For teachers

Mechanobiology explores how physical forces affect cellular processes, providing insights into areas like embryogenesis and tumor growth. Cells exert forces onto their environment; the tissue in which they live.

Selenium is a naturally occurring trace element in the earth's crust, a micronutrient for humans and wildlife but toxic at high concentrations. Microbial biotechnologies have emerged as eco-friendly, sustainable research fields for the dism…

Sunlight is abundant, but figuring out how to efficiently grab that energy and convert it into something useful, like electricity for our homes, is a big puzzle. This research project dives into the world of a special type of molecules call…

Nitrous oxide (N2O), commonly known as “laughing gas” for its physiological effects, is both a potent greenhouse gas an ozone depleting substance. Indeed, it is a major contributor to climate change, thereby posing a critical concern for co…

Malaria remains one of the world’s most persistent infectious diseases, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths every year and placing nearly half of the global population at risk. Although the disease is most common in sub-Saharan Africa,…

About 60 to 70% of soils in the EU are subject to severe degradation processes: erosion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, salinisation and sealing; this is the result of unsustainable land use and overexploitation of agrochemicals. Microbia…

The soaring demand for energy and use of fossil fuels has resulted in the release of vast amount of greenhouse gases and climate change. Developing photoelectrochemical devices for solar fuel production is one of the strategies to address t…

We are studying how tiny molecules join together directly on a surface to form sheets just a single layer thick, called two-dimensional polymers (2DPs) or 2D covalent organic frameworks (2D-COFs). Instead of making these materials separatel…

Catalysis lies at the heart of modern industrial chemistry. It enables the production of more than 85% of chemical goods essential to our daily life, from plastics and pharmaceutical products to fertilisers, and contributes to trillions of…

The activation and functionalisation of dinitrogen (N2) remains one of the most important and long-standing challenges in chemistry. Despite being the most abundant form of nitrogen in the atmosphere, its strong triple bond renders it chemi…

The PROMATAI project addresses the critical need for advanced manufacturing solutions in processing complex hybrid materials and nanomaterials. Traditional extrusion technologies often struggle with materials that have unique rheological pr…

The global consumption of metals and metalloids is increasing rapidly owing to an ever-growing demand from technology and renewable energy industries. Most of these metal(loid)s are defined as critical elements, since their supply is expect…

Europe’s transition to a decarbonised energy system, as outlined in the EU Green Deal, will transform how the EU generates, distributes, stores, and consumes energy. Hydrogen will become an important energy vector, as well as a chemical rea…

Context and overall objectives of the project Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas that has the capability to significantly impact the Earth’s climate. Recent works estimated CH4 emissions from natural, impacted and human-made aquatic e…

Dryland ecosystems cover a substantial fraction of the Earth’s land surface and are projected to expand under climate change. Despite their global importance, their role in carbon and water cycling remains highly uncertain, partly due to ch…

The PITS3D project (Polymer Informatics Tools for Sustainable 3D printing) addresses the crucial European priority of merging digital innovation with sustainability. Specifically, it tackles the challenge of rapidly developing and optimizin…

Today, ion mobility–high-resolution mass spectrometry (IM-HRMS) is a state-of-the-art analytical platform that can measure and quantify molecules that are central to experimental sciences across disciplines. However, it still faces barriers…

CHEERS (Chirality controlled spin to charge interconversion in Tellurium) investigated how low-symmetry van der Waals and telluride materials can generate and convert spin information for future low-power spintronic devices. The project foc…

Modern society depends on the rapid discovery of new molecules for health, materials and sustainable technologies. Yet building molecular complexity still often requires long synthetic sequences, and late-stage modification of advanced mole…

The PRISM project vision encompasses the Global warming and energy crisis from fossil fuels demand sustainable solar-to-fuel conversion via photocatalysis for H2 production and CO2 reduction. PRISM addresses limitations of conventional UV-a…

Mercury (Hg) is a toxic heavy metal that bioaccumulates in aquatic food chains, endangering human health through the consumption of seafood. The atmospheric chemistry of Hg determines how far it can be transported and where it will ultimate…

Antibiotics are now recognised as pollutants of global concern. Their widespread use has led to residues in the environment that contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a major threat to public health and ecosystems.

Photosynthesis is a natural process that relies on harvesting solar energy and transforming it into chemical energy. In addition to its ecological importance, obtaining a better molecular-level understanding of photosynthesis, particularly…

Across sub-Saharan Africa, technology districts modelled (and often dubbed) after California's Silicon Valley are reshaping cities, economies and everyday life. Nigeria has hosted the highest number of tech hubs on the continent since 2019,…

Major Depressive Disorder, commonly known as depression, is a widespread mental health condition that affects millions of people worldwide. It's more than just feeling sad; depression can impact every aspect of a person's life, from their m…

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are crucial elements for the fabrication of flexible, wearable, and biocompatible electronic devices. As miniaturization is approaching its limits, bringing an end to Moore’s law, beyond−CMOS devices…

Venus is the closest planet to Earth. Despite a similar size and mass, there are differences between the two planets.

Self-assemble 2D chiral plasmene nanosheets: ultrasensitive biomarker and chirality detectors. Surface plasmons are coherent and collective electron oscillations along the surface of a metal.

ESCULAPE project addresses the urgent need for advanced, sustainable, and clinically relevant biomaterials to support regenerative medicine, with a focus on cardiovascular and musculoskeletal applications. Existing solutions often fall shor…

Climate change remains one of the most pressing global challenges, driven largely by the continued increase of greenhouse gas emissions. Among these, carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major contributor to global warming.

Modern electronics increasingly relies on atomically thin “two-dimensional” (2D) materials whose properties can be tailored by stacking or joining different layers. A central challenge is to control what happens at the interfaces—where char…

Periodontitis is one of the world's most prevalent chronic dental and maxillofacial diseases that will ultimately lead to unwanted tooth loss. This disease was responsible for a significant loss of 158.64 billion in Europe in 2018.

In 1990, the first GIEC report was published, assessing the influence of human activities on the climate change and its harmful consequences for future generations. More than 30 years later, almost half of the global population is considere…

Aviation is one of the most challenging transport sectors to decarbonise due to its reliance on high-energy-density liquid fuels and the absence of viable large-scale alternatives in the near future. Drop-in sustainable aviation fuels (SAF)…

Europe’s medicines and chemicals sectors face twin pressures: accelerating discovery while increasing safety, transparency and sustainability. Recent developments in AI promise dramatic gains, yet “black-box” predictions are difficult to tr…

The MESTUM project under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) aims to advance the development of sustainable, fossil-free energy storage technologies through the next generation of supercapacitors (SCs). The project proposes to overcom…

Agricultural productivity is increasingly threatened by a range of abiotic stresses—including flooding, prolonged drought, and heat waves—as well as biotic stresses such as bacterial, fungal, and insect infections. These stressors contribut…

Viral diseases are a major and growing threat to global food security, responsible for severe crop losses and rising pesticide use. One such emerging pathogen is Plantago asiatica mosaic virus (PlAMV), a potexvirus capable of infecting a wi…

Environmental and economical sustainability requires a multidisciplinary approach to fill the gap that is currently significantly limiting technology transfer from research to marketable innovation. GreenX3 is a multidisciplinary and innova…

In the context of Europe’s urgent push toward sustainability, industrial innovation, and digital transformation, the DurAMat project emerges as a game-changer in materials science. It addresses a persistent and critical bottleneck: the slow…

Neurons form intricate networks and communicate with each other through synaptic protein complexes. Neuronal excitability and signal propagation are governed by transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression as well…

Context: Homochirality is a fundamental feature of animate matter, and nearly all biological processes occurring in nature are stereospecific, i.e., responsive to only one type of handedness of the chiral molecule. Most drugs are chiral and…

Energy is indispensable for industrial production and our daily life. Heat is an abundant, but often wasted source of energy.

A major fraction of chemical reactions needed by our society is carried out on heterogeneous catalysts, solid materials that enhance the rate of desired chemical reactions without being consumed during the process. Nowadays, heterogeneous c…

Catalysis has been recognized as a critical tool of contemporary society. However, there are still many limitations of current catalytic methods.

The transition to a greener economy requires innovative methods for producing chemicals using sustainable resources and cleaner technologies. One promising solution lies in transforming non-edible biomass, such as agricultural residues, ind…

The global shift toward renewable energy has made energy storage a key technological challenge. Since solar and wind power are intermittent, storing electricity reliably and affordably is vital for a stable and sustainable energy supply.

There exists a direct relation between gas emissions and earth’s dynamics and climate: the impact of anthropogenic emissions and volcanic eruptions on the climate are well known and from the opposite, the effect of the climate on the volcan…

Chlorinated paraffins (CPs), which consist mostly of polychlorinated alkanes (PCAs), are high production volume chemicals used as flame retardants and plasticizers in a wide array of consumer goods. PCAs may be released from treated goods a…

This work presents the development of new biodegradable plastics that can carry and release drug molecules in a controlled way. Researchers created two types of specialized building blocks (cyclic carbonates) that were chemically linked to…

Two of the major hurdles for the chemical industry transition toward the “chemical factory of the future” are the ability to design (i) efficient and selective catalytic transformations of renewables and (ii) eco-efficient separation proces…

The POWER project addresses a critical challenge in the energy sector: designing an effective storage system for clean, renewable energy. As the world transitions away from fossil fuels toward solar and wind, as well as other sustainable so…

Catalysis is today exploited for preparing ca. 90% of chemical and pharmaceutical products.

SPIDocs is an interdisciplinary and intersectoral doctoral network comprising 7 Beneficiaries and 7 associated partners, and 10 Doctoral Candidates (DCs). Among the partners, three are industry partners, of which one is a beneficiary hostin…

Transition metal-catalysed cross-coupling reactions are considered landmark achievements in organic synthesis. Their influence was recognised by the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry, and they quicky became core elements in many undergraduate o…

Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential to many modern technologies, from wind turbines to electric vehicles and electronics. However, most REEs are currently sourced from a handful of countries, and their extraction often comes with high…

Context and Overall Objectives of the Project The SolarPlas project addresses a critical global challenge: the safe and sustainable treatment of hazardous and complex wastewater streams, specifically hospital wastewater (HWW) and landfill l…

Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is one of the central challenges of the European Green Deal and global climate policy. Heavy industries such as chemicals, fuels and materials production still depend strongly on fossil resources.

The GlycoEggshell aims to describe and elucidate specific roles of glycosylation on eggshell proteins across birds and evolutionary times, using modern and sub-fossil samples. The project has three main research objectives: • RO1: Character…

The oxidation of carbon-hydrogen (C–H) bonds in simple organic molecules is a key chemical transformation. This is because many biologically active and pharmaceutical compounds contain oxidized frameworks, and introducing carbon-oxygen (C–O…

Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) exhibit numerous desired properties such as corrosion resistance, high melting points, temperature stability, catalytic properties etc., making them highly valuable to the chemical and advanced materials industr…

There is a massive and urgent need to ensure security and safety of the food supply of the growing world population. However, agriculture and food industries continue to be vulnerable to problems of contamination with biotoxins produced by…

The excessive use of conventional antibiotic drugs cause selective pressure on microbial pathogenes, leading to the evolution of resistant strains. To help prevent expected outbreaks of drug-resistant bacteria, alternative strategies, thus,…

The QLUSTER consortium comprises research groups from academia and industry spanning 7 countries of the EU. It is constituted as a collaborative network for promoting and advancing research in fundamentals and applications, for training you…