In the latest announcement of the Marie Curie grants within the new Framework Programme of the European Union, Horizon 2020, and with the aim of promoting the mobility of researchers with experience throughout its member countries, six grants have been awarded to promote research by investigators who will be joining various departments of Pompeu Fabra University. Three of them will be joining the department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), and the other three, the departments of Law, Political and Social Sciences (DPIS), and Experimental and Health Sciences (CEXS), respectively.

Paul Fouad Bou-Habib, under the supervision of  Andrew David Williams, ICREA researcher of  Philosophy of Law at the  Department of Law, is to carry out the project " Ètica i envelliment " (Ethics and ageing) with the collaboration of Gosta Esping Andersen, director of the Sociology and Demography Research Group (DEMOSOC). This interdisciplinary project aims to perform a thorough analysis of the ethical challenge posed by the ageing of the population for which the European Union needs a guideline capable of providing a global strategic focus that is at the same time ethical.

John Palmer, under the supervision of Ricard Zapata Barrero, director of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration (GRITIM), will be conducting the project "Segregació de l'immigrant en espai i per activitat: patrons espacio-temporals d'assimilació i de separació a Barcelona (IASS)" (Immigrant segregation in space and by activity: space-time patterns of assimilation and separation in Barcelona [IASS]). This research seeks to study the life of immigrants in Barcelona and focuses on the use of space and time as a way of getting to understand the process of assimilation and the barriers that this group faces regarding social and economic inclusion.

Roser Corominas, under the supervision of Luis Alberto Pérez Jurado , head of the Genetics Research Unit, will perform the work " Caracterització dels síndromes d'aneusomia recíproca 7q11.23:  del pacient a les vies funcionals, i a l'inrevés (7DUP)" (Characterization of 7q11.23 reciprocal aneusomy syndromes: from patients to functional pathways, and back [7DUP]), with the aim of compiling and characterizing a large group of patients with this condition and the lack of quantitative and computational data in animal models that have prevented identifying the molecular pathways involved in these types of disorder.

Three neuroscience projects have been selected in this announcement

All three belong to the area of ​​expertise Gustavo Deco, ICREA lecturer of the DTIC and director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, who will overseeing the projects selected for funding within the framework of Horizon 2020:

Gerald Hahn, will be conducting the project: "Com la xarxa neuronal dinàmica modela la consciència (CONSBRAIN)" (How the dynamic neural network shapes consciousness [CONSBRAIN]), an interdisciplinary research line which, through the use of computational models, will study underlying brain dynamics in the specific brain function of consciousness. This project aims to investigate the differences in neuronal dynamics between conscious and unconscious brain states. The results will provide new theoretical perspectives on how neuronal interactions on a scale of an entire brain are indicators of consciousness and the conscious experience.

Matthieu Gilson will be working on the project: " Xarxes biològiques neuronals: de l'estructura a la funció (NeuArc2Fun)" (Neural Biological Networks: from structure to function [NeuArc2Fun]), research that falls between theoretical and experimental neuroscience that will investigate how information is processed in the neural networks through action potentials. The main goal is to develop a recurrent neural network model combining structure and function. This approach will provide us with a model to make connectivity predictions of each component. On a broader level, this project may be useful for applications that involve the decoding of information and interaction with the brain, for example, neural prostheses and brain-machine interfaces.

Ignasi Cos will be working on the project QTMODEM: " Control motor quantitatiu per a la presa de decisions" (Quantitative motor control for decision making). The overall aim of this project is to provide a theoretical framework that covers the motivation, the theory of motor control, and motor control in decision making in order to see, for example, how these principles are altered in Parkinson's disease, a condition i n which three of the main motor symptoms, bradykinesia , akinesia and hypokinesia, are consistent with decreased motor promotion, which reveals the relationship between motivation and movement, strongly suggesting that Parkinson's disease could be recategorized as a motivational disorder.