What connections exist between the desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea over five million years ago and Brain-Computer-Interfaces? These research topics are at the heart of two European projects for which the University of Bordeaux was recently awarded funding under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, which recently marked its 30-year anniversary. These doctoral training networks, known in EU terminology as MSCA Doctoral Networks, allow for the recruitment and training of fifteen doctoral students within an international network. These two projects are led by two researchers on campus, both doctoral graduates of the University of Bordeaux: Emmanuelle Ducassou (graduated 2006) and Camille Jeunet-Kelway (2016). Now a lecturer of marine sedimentology at the university, Emmanuelle Ducassou is leading the C-BRINES project. The lecturer and researcher for the Oceanic and Continental Environment and Paleoenvironments lab (EPOC¹) explains that “the idea is to test and perhaps validate a new technique for achieving carbon neutrality by acquiring new insights into a previous environmental crisis.”

Exploring the past to understand the climate of tomorrow

This new technology aims to absorb and therefore offset CO₂ emissions, stabilising their concentration in the atmosphere, one of the EU’s targets for the year 2050. The ocean is the largest carbon sink on the planet. It absorbs a significant amount of CO2, including that emitted by human activity. Under certain conditions, the water can transform this CO2 into stable forms, allowing it to be stored over long periods of time. The aim of this project is therefore to understand which conditions can amplify this process and, above all, the consequences on the ocean and the climate. “If we alter the ocean’s chemistry, we can hypothetically trap more CO₂. But how would that affect water density? What would the consequences be for the currents or for living organisms? We do not yet have the full picture of what these effects would be.” Lacking the data needed to assess these effects, the C-BRINES team, composed of thirty academic and private partners, decided to look to the past. The researches were able to access archives from a little-known event in history, dating back to five million years ago: the desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea. After tectonic plate activity closed the Strait of Gibraltar, part of the sea gradually evaporated over the course of around 640,000 years. This phenomenon led to the mass formation of gypsum, a sulphate mineral from which plaster is derived, trapping large amounts of salt in the sediment. This altered the salinity of the oceans and led to a decrease in water temperature of around 5°C, explains Emmanuelle Ducassou. The researchers hope to model the effects of these disruptive changes on the ocean, the carbon cycle and marine ecosystems by studying this historical data.

In an entirely different field, the VARIABILITI project led by Camille Jeunet-Kelway focuses on the functioning of the brain and its variations. A member of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Camille specialises in cognitive science, a discipline that studies the mechanisms of thought, perception, memory, learning and decision-making, at the meeting point of psychology, neuroscience and IT. 

From brain to machine: pushing the boundaries of interfaces

In this context, the researcher at the Aquitaine Institute of Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience (INCIA²) studies brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), systems via which an individual can learn to modulate their brain activity to control a technology, such as a prosthesis, a computer or a game, either to develop new skills or to restore cognitive or motor function, for example, following a stroke. However, these interfaces are not yet reliable. “Currently, 10 to 30% of people are unable to learn how to voluntarily modulate their brain activity,” she points out. There is a high level of variability at play, not only between individuals but also within any given person, depending on their cognitive or emotional state.

“We do not yet understand this phenomenon. The aim of the VARIABILITI project is precisely to model this variability in order to design personalised BCIs and make these technologies genuinely usable.” We want to promote a human-centred approach to better understand user needs and expectations and thus design brain-computer interfaces that will have a real impact on society, improving, for example, quality of life for millions of patients,” explains the Bordeaux Neurocampus researcher.

Why did they choose this collaborative research and training network, offering them each a research grant of 4.6 million euros? Both mention the importance of collaboration.
“To model the learning process of users and develop truly effective and personalised brain-computer interfaces, reliable and comparable data is essential. While it is a highly interdisciplinary field, it is heavily siloed: protocols are rarely shared and data are not easily combined. With VARIABILITI, we are arguing in favour of a sustainable paradigm shift towards more responsible, collaborative, open-minded and participative research, in the aim of producing some really usable results,” explains Camille Jeunet. The goal was to form a proper research community around the topic of brain-computer interfaces. The consolidation and development of such a dynamic require sufficient funding. This long-term endeavour was launched nearly six years ago, now culminating in this European project.

Emmanuelle Ducassou’s idea is more recent, dating back to the IODP’s Expedition 401³, an international project conducted between February 2023 and February 2024, co-directed by Emmanuelle and a colleague from Bristol for a period of two months. This is the largest academic deep-sea drilling project in the world, dating back to 1968. During this expedition, the teams drilled to a depth of up to 1.7 km, a remarkable performance, at the point of transfer and exchanges between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean: the Strait of Gibraltar.

“The most stimulating part was putting together the doctoral training programme.”

“Usually, for such deep drilling, we only bring 30% to 40% of the drilled sediment back up to the surface. This time, we retained over 80%!” These results left us with some particularly remarkable archives, notes the sedimentologist. “The idea was to then build on this success by using them as a historical analogy for global-scale environmental changes through this European project.”

When it came to writing the research proposal, the two researchers admit that the process was very different from other, more standard funding applications. At times, the process risked becoming a real administrative challenge, and even more so for Camille Jeunet-Kelway. Both applied as part of the Doctoral Network programme, via which doctoral students typically complete several residencies at partner institutions, for a cumulative total of anywhere from a few months to a year over the course of their doctoral studies. The project led by Emmanuelle Ducassou follows the standard format, in which each of the 15 doctoral students is enrolled at one specific university. VARIABILITI, however, is part of a Joint Doctorate programme, encompassing 14 doctoral degrees co-led by multiple institutions and resulting in a double doctoral degree. This further complicates the process, primarily due to Europe’s diversity of institutional cultures.

Both candidates were provided with essential support from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (French National Research Agency - ANR) in the form of an MRSEI grant, allowing them to reach out to consultants. They also received support from the University of Bordeaux’s Service de montage et suivi de projets (Project Set-up and Monitoring Department - SMSP). “Luckily, Audrey [Sidobre, European project coordinator at the SMSP] was there to boost our morale during difficult moments while providing us with daily support: answering our questions, providing proofreading for the project and administrative support right up until the proposal was submitted.” they share. Nicolas Todd, head of development of European research networks at the campus’s Offre de service Europe [European Opportunities Office], also helped them to make sense of the European political context surrounding their project.

In addition to the anticipated scientific findings, these projects are also underpinned by a second goal: to forge a new generation of researchers. “The most stimulating part was putting together the doctoral training programme,” confides Camille Jeunet-Kelway. Using the ViaInno platform, she worked to build a programme capable of analysing the academic field and understanding the ecosystem. Ultimately, the goal was clear: “to make this collaborative and human-centred approach the standard and to train the next generation to follow this methodology.” The two European projects are also cross-sectoral as they bring together a variety of partners, such as medical professionals and patient associations in the case of VARIABILITI. “We still see too many technologies being kept in labs. The idea is to take them out of the lab, to expose them to real use.”

Speaking the same language

Emmanuelle Ducassou shares this desire to break down barriers. “That was the most fascinating part of the project: discovering, convincing and involving stakeholders in the field, start-ups, NGOs, etc.” The project also plans to investigate how the general public will respond to these potential solutions. “We also need to make sure our doctoral students are speaking the same language when it comes to climate issues,” insists the sedimentologist. For the C-BRINES project, modellers, geologists, biologists, chemists and economists will all join forces to work together, even in the field. Some doctoral students will even have to leave their usual working environment to collect data themselves: on a boat, out on the open sea, in the case of C-BRINES, or by contacting patients in the case of VARIABILITI, for example.

One shared observation unites these visions: these networks are as much scientific projects as they are human adventures. “It’s demanding, sometimes hard going, but extremely formative,” sums up Camille Jeunet-Kelway, who first submitted a proposal last year as the coordinator of a 30-member consortium. “The science hasn’t changed, but the way of presenting it has: we have placed a stronger emphasis on societal impact,” she explains. For Emmanuelle Ducassou, who took a little over a year and a half to submit her proposal for her network, the success still hasn’t set in: she got the news of her funding approval on the day of her birthday. “I still can’t believe it’s being funded,” she says, noting that in the environment segment, the success rate for standard Doctoral Networks programmes is less than 10%, highlighting the highly competitive nature of these calls for proposals. Here we have two projects that, despite their very different topics, overlap: by working across disciplines, perspectives and different practices, research can help overcome contemporary challenges.

¹Research unit CNRS, Bordeaux INP and university of Bordeaux
²Research unit CNRS, EPHE and university of Bordeaux
³International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)