NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH

DataGenChrono brings together 12 international partners from eight countries—world-class experts in human genomics, data science, sleep, chronobiology, strategic science communication and career development—to advance understanding of the genetic foundations of sleep and circadian biology in mental health. The network will train 11 Doctoral Candidates, forming an excellent, collaborative cohort of researchers who will discover the biological bases of mental health addressing disorders that are a major public health challenge in Europe and worldwide. The research programme objectives of DataGenChrono are to: 1) Identify novel genetic influences on sleep and circadian dysfunction linked to poor mental health across populations and diagnostic groups. 2) Uncover causal relationships between sleep/circadian dysfunction and mental health symptoms across the lifespan. 3) Apply cutting-edge data science, sleep/activity monitoring, and genetically informed approaches to develop novel pathways for sleep and circadian interventions in clinical care and public health. 4) Enhance international engagement, visibility and impact through coordinated dissemination, outreach, and stakeholder partnerships, ensuring findings reach scientific, clinical, policy and public audiences. The DataGenChrono programme provides excellent, interdisciplinary research projects within highly attractive institutional environments. Candidates will gain - world-class scientific training - exposure to diverse research and future workplaces - embedded engagement, career development, transferrable skills and networking opportunities across Europe and worldwide. From recruitment to graduation, the DataGenChrono programme ensures the highest-quality PhD training and excellent science, fostering a connected, high-performing cohort that will leave a lasting contribution in both research and the wider community, fully aligned with the European Commission’s Principles for Innovative Doctoral Training.

EC contribution:

EUR 1M

Start:

2027-01-01

End:

2030-12-31

Status:

SIGNED

Scheme:

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN

Call:

HORIZON-MSCA-2025-DN-01

View on CORDIS (DOI 10.3030/101311411)

HHow could developers and deployers of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) make ‘social responsibility’ a key element in everyday industry practices and technological decisions? To answer this question – at the core of the EU Digital Compass 2030 and the recent publication of the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI – BehindAI will open up the “algorithm black box” and deploy an innovative international action research in collaboration with tech workers from major global technology and consultancy companies in Europe, Brazil, India and the US. Carrying out close studies of how decisions are taken during software design and development, the project will explain those decisions by understanding team members’ reflexive perspectives on tech and how those were shaped by their personal and professional trajectories. Furthermore, it will analyse concrete workplace organizational set-ups and the ways in which they allow or limit the application of those ethical and social perspectives in the everyday reality of the global tech industry. As a MSCA Global Fellowship, BehindAI will be carried out by Sébastien Antoine under the supervision of EU tech industry expert Seán Ó Riain and organized through a closely coordinated transnational team from Europe (Maynooth/Ireland), Latin America (UFRGS/Brazil), Asia (HK PolyU/China) and North America (UPenn/USA) with strong organic links between academia and industry insiders through CoLABOR (Portugal) expertise in collaborative research. In this way, the project will provide a new perspective on how the socialization, learning and reflexive negotiation of tech developers can address critical ethical and social issues in AI. This will provide new directions for addressing both theoretical challenges and policy dilemmas currently being considered at the highest levels, ensuring that the key principles of ethical AI championed by the EU reach the shop floor of the tech industry, shaping concrete software developments and broader digitalization processes of economy and society.

EC contribution:

EUR 335k

Start:

2023-04-01

End:

2026-09-30

Status:

SIGNED

Scheme:

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF

Call:

HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01

View on CORDIS (DOI 10.3030/101068828)

SWINS will develop and test a policy-oriented toolbox for the ex-ante assessment of the economic and social returns of investments in social services over the life course. Focusing on the complementarity of services aimed at developing human capabilities throughout the lifespan, it will explore the impacts of alternative social policy scenarios entailing different social services configurations (from maternal care and ECEC, to education and ALMP, up to long-term care). SWINS will conceptualize the returns to social services in terms of income, employment, and growth, as well as bridge knowledge gaps about how these investments influence macroeconomic stability and foster the EU sustainability transition performances. By implementing a right-based social investment approach, SWINS aims to support the rethinking of social services as drivers of the EU’s shift towards sustainable wellbeing, going beyond their role as mere safeguards against the transition’s side effects. SWINS methodology will be based on three main steps: 1) the identification of macro-regularities, that is the relation between investment in social services and aggregate social-economic performances, 2) analysis of the micro-foundations, that is the analysis of the micro-level mechanisms that explains the macro-regularities, 3) macro and long term projection of the results. SWINS will rely on a variety of methodologies, i.e. microsimulation analysis using the EUROMOD platform and its expansions, synthetic panels, causal analysis of comparative microdata, machine learning techniques and macroeconomic agent-based models. Leveraging the expertise of a multi-disciplinary (law, economics, sociology, political science) consortium, SWINS will explicitly pursue impact by proposing concrete strategies to integrate research findings and tools into the institutional, legal and policy frameworks.

EC contribution:

EUR 249k

Start:

2025-02-01

End:

2028-01-31

Status:

SIGNED

Scheme:

HORIZON-RIA

Call:

HORIZON-CL2-2024-TRANSFORMATIONS-01

View on CORDIS (DOI 10.3030/101177566)

Conception and pregnancy are both complex processes, with approximately 1 in 6 women worldwide experiencing infertility, often due to compromised uterine function, the organ designed solely for sustaining life. However, these dysfunctional uterine mechanisms remain not fully understood. Moreover, assisted reproduction technologies (ART) are employed to address infertility, with 5% of newborns in Europe conceived through ART. Nevertheless, the use of ART still results in low pregnancy success rates, with uterine dysfunction being a significant factor. This underscores the importance of the uterus in medical research, which has previously received little attention for its pivotal role in the journey towards motherhood. The TULIP consortium focuses on emerging topics, including the interplay between glycosylation and the microbiota within the uterus in relation to fertility. This interdisciplinary consortium comprises experts from six European countries, representing eight academic and four industry partners, and uniquely combines specialists in female reproductive medicine with researchers in glycobiology, microbiota studies, genomics, and data science. We aim to achieve a breakthrough in understanding the core biological aspects of conception, thereby fostering accurate and less invasive diagnostic methods that lead to more effective and personalised implementation of ART through pioneering tools designed to overcome poor reproductive outcomes. This breakthrough will be achieved by engaging 33 early-stage researchers in a collaborative interdisciplinary training and research programme. The programme seeks to emphasise scientific knowledge while fostering entrepreneurial and transferable skills over the 48-month project period. Collectively, these efforts enhance diagnostic and therapeutic tools to improve reproductive success in both natural and assisted conception while reinforcing inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaborative networks and the R&I capacity.

EC contribution:

EUR 180k

Start:

2026-01-01

End:

2029-12-31

Status:

SIGNED

Scheme:

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE

Call:

HORIZON-MSCA-2024-SE-01

View on CORDIS (DOI 10.3030/101236395)