ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

The magnitude of long-term global temperature rise due to an increasing concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is a question of relevance to policy makers and society. Previous studies have addressed this issue on the basis of the equilibrium response of the climate system due to fast feedbacks such as clouds and sea ice-albedo, often referred to as Climate Sensitivity. Plio-ESS will use the new concept of Earth System Sensitivity that additionally includes slow feedbacks such as those derived from changes in the major ice sheets and vegetation distribution. This has the potential to revolutionise the scientific debate on anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and climate stabilisation targets. The aim of the project is to produce a robust estimate of the Earth System Sensitivity using the last interval in Earth history when CO2 was at modern or near future levels – the mid-Pliocene Warm Period. Using a combined modelling and geological data approach, Plio-ESS will integrate reconstructions of mid-Pliocene vegetation and ice sheets into climate and Earth system models. In this context Plio-ESS will push the frontier of palaeoclimatology by using state-of-the-art models which will enable the importance of resolution, improved model physics and the inclusion of additional Earth System components on model estimates of Earth System Sensitivity to be identified. Ensembles of experiments exploring the plausible range in model boundary conditions and physics will also quantify the uncertainty on estimates of Earth System Sensitivity. The outcome of the project will be a rigorous estimate of Earth System Sensitivity, which can be used by climate scientists and policy makers in defining stabilisation targets for greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.

1 419 968 €

Start date: 2011-12-01, End date: 2016-11-30

Posttranslational modifications of histone proteins have emerged as central regulators of gene expression. Through the factors that install, interpret, and erase them, histone marks control access to the genome, establishing chromatin environments that either support or counteract transcription. The histone methyltransferase Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is crucially involved in gene repression all throughout development and adulthood, and it is often misregulated in cancer. Despite significant advances in the field, key aspects of PRC2 function remain largely elusive. The overarching goal of this project is to enhance our understanding of how PRC2 is regulated and how it controls the expression of developmental genes in embryonic stem cells. To this end, my research team and I will analyse how PRC2 cooperates with other histone modifiers and chromatin organisers at enhancers to achieve poising of developmental genes (Aim 1). These studies will enable us to appreciate how the pivotal PRC2 module interfaces with other players in the complex chromatin regulatory system, contributing to a much-needed integrated view of chromatin regulation. We will further unravel how generation of the recently discovered asymmetric nucleosomes, in which the two copies of histone H3 are disparately modified (Voigt et al., Cell, 2012), is controlled by PRC2-intrinsic catalytic properties and through interactions with other chromatin modifiers (Aim 2). This will ultimately allow modulating asymmetry in vivo, providing unprecedented means to assess its impact on PRC2 function and chromatin structure. Lastly, I aim to re-evaluate the issue of PRC2 recruitment to its target loci by employing a systems biology-informed quantitative approach (Aim 3). Together, the aims of this ambitious project will significantly advance our understanding of PRC2 and its role in the establishment of chromatin states, which are crucial to embryonic stem cell physiology and deregulated in cancer.

1 496 523 €

Start date: 2015-06-01, End date: 2020-05-31

The interplay between Geometry and Analysis has been among the most fruitful mathematical ideas in recent years, the most obvious example being Perelman's proof of Poincare' conjecture. The goal of this proposal is to establish a research group that will make significant progress in the following two distinct problems. Scalar Curvature: A classical theorem in Riemannian Geometry states that nonnegative scalar curvature metrics which are flat outside a compact set must be Euclidean. The equivalent problem for positive scalar curvature is known as the Min-Oo conjecture and, after being checked in many particular cases, was recently disproven by myself and coauthors. I plan to prove optimal results relating positive scalar curvature and area of minimal surfaces. I also plan to show that these manifolds admit an infinite number of minimal surfaces (Yau's conjecture). My approach consists of studying min-max methods in order to obtain existence of higher-index minimal surfaces. Mean curvature flow: An hard open problem consists in determining which Lagrangians in a Calabi-Yau admit a minimal Lagrangian (SLag) in their isotopy class and a complete answer would have a strong impact in Algebraic Geometry and Mirror Symmetry. A well known approach consists in deforming a given Lagrangian in the direction of its mean curvature and hope to show convergence to a SLag. The difficulty with this method is that finite-time singularities can occur. I plan to study the regularity theory for this flow and show singularities have codimension two. This would be the ground stage to continue the flow past the singular time. My approach consists in classifying the possible parabolic blow-ups and find monotone quantities which will rule out non SLag blow-ups.

1 100 000 €

Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2016-12-31

QUANTESS would develop innovative methods for the quantitative analysis of textual data in the social sciences. These methods would be sharply distinguished by more traditional content analysis schemes for analyzing texts – whether computer-assisted or not – by their explicit treatment of words as pure data, from which inductive statistical procedures may be used to estimate latent traits. Besides unlocking features of the texts not possible through interpretative methods, the “text as data” approach also allows rapid analysis of huge volumes of text in any language, providing a means for researchers to deal with the ubiquitous textual data now available. Existing statistical methods for textual data analysis exist, but these are still primitive in their development, relying on untested assumptions and unproven applicability, based on only short “proof-of-concept” demonstrations. In addition, there exists no single book-length work explaining the field of textual data analysis for the social sciences. Finally, software tools for applying textual data analysis techniques, particularly the advanced scaling models, are poorly maintained and documented and not accessible to users lacking a high degree of programming ability. QUANTESS would deliver on all three fronts: methodological innovation, dissemination of knowledge uniting all existing knowledge in a graduate-level text (plus a website, short courses, and instructional materials including videos), and creation of powerful yet accessible free software to be used for all analysis from the project and the resulting books and articles.

1 357 920 €

Start date: 2011-11-01, End date: 2017-04-30

Discrete mathematics has seen enormous advances in the last few years, with solutions being found to a number of famous and long-standing questions, such as the Erdos distinct distance problem and the existence conjecture for combinatorial designs. Much of this progress owes to an increased understanding of random and pseudorandom objects. An entire framework, known as the probabilistic method, has grown around the application of randomness to combinatorial problems, while pseudorandomness is playing an increasingly important role. In this proposal, we will consider a range of problems, some stemming from the direct study of random and pseudorandom objects and others arising in areas where randomness and pseudorandomness have proved to be of particular importance. We will be particularly concerned with extensions of the regularity method to sparse graphs and improving bounds for a number of classical problems in graph Ramsey theory. These problems are of a fundamental nature and any progress is likely to lead to new techniques with broader scope for application.

1 106 719 €

Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30

This project begins with the basic premise that refugees are migrants: by legal definition and political conception, they have left their home countries to seek refuge. This project aims to re-assess refugee protection through a lens of mobility and migration, locating the study of refugee law in the context of the refugee regime. It examines the three key aspects of refugee law – access to protection, refugee status determination, and refugee rights – bringing them into conversation with the refugee regime’s norms and practices on responsibility-sharing and solutions. Crucially, the project takes a long and broad view of refugee protection, in order to open up new possibilities and trajectories. It also integrates a legal assessment of the role of non-state actors in refugee protection. Using the broad notion of ‘intermediary’ in the migration process, it will assess the regulatory environment on access to protection, so-called ‘secondary movement’ and onward migration. It will provide an important legal assessment of the role of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the duties of humanitarian actors in refugee protection. It addresses the EU, not as a singularity, but as an actor in the global regime. The project is methodologically ground-breaking. It identifies practices that determine access to and the quality of refugee protection, and how these practices have developed across jurisdictions and over time, thereby historicizing and reframing the practices in question. As well as rigorous doctrinal (‘black letter’) legal analysis, it will use go beyond doctrine, and draw on theoretical conceptions of legality to explore the particular modes of regulating mobility and migration that are now central to refugee protection. It will also develop new inter-disciplinary methods, using comparative legal, historical and political-scientific tools.

1 499 611 €

Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31

The proposed project aims to study 'remnants' from past atrocities in contemporary Turkey and its associated migrant and diaspora communities elsewhere. 'Remnants' are conceptualized as multiplex phenomena which have an enduring effect in the after-life of persons and communities which were once associated with them. These may be material remains in the form of houses, temples, and other forms of built and spatial structure once used and inhabited by communities that were displaced, deported, ethnically cleansed, or exterminated. They may also be immaterial affects, in the form of memory or the imagination as associated with past atrocities, such as accounts of haunting and/or loss in the aftermath of violence. 'Remnants' figure in subjective worlds in embodied forms, where contemporary inhabitants of Turkey have begun to claim Armenian, Greek, or Kurdish ancestry. They are also 'political' insofar as they constitute the context for ongoing inter-communitarian relations in and outside Turkey, relations which sometimes take 'legal' and 'economic' forms. This project proposes to ethnographically study 'remnants' in Turkey and its diaspora communities at a time when Turkey is being challenged to face its past of mass atrocities. We propose to actualize this research by focusing on four key city-sites (Tunceli-Elazig, Mardin, Diyarbakir-Batman, and Antakya) in Turkey's under-studied south and south Eastern regions, relevant from the point of view of the mass atrocities targeting Armenians, Assyrian-Syriacs, Alevis, Kurds and other local communities which this project aims to focus on. The project will be composed of four ethnographic sub-projects in these sites and their respective diasporas outside Turkey (Syria, Cyprus, Germany, Sweden) composed of migrants, deportees, survivors, or refugees from the sites of mass atrocity. The project will employ innovative methodologies in ethnographic and archival research in addressing the aftermath of violence in Turkey.

1 398 013 €

Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2016-12-31

Global sea-level rise is one of our greatest environmental challenges and is predicted to continue for hundreds of years, even if global greenhouse-gas emissions are stopped immediately. However, the range, rates and responses to sea-level rise beyond 2100 are poorly understood. Current models that project sea-level rise centuries into the future have large uncertainties because the recent observations upon which they are based, encompass too limited a range of climate variability. Therefore, it is crucial to turn to the geological record where there are large-scale changes in climate. Global temperatures during the Last Interglacial were ~1oC warmer than pre-industrial values and 3-5oC warmer at the poles (a pattern similar to that predicted in the coming centuries), and global sea level was 6-9 m higher, far above that experienced in human memory. Through the RISeR project, I will lead a step-change advance in our understanding of the magnitude, rates and drivers of sea-level change during the Last Interglacial, to inform both global and regional sea-level projections beyond 2100. Specifically I will: 1. Develop new palaeoenvironmental reconstructions of Last Interglacial sea-level change from northwest Europe; 2. Provide the first ever chronological constraints on the timing, and therefore rates, of relative sea-level change that occurred in northwest Europe during the Last Interglacial; 3. Use state-of-the-art numerical modelling to distinguish the relative contributions of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets to global sea-level rise during the Last Interglacial; 4. Provide estimates of the land areas and exposed populations in northwest Europe at risk of inundation by long-term (2100+) sea-level rise, providing high-end scenarios critical for coastal-risk management practice. These ambitious objectives will result in a state-of-the-art integrated study of the most appropriate analogue for a critical global environmental challenge; future sea-level rise.

1 997 681 €

Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31

The global carbon cycle controls Earth’s climate by the emission and drawdown of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. One of the major sources of CO2 is thought to be the oxidation of organic carbon contained in rocks during chemical weathering. Since the industrial revolution, this flux has been accelerated by burning fossil fuels. However, the natural rates of CO2 emission by rock-derived organic carbon oxidation are very poorly constrained – the only major CO2 source that has not been properly quantified – and the dominant controls on this flux remain unclear. The CO2 release is likely to be ~100 TgC/yr, similar to degassing from volcanoes. Without knowing the rate of CO2 emission and the controls on this flux, it is not possible to fully understand the evolution of atmospheric CO2 and global climate over geological timescales, nor to project future changes over hundreds to thousands of years. To address this deficit and quantify a major geological CO2 source, the proposal will: 1) Assess which factors govern rock-derived organic carbon oxidation. 2) Determine how environmental changes impact oxidation rates and CO2 release. 3) Quantify the global CO2 emissions by rock-derived organic carbon oxidation during chemical weathering, and assess how they may have varied both over Earth history and via anthropogenic change. By quantifying a major CO2 emission for the first time, this project will provide a step change in our understanding of the geological, as opposed to the anthropogenically-modified, carbon cycle. Measurement of rock-derived organic carbon oxidation will require a new approach, harnessing state-of-the-art geochemical proxies carried by rivers (rhenium). Data from river catchments spanning large gradients in the likely environmental controls (erosion, temperature), will elucidate the main factors governing this process, and enable construction of a data-driven numerical model to provide the first quantification of CO2 emissions by this process.

1 499 696 €

Start date: 2016-03-01, End date: 2021-02-28