The advent of standardized small satellites called CubeSats has made astronomical research from space more accessible than ever before. The proposed ERC project directly derives from the vast research possibilities offered by this platform, and aims at the construction of a miniature UV space telescope designed specifically to detect hydrogen and deuterium around comets and asteroids through the ultra-luminous Lyman alpha transition. Thanks to the unparalleled sensitivity to these atoms, the envisioned satellite will provide definite answers to some of the most profound problems of the near Universe. First, it will enable ultra-sensitive investigation of future interstellar objects passing through the Solar System in search of their hydrogen clouds, with direct implications to our understanding of orbital anomalies in the absence of detectable dust, such as seen in ‘Oumuamua, as well as their physical nature in general. Second, the satellite will allow for deep investigation of hydrogen content around main-belt comets, probing water-ice outgassing from these bodies with a better sensitivity than the best present-day limits. The high level of sensitivity will be routinely achieved for all known objects of this class, including new main-belt comets discovered by LSST, transforming our knowledge of the ice reservoir in the outer Main Belt. Finally, the satellite will provide homogeneous, model-independent and self-consistent measurements of the D/H ratio for dozens of comets from different dynamical classes down to 12 mag of total brightness, which is a factor-of-hundred improvement in sensitivity over the state-of-the-art methods and a major leap in measurement reliability. The D/H measurements will ultimately resolve the puzzle of cometary origin of water on Earth, and unveil the link between present-day cometary reservoirs and their original place of formation in the solar nebula.

Uncertainty is everywhere, as the saying goes, but rarely considered in ethical reflections. This project aims to reinterpret ethical discussions on current advances in biomedicine: instead of understanding bioethical positions as extensions of classical normative views in ethics (consequentialism, deontologism, contractualism etc.), my project interprets them more accurately as involving various normative approaches to decision making under uncertainty. The following hard cases in bioethics provide the motivation for research: 1) Regulating scientific research under uncertainty about the ontological/moral status (e.g. parthenogenetic stem cells derived from human parthenotes) in the context of meta-reasoning under normative uncertainty. 2) The value of preventive medicine in healthcare (e.g. vaccinations) in the context of decision-making under metaphysical indeterminacy. 3) Population or reproductive decisions (e.g. preimplantation genetic diagnosis) in the context of valuing mere existence. The main drive behind this project is the rapid progress in biomedical research combined with new kinds of uncertainties. These new and “deep” uncertainties trigger specific forms of emotions and cognitions that influence normative judgments and decisions. The main research questions that will be addressed by conceptual analysis, new psychological experiments, and case studies are the following: how do the heuristics and biases (H&B) documented by behavioral scientists influence the formation of normative judgments in bioethical contexts; how to demarcate between distorted and undistorted value judgments; to what extent is it permissible for individuals or policy makers to yield to H&B. The hypothesis is that many existing bioethical rules, regulations, practices seem to have emerged from unreliable reactions, rather than by means of deliberation on the possible justifications for alternative ways to decide about them under several layers and types of uncertainty.

The MAP-ID project aims to deliver an East-West Europe-integrating training programme for PhD students, focused on tackling one of the most challenging, complex, and therapeutically unmet problems which are chronic inflammatory diseases. MAP-ID will train chronic inflammation-oriented researchers to become leaders in the field in regional, national, and international arenas. Within the doctoral programme, 13 DCs will conduct their research under the supervision of prominent specialists from the Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University in Poland (JU), in collaboration with international partner academic institutions and biotech companies. MAP-ID focuses on multilevel approaches to understanding chronic inflammatory diseases, including infectious, autoimmune, allergic disorders, and cancer. To achieve this goal, the programme will establish and strengthen ties and collaborations between JU and top Universities and non-academic partners in Europe and beyond. MAP-ID aims to foster interdisciplinary research spanning molecular, cell, and structural biology, biophysics, chemistry, pharmaceutical sciences, and bioinformatics with a significant contribution of OMICS data sets. The training will give the DCs a detailed insight into the strategies and mechanisms required to contribute to growth in the sector of academic and industrial research related to chronic inflammatory disease research and development. The training will include courses conducted by both host institution researchers and visiting scientists from world-leading Universities and companies. Some of the courses offered for DCs, created specifically for MAP-ID, will be accessible to other JU researchers, enriching the learning resources available to them. Therefore, the MAP-ID will have a significant impact on the JU community and its public image, enabling JU to strengthen its position as a leader in chronic inflammation-related research in central Europe.

Robots are made to serve humans in carrying out tasks that are hard, dangerous, or repetitive, as well as for entertainment. Despite their (generally) benign objectives, robots may promote harmful outcomes that are under the radar of criminal law. One of the main aims of criminal law is to stabilize society. If something wrong is done, the law provides ways of responding to it. The situation could be complicated by the wider application of robots in social life: not only do they disrupt the practice of law, they also have the potential to challenge its very foundations. The main aim of the ROBOCRIM project is to build a philosophical ground for criminal law that accommodates robots. I will ask, “How can the philosophical foundations of criminal law be reconstructed to accommodate robots?” instead of, “How to accommodate robots into criminal law?” which is the usual formulation. This shifts the approach to the discussion on robots and their alignment with law and social life. The project will be conducted within three interrelated work streams. The first stream will be devoted to robots and their status from the perspective of the philosophy of criminal law. The second stream will focus on the foundation of a new account of criminal law, which I call the “phenomenological account”. The emphasis in the third stream will be on building models of institutions that accommodate robots within criminal law, to be tested using experimental methods. These new models of criminal response to crimes committed by robots treat robots as initiators of events that require a response from criminal law rather than as individual agents that could be responsible for their actions. This, combined with a novel account of criminal law, makes the project ground-breaking. It is interdisciplinary, employs multiple methods, and will shed new light on how robots might better fit into society in general, and criminal law in particular.