Gravity's unique geometric structure is manifest in strong field regions, especially around black holes. The new-born era of gravitational-wave astronomy and of very long baseline interferometry is now providing data from such regions, carrying information about the gravitational interaction in highly dynamical setups. The access to this new and uncharted territory may hold the key to outstanding puzzles, such as the nature of dark matter, or the fate of singularities or horizons within a quantum field theory context. The breakthroughs at the observational and experimental level make strong gravity physics one of this century's most active and exciting fields of research. I propose to explore the discovery potential of black holes, a foundational project which will transform the field into data-driven with solid theoretical foundations. This coordinated program will study and test the strong-field regime of gravity and the matter content of our universe. The project will explore comprehensively the potential of black holes and compact binaries to perform spectroscopy and to strengthen the black hole paradigm. I will ascertain the evidence for black holes, providing new and robust tools to quantify their existence with electromagnetic and gravitational-wave observations. Finally, I will undertake a systematic study of environmental effects, including the ability for new observations to study the host galaxy, and will constrain the existence of new fundamental ultralight fields in our universe to unprecedented levels. The project aims to implement pipelines for its realization in planned and ongoing missions. The proposed program will significantly advance our knowledge of Einstein's field equations and their role in foundational questions, as well as the interplay with high energy, astro and particle physics. This is a multidisciplinary program with an impact on our understanding of gravity at all scales.

In the current world, there is a clear need of advanced multi-sensing systems capable of providing fast and quantitative detection of a huge range of hazards which could affect human health in our daily life. Sectors such as healthcare, food safety or environment control, among others, will require these tools to take fast and effective actions and prevent potential crisis impact. In this context, PHOTONGATE aims to develop an adaptable diagnostics solution, comprising Photonic cartridges and read-out platform, which allow to quantify multiple analytes of the same or different nature (biomolecules, chemicals, metals, bacteria, etc.) in a single test with levels of sensitivity and selectivity at/or over those offered by current commercial solutions. PHOTONGATE technology relies on a new sensing concept which combines two core technologies: a bio-chemical technology (molecular gates) which will confer the specificity and increased sensitivity to the system, and, on the other hand, a photonic technology (light interaction with Local Surface Plasmonic Resonance (LSPR) structures) working as transducers and allowing the quantification. PHOTONGATE consortium has been specifically designed for maximizing the project success since all the actors of the value chain are enrolled. In addition, the development and integration of the different PHOTONGATE components have been designed searching for the European autonomy by using European research, knowledge and fabrication networks as well as favoring European providers. PHOTONGATE goals will involve a significant progress beyond the State-of-the-Art in multi-sensing systems achieving faster and high sensitivity detection of multiples targets. A final validation of PHOTONGATE technology in relevant scenarios for health and food safety (TRL5) will be performed to demonstrate the system capabilities.

Permafrost underlies 22% of the Northern Hemisphere's exposed land surface and is thawing at an alarming rate as a direct consequence of global warming, releasing large quantities of organic matter and contaminants into the environment. These contaminants, which includes heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and microbiological agents, pose a serious risk for both wildlife and human health. Many studies have estimated stocks of contaminants, particularly heavy metals, and attempted to assess the impact of their potential release on Arctic ecosystems and Indigenous populations. However, a broader and holistic approach to permafrost thaw was only recently proposed by the EU Project ILLUQ within a One Health framework and involved the release of contaminants and their impacts on Arctic flora and fauna, infrastructures, sanitation and human health. However, several environmental and biological factors (biogeochemical processes) could catalyze changes in speciation, partitioning, transport and fate of released contaminants. Such alteration could potentially alter the toxicity after their initial release and must also be considered in risk assessments. The ILLUQ-PT proposal adds this process component to ILLUQ aiming to investigate those post-release processes. Using arsenic and mercury as target contaminants, we will investigate how the speciation of these elements may change in permafrost thaw ecosystems and how these changes are controlled by key biogeochemical factors (e.g., organic matter content and quality, microbiome diversity and taxonomic composition or the role of vegetation). We propose to utilize stable isotope techniques (e.g., isotope fractionation) to investigate their potential to track contaminant pathways and to measure the rates of those changes. Finally, ILLUQ-PT aims to better link the release of trace-elements from thawing permafrost with the risk of exposure to Arctic wildlife and Indigenous Populations.

MEMEX promotes social cohesion through collaborative, heritage-related storytelling tools that provide access to tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage (CH) for communities at risk of exclusion. The project implements new actions for social science to: understand the NEEDS of such communities and co-design interfaces to suit their needs; DEVELOP the audience through participation strategies; while increasing the INCLUSION of communities. The fruition of this will be achieved through ground breaking ICT tools that provide a new paradigm for interaction with CH for all end user. MEMEX will create new assisted Augmented Reality (AR) experiences in the form of stories that intertwine the memories (expressed as videos, images or text) of the participating communities with the physical places / objects that surround them. To reach these objectives, MEMEX develop techniques to (semi-)automatically link images to their LOCATION and connect to a new opensource Knowledge Graph (KG). The KG will facilitate assisted storytelling by means of clustering that links consistently user data and CH assets in the KG. Finally, stories will be visualised onto smartphones by AR on top of the real world allowing to TELL an engaging narrative. MEMEX will be deployed and demonstrated on three pilots with unique communities. First, Barcelona’s Migrant Women, which raises the gender question around their inclusion in CH, giving them a voice to valorise their memories. Secondly, MEMEX will give access to the inhabitants of Paris’s XIX district, one of the largest immigrant settlements of Paris, to digital heritage repositories of over 1 million items to develop co-authored new history and memories connected to the artistic history of the district. Finally, first, second and third generation Portuguese migrants living in Lisbon will provide insights on how technology tools can enrich the lives of the participants.

The AHEAD (AI-informed Holistic Electric Vehicles Integration Approaches for Distribution Grids) project will create a simulation environment capable of predicting the most convenient location to place the electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and optimise both the usage of the power grid resources, and the charging stations located in urban and rural areas. This simulation environment will exploit the unique features of currently available AI models and include two layers: the spatial mapping one (placing the chargers where the people need them to be), and the power grid one (placing the chargers where the grid can support them). Innovative smart charging algorithms will be designed and tested in the model, to minimise the impact of EV charging pools on the network, and ensure the consumers have economic benefits. Moreover, these smart charging algorithms will be tested in three demonstration sites, dedicated to assessing the technical and economic feasibility of smart charging light and heavy-duty EVs, and boats. To this end, AHEAD gathered relevant partners from all the EV value-chain: technology providers who want to test their equipment in the real world, grid operators, who want to optimise the usage of the grid resources and mitigate the EV charging impact, and research institutions, who aim at advancing the knowledge on the topic and producing value for society. Particular attention is going to be placed on the user experience and cybersecurity part of the demonstrators, with specific partners who focus their efforts on understanding how to minimize the impact of smart charging on the user experience and on creating a model to represent cyber-attacks on the chargers to suggest efficient defensive mechanisms for system protection.