Martin HENN
Host Institution (HI) JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAT MAINZ
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE2, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This project focuses on developing quantum field theory methods and applying them to the phenomenology of elementary particles. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) our current best theoretical understanding of particle physics is being tested against experiment by measuring e.g. properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson. With run two of the LHC, currently underway, the experimental accuracy will further increase. Theoretical predictions matching the latter are urgently needed. Obtaining these requires extremely difficult calculations of scattering amplitudes and cross sections in quantum field theory, including calculations to correctly describe large contributions due to long-distance physics in the latter. Major obstacles in such computations are the large number of Feynman diagrams that are difficult to handle, even with the help of modern computers, and the computation of Feynman loop integrals. To address these issues, we will develop innovative methods that are inspired by new structures found in supersymmetric field theories. We will extend the scope of the differential equations method for computing Feynman integrals, and apply it to scattering processes that are needed for phenomenology, but too complicated to analyze using current methods. Our results will help measure fundamental parameters of Nature, such as, for example, couplings of the Higgs boson, with unprecedented precision. Moreover, by accurately predicting backgrounds from known physics, our results will also be invaluable for searches of new particles.
Summary
This project focuses on developing quantum field theory methods and applying them to the phenomenology of elementary particles. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) our current best theoretical understanding of particle physics is being tested against experiment by measuring e.g. properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson. With run two of the LHC, currently underway, the experimental accuracy will further increase. Theoretical predictions matching the latter are urgently needed. Obtaining these requires extremely difficult calculations of scattering amplitudes and cross sections in quantum field theory, including calculations to correctly describe large contributions due to long-distance physics in the latter. Major obstacles in such computations are the large number of Feynman diagrams that are difficult to handle, even with the help of modern computers, and the computation of Feynman loop integrals. To address these issues, we will develop innovative methods that are inspired by new structures found in supersymmetric field theories. We will extend the scope of the differential equations method for computing Feynman integrals, and apply it to scattering processes that are needed for phenomenology, but too complicated to analyze using current methods. Our results will help measure fundamental parameters of Nature, such as, for example, couplings of the Higgs boson, with unprecedented precision. Moreover, by accurately predicting backgrounds from known physics, our results will also be invaluable for searches of new particles.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym ARCTIC CULT
Project ARCTIC CULTURES: SITES OF COLLECTION IN THE FORMATION OF THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN NORTHLANDS
Researcher (PI) Richard Charles POWELL
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The Arctic has risen to global attention in recent years, as it has been reconfigured through debates about global environmental change, resource extraction and disputes over sovereign rights. Within these discourses, little attention has been paid to the cultures of the Arctic. Indeed, it often seems as if the Circumpolar Arctic in global public understanding remains framed as a 'natural region' - that is, a place where the environment dominates the creation of culture. This framing has consequences for the region, because through this the Arctic becomes constructed as a space where people are absent. This proposal aims to discover how and why this might be so.
The proposal argues that this construction of the Arctic emerged from the exploration of the region by Europeans and North Americans and their contacts with indigenous people from the middle of the eighteenth century. Particular texts, cartographic representations and objects were collected and returned to sites like London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Philadelphia. The construction of the Arctic thereby became entwined within the growth of colonial museum cultures and, indeed, western modernity. This project aims to delineate the networks and collecting cultures involved in this creation of Arctic Cultures. It will bring repositories in colonial metropoles into dialogue with sites of collection in the Arctic by tracing the contexts of discovery and memorialisation. In doing so, it aspires to a new understanding of the consequences of certain forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today.
The project involves research by the Principal Investigator and four Post Doctoral Researchers at museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. A Project Assistant based in Oxford will help facilitate the completion of the research.
Summary
The Arctic has risen to global attention in recent years, as it has been reconfigured through debates about global environmental change, resource extraction and disputes over sovereign rights. Within these discourses, little attention has been paid to the cultures of the Arctic. Indeed, it often seems as if the Circumpolar Arctic in global public understanding remains framed as a 'natural region' - that is, a place where the environment dominates the creation of culture. This framing has consequences for the region, because through this the Arctic becomes constructed as a space where people are absent. This proposal aims to discover how and why this might be so.
The proposal argues that this construction of the Arctic emerged from the exploration of the region by Europeans and North Americans and their contacts with indigenous people from the middle of the eighteenth century. Particular texts, cartographic representations and objects were collected and returned to sites like London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Philadelphia. The construction of the Arctic thereby became entwined within the growth of colonial museum cultures and, indeed, western modernity. This project aims to delineate the networks and collecting cultures involved in this creation of Arctic Cultures. It will bring repositories in colonial metropoles into dialogue with sites of collection in the Arctic by tracing the contexts of discovery and memorialisation. In doing so, it aspires to a new understanding of the consequences of certain forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today.
The project involves research by the Principal Investigator and four Post Doctoral Researchers at museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. A Project Assistant based in Oxford will help facilitate the completion of the research.
Max ERC Funding
1 996 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-10-01, End date: 2022-09-30
Project acronym ARTEFACT
Project The Global as Artefact: Understanding the Patterns of Global Political History Through an Anthropology of Knowledge -- The Case of Agriculture in Four Global Systems from the Neolithic to the Present
Researcher (PI) INANNA HAMATI-ATAYA
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Knowledge is an anthropological constant that is indissociable from the birth and interactions of human societies, but is at best a secondary concern for scholars of international relations and globalization. Contemporary global studies are thus unable to account for the co-constitution of knowledge and politics at a macro-scale, and remain especially blind to the historical patterns of epistemic development that operate at the level of the species as a whole and have shaped its global political history in specific, path-dependent ways up to now.
ARTEFACT is the first project to pursue a knowledge-centered investigation of global politics. It is uniquely grounded in an anthropological approach that treats globalization and human knowledges beyond their modern manifestations, from the longue-durée perspective of our species’ social history. 'The global as artefact' is more than a metaphor. It reflects the premise that human collectives 'make' the political world not merely through ideas, language, or norms, but primordially through the material infrastructures, solutions, objects, practices, and skills they develop in response to evolving structural challenges.
ARTEFACT takes agriculture as an exemplary and especially timely case-study to illuminate the entangled global histories of knowledge and politics, analyzing and comparing four increasingly inclusive 'global political systems' of the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary eras and their associated agrarian socio-epistemic revolutions.
ARTEFACT ultimately aims to 1) develop an original theory of the global, 2) launch Global Knowledge Studies as a new cross-disciplinary domain of systematic empirical and theoretical study, and 3) push the respective boundaries of the anthropology of knowledge, global history, and international theory beyond the state-of-the-art and toward a holistic understanding that can illuminate how past trends of socio-epistemic evolution might shape future paths of global life.
Summary
Knowledge is an anthropological constant that is indissociable from the birth and interactions of human societies, but is at best a secondary concern for scholars of international relations and globalization. Contemporary global studies are thus unable to account for the co-constitution of knowledge and politics at a macro-scale, and remain especially blind to the historical patterns of epistemic development that operate at the level of the species as a whole and have shaped its global political history in specific, path-dependent ways up to now.
ARTEFACT is the first project to pursue a knowledge-centered investigation of global politics. It is uniquely grounded in an anthropological approach that treats globalization and human knowledges beyond their modern manifestations, from the longue-durée perspective of our species’ social history. 'The global as artefact' is more than a metaphor. It reflects the premise that human collectives 'make' the political world not merely through ideas, language, or norms, but primordially through the material infrastructures, solutions, objects, practices, and skills they develop in response to evolving structural challenges.
ARTEFACT takes agriculture as an exemplary and especially timely case-study to illuminate the entangled global histories of knowledge and politics, analyzing and comparing four increasingly inclusive 'global political systems' of the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary eras and their associated agrarian socio-epistemic revolutions.
ARTEFACT ultimately aims to 1) develop an original theory of the global, 2) launch Global Knowledge Studies as a new cross-disciplinary domain of systematic empirical and theoretical study, and 3) push the respective boundaries of the anthropology of knowledge, global history, and international theory beyond the state-of-the-art and toward a holistic understanding that can illuminate how past trends of socio-epistemic evolution might shape future paths of global life.
Max ERC Funding
1 428 165 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
Project acronym AveTransRisk
Project Average - Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)
Researcher (PI) Maria FUSARO
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2016-COG
Summary This project focuses on the historical analysis of institutions and their impact on economic development through the investigation of a legal instrument – general average (GA) – which underpins maritime trade by redistributing damages’ costs across all interested parties. This will be pursued through the comparative investigation of GA in those European countries where substantial data exists: Italy, Spain, England, France and the Low Countries (1500-1800). Average and insurance were both created in the Middle Ages to facilitate trade through the redistribution of risk. Insurance has been widely studied, average – the expenses which can befall ships and cargoes from the time of their loading aboard until their unloading (due to accidents, jettison, and unexpected costs) – has been neglected. GA still plays an essential role in the redistribution of transaction costs, and being a form of strictly mutual self-protection, never evolved into a speculative financial instrument as insurance did; it therefore represents an excellent case of long-term effectiveness of a non-market economic phenomenon. Although the principle behind GA was very similar across Europe, in practice there were substantial differences in declaring and adjudicating claims. GA reports provide unparalleled evidence on maritime trade which, analysed quantitatively and quantitatively through a novel interdisciplinary approach, will contribute to the reassessment of the role played by the maritime sector in fostering economic growth during the early modern first globalization, when GA was the object of fierce debates on state jurisdiction and standardization of practice. Today they are regulated by the York-Antwerp Rules (YAR), currently under revision. This timely conjuncture provides plenty of opportunities for active engagement with practitioners, thereby fostering a creative dialogue on GA historical study and its future development to better face the challenges of mature globalization.
Summary
This project focuses on the historical analysis of institutions and their impact on economic development through the investigation of a legal instrument – general average (GA) – which underpins maritime trade by redistributing damages’ costs across all interested parties. This will be pursued through the comparative investigation of GA in those European countries where substantial data exists: Italy, Spain, England, France and the Low Countries (1500-1800). Average and insurance were both created in the Middle Ages to facilitate trade through the redistribution of risk. Insurance has been widely studied, average – the expenses which can befall ships and cargoes from the time of their loading aboard until their unloading (due to accidents, jettison, and unexpected costs) – has been neglected. GA still plays an essential role in the redistribution of transaction costs, and being a form of strictly mutual self-protection, never evolved into a speculative financial instrument as insurance did; it therefore represents an excellent case of long-term effectiveness of a non-market economic phenomenon. Although the principle behind GA was very similar across Europe, in practice there were substantial differences in declaring and adjudicating claims. GA reports provide unparalleled evidence on maritime trade which, analysed quantitatively and quantitatively through a novel interdisciplinary approach, will contribute to the reassessment of the role played by the maritime sector in fostering economic growth during the early modern first globalization, when GA was the object of fierce debates on state jurisdiction and standardization of practice. Today they are regulated by the York-Antwerp Rules (YAR), currently under revision. This timely conjuncture provides plenty of opportunities for active engagement with practitioners, thereby fostering a creative dialogue on GA historical study and its future development to better face the challenges of mature globalization.
Max ERC Funding
1 854 256 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-07-01, End date: 2022-06-30
Project acronym BAPS
Project Bayesian Agent-based Population Studies: Transforming Simulation Models of Human Migration
Researcher (PI) Jakub KAZIMIERZ BIJAK
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The aim of BAPS is to develop a ground-breaking simulation model of international migration, based on a population of intelligent, cognitive agents, their social networks and institutions, all interacting with one another. The project will transform the study of migration – one of the most uncertain population processes and a top-priority EU policy area – by offering a step change in the way it can be understood, predicted and managed. In this way, BAPS will effectively integrate behavioural and social theory with modelling.
To develop micro-foundations for migration studies, model design will follow cutting-edge developments in demography, statistics, cognitive psychology and computer science. BAPS will also offer a pioneering environment for applying the findings in practice through a bespoke modelling language. Bayesian statistical principles will be used to design innovative computer experiments, and learn about modelling the simulated individuals and the way they make decisions.
In BAPS, we will collate available information for migration models; build and test the simulations by applying experimental design principles to enhance our knowledge of migration processes; collect information on the underpinning decision-making mechanisms through psychological experiments; and design software for implementing Bayesian agent-based models in practice. The project will use various information sources to build models bottom-up, filling an important epistemological gap in demography.
BAPS will be carried out by the Allianz European Demographer 2015, recognised as a leader in the field for methodological innovation, directing an interdisciplinary team with expertise in demography, agent-based models, statistical analysis of uncertainty, meta-cognition, and computer simulations. The project will open up exciting research possibilities beyond demography, and will generate both academic and practical impact, offering methodological advice for policy-relevant simulations.
Summary
The aim of BAPS is to develop a ground-breaking simulation model of international migration, based on a population of intelligent, cognitive agents, their social networks and institutions, all interacting with one another. The project will transform the study of migration – one of the most uncertain population processes and a top-priority EU policy area – by offering a step change in the way it can be understood, predicted and managed. In this way, BAPS will effectively integrate behavioural and social theory with modelling.
To develop micro-foundations for migration studies, model design will follow cutting-edge developments in demography, statistics, cognitive psychology and computer science. BAPS will also offer a pioneering environment for applying the findings in practice through a bespoke modelling language. Bayesian statistical principles will be used to design innovative computer experiments, and learn about modelling the simulated individuals and the way they make decisions.
In BAPS, we will collate available information for migration models; build and test the simulations by applying experimental design principles to enhance our knowledge of migration processes; collect information on the underpinning decision-making mechanisms through psychological experiments; and design software for implementing Bayesian agent-based models in practice. The project will use various information sources to build models bottom-up, filling an important epistemological gap in demography.
BAPS will be carried out by the Allianz European Demographer 2015, recognised as a leader in the field for methodological innovation, directing an interdisciplinary team with expertise in demography, agent-based models, statistical analysis of uncertainty, meta-cognition, and computer simulations. The project will open up exciting research possibilities beyond demography, and will generate both academic and practical impact, offering methodological advice for policy-relevant simulations.
Max ERC Funding
1 455 590 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-06-01, End date: 2021-05-31
Project acronym BePreSysE
Project Beyond Precision Cosmology: dealing with Systematic Errors
Researcher (PI) Licia VERDE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE9, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Over the past 20 years cosmology has made the transition to a precision science: the standard cosmological model has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. But precision is not enough: accuracy is also crucial. Accuracy accounts for systematic errors which can be both on the observational and on the theory/modelling side (and everywhere in between). While there is a well-defined and developed framework for treating statistical errors, there is no established approach for systematic errors. The next decade will see the era of large surveys; a large coordinated effort of the scientific community in the field is on-going to map the cosmos producing an exponentially growing amount of data. This will shrink the statistical errors, making mitigation and control of systematics of the utmost importance. While there are isolated and targeted efforts to quantify systematic errors and propagate them through all the way to the final results, there is no well-established, self-consistent methodology. To go beyond precision cosmology and reap the benefits of the forthcoming observational program, a systematic approach to systematics is needed. Systematics should be interpreted in the most general sense as shifts between the recovered measured values and true values of physical quantities. I propose to develop a comprehensive approach to tackle systematic errors with the goal to uncover and quantify otherwise unknown differences between the interpretation of a measurement and reality. This will require to fully develop, combine and systematize all approaches proposed so far (many pioneered by the PI), develop new ones to fill the gaps, study and explore their interplay and finally test and validate the procedure. Beyond Precision Cosmology: Dealing with Systematic Errors (BePreSysE) will develop a framework to deal with systematics in forthcoming Cosmological surveys which, could, in principle, be applied beyond Cosmology.
Summary
Over the past 20 years cosmology has made the transition to a precision science: the standard cosmological model has been established and its parameters are now measured with unprecedented precision. But precision is not enough: accuracy is also crucial. Accuracy accounts for systematic errors which can be both on the observational and on the theory/modelling side (and everywhere in between). While there is a well-defined and developed framework for treating statistical errors, there is no established approach for systematic errors. The next decade will see the era of large surveys; a large coordinated effort of the scientific community in the field is on-going to map the cosmos producing an exponentially growing amount of data. This will shrink the statistical errors, making mitigation and control of systematics of the utmost importance. While there are isolated and targeted efforts to quantify systematic errors and propagate them through all the way to the final results, there is no well-established, self-consistent methodology. To go beyond precision cosmology and reap the benefits of the forthcoming observational program, a systematic approach to systematics is needed. Systematics should be interpreted in the most general sense as shifts between the recovered measured values and true values of physical quantities. I propose to develop a comprehensive approach to tackle systematic errors with the goal to uncover and quantify otherwise unknown differences between the interpretation of a measurement and reality. This will require to fully develop, combine and systematize all approaches proposed so far (many pioneered by the PI), develop new ones to fill the gaps, study and explore their interplay and finally test and validate the procedure. Beyond Precision Cosmology: Dealing with Systematic Errors (BePreSysE) will develop a framework to deal with systematics in forthcoming Cosmological surveys which, could, in principle, be applied beyond Cosmology.
Max ERC Funding
1 835 220 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-06-01, End date: 2022-05-31
Project acronym BETACONTROL
Project Control of amyloid formation via beta-hairpin molecular recognition features
Researcher (PI) Wolfgang HOYER
Host Institution (HI) HEINRICH-HEINE-UNIVERSITAET DUESSELDORF
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE5, ERC-2016-COG
Summary The aggregation of proteins into amyloid fibrils is involved in various diseases which place a high burden on patients, families, caregivers, and healthcare systems, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and type 2 diabetes. While the therapeutic potential of the inhibition of amyloid formation and spreading has been recognized, there is a lack of effective strategies targeting the early steps of the aggregation reaction.
In BETACONTROL, I want to establish a structure-guided approach to the control of amyloid formation and spreading. I will develop small molecule and polypeptide-based ligands that interfere with the initial phases of amyloid formation and thereby suppress any toxic oligomeric or fibrillar assemblies. The ligands will target beta-hairpin molecular recognition features, which I found to be readily accessible in disease-related amyloidogenic proteins. Targeting beta-hairpins enables retardation of protein aggregation by substoichiometric amounts of the ligand, affording inhibition of amyloid formation at low compound concentrations. As the strategy addresses the common propensity of amyloidogenic proteins to adopt beta-structure, it will be applicable to a wide range of proteins associated with various diseases.
BETACONTROL will yield molecular-level insight into the mechanistic basis of amyloid formation and spreading. Furthermore, it will elucidate the significance of beta-hairpins as molecular recognition features in intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and highlight the applicability of these features as targets for interference with protein-protein interactions of IDPs. Ultimately, BETACONTROL will provide a novel therapeutic approach to a range of devastating diseases.
Summary
The aggregation of proteins into amyloid fibrils is involved in various diseases which place a high burden on patients, families, caregivers, and healthcare systems, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and type 2 diabetes. While the therapeutic potential of the inhibition of amyloid formation and spreading has been recognized, there is a lack of effective strategies targeting the early steps of the aggregation reaction.
In BETACONTROL, I want to establish a structure-guided approach to the control of amyloid formation and spreading. I will develop small molecule and polypeptide-based ligands that interfere with the initial phases of amyloid formation and thereby suppress any toxic oligomeric or fibrillar assemblies. The ligands will target beta-hairpin molecular recognition features, which I found to be readily accessible in disease-related amyloidogenic proteins. Targeting beta-hairpins enables retardation of protein aggregation by substoichiometric amounts of the ligand, affording inhibition of amyloid formation at low compound concentrations. As the strategy addresses the common propensity of amyloidogenic proteins to adopt beta-structure, it will be applicable to a wide range of proteins associated with various diseases.
BETACONTROL will yield molecular-level insight into the mechanistic basis of amyloid formation and spreading. Furthermore, it will elucidate the significance of beta-hairpins as molecular recognition features in intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and highlight the applicability of these features as targets for interference with protein-protein interactions of IDPs. Ultimately, BETACONTROL will provide a novel therapeutic approach to a range of devastating diseases.
Max ERC Funding
1 920 697 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-06-01, End date: 2022-05-31
Project acronym BG-BB-AS
Project Birational Geometry, B-branes and Artin Stacks
Researcher (PI) Edward Paul Segal
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE1, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Derived categories of coherent sheaves on a variety are a fundamental tool in algebraic geometry. They also arise in String Theory, as the category of B-branes in a quantum field theory whose target space is the variety. This connection to physics has been extraordinarily fruitful, providing deep insights and conjectures.
An Artin stack is a sophisticated generalization of a variety, they encode the idea of equivariant geometry. A simple example is a vector space carrying a linear action of a Lie group. In String Theory this data defines a Gauged Linear Sigma Model, which is a basic tool in the subject. A GLSM should also give rise to a category of B-branes, but surprisingly it is not yet understood what this should be. An overarching goal of this project is to develop an understanding of this category (more accurately, system of categories), and to extend this understanding to more general Artin stacks.
The basic importance of this question is that in certain limits a GLSM reduces to a sigma model, whose target is a quotient of the vector space by the group. This quotient must be taken using Geometric Invariant Theory. Thus this project is intimately connected with the question of how derived categories change under variation-of-GIT, and birational maps in general.
For GLSMs with abelian groups this approach has already produced spectacular results, in the non-abelian case we understand only a few remarkable examples. We will develop these examples into a wide-ranging general theory.
Our key objectives are to:
- Provide powerful new tools for controlling the behaviour of derived categories under birational maps.
- Understand the category of B-branes on a large class of Artin stacks.
- Prove and apply a striking new duality between GLSMs.
- Construct completely new symmetries of derived categories.
Summary
Derived categories of coherent sheaves on a variety are a fundamental tool in algebraic geometry. They also arise in String Theory, as the category of B-branes in a quantum field theory whose target space is the variety. This connection to physics has been extraordinarily fruitful, providing deep insights and conjectures.
An Artin stack is a sophisticated generalization of a variety, they encode the idea of equivariant geometry. A simple example is a vector space carrying a linear action of a Lie group. In String Theory this data defines a Gauged Linear Sigma Model, which is a basic tool in the subject. A GLSM should also give rise to a category of B-branes, but surprisingly it is not yet understood what this should be. An overarching goal of this project is to develop an understanding of this category (more accurately, system of categories), and to extend this understanding to more general Artin stacks.
The basic importance of this question is that in certain limits a GLSM reduces to a sigma model, whose target is a quotient of the vector space by the group. This quotient must be taken using Geometric Invariant Theory. Thus this project is intimately connected with the question of how derived categories change under variation-of-GIT, and birational maps in general.
For GLSMs with abelian groups this approach has already produced spectacular results, in the non-abelian case we understand only a few remarkable examples. We will develop these examples into a wide-ranging general theory.
Our key objectives are to:
- Provide powerful new tools for controlling the behaviour of derived categories under birational maps.
- Understand the category of B-branes on a large class of Artin stacks.
- Prove and apply a striking new duality between GLSMs.
- Construct completely new symmetries of derived categories.
Max ERC Funding
1 358 925 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
