This project builds on a recent and ground-breaking discovery of the PI in the field of homogeneously catalysed, selective biomass valorisation. Materials technologies that promise improved catalytic performance are of utmost interest for a more sustainable chemical industry. Manipulating molecular catalysts like polyoxometalates (POM) in solution by tuning the solvent properties and gas atmospheres introduces a new paradigm in homogeneous-catalysed biomass valorisation technologies. It has been found that by using methanol as a (co)solvent, POM catalysts can completely suppress undesired total oxidation to CO2 under oxidative conditions. This drastically enhances the carbon efficiency from biomass to close to 100% yield. Remarkably, this manipulating effect could be explained with the formation of a new vanadyl-methanolate-complex in methanol-aqueous solutions having a methanol content of at least 10%. The proposed BioValCat project aims for developing this potentially disruptive technology towards an industrial viable biomass valorisation process by laying the foundations for a scalable, safe and economic process for the oxidation of biomass to valuable carboxylic acid esters. The project is structured according to the key challenges that have to be mastered in order to achieve this ambitious goal: a) Investigations to identify the nature of the POM-solvent interactions; b) Understanding and revealing the key organic mechanisms in solution; c) Development of novel POM catalysts specifically optimised to perform in aqueous-alcoholic solvent mixtures; d) Extension of the substrate and product scope to industrially viable biomass feedstock; e) Process development, with special emphasis on safety aspects, process intensification as well as product isolation and catalyst recovery. With the proposed project the PI aims for paving the scientific route to novel, low-cost biomass utilisation technologies with great promise for decentralised valorisation of biogenic waste.

Electrons in a magnetic field experience a drift transverse to their velocity, which gives rise to intriguing effects such as the whole family of Hall Effects. Interestingly, this drift can also appear without a charged particle and without magnetic field, i.e. for ultra-cold quantum gases in optical lattices with non-trivial topology, described by a Berry curvature. This enables researchers to use the tunability of quantum gases and allow for studies beyond the possibilities of condensed matter systems. Furthermore, it allows to mimic and study in great detail fascinating effects such as topological insulators and edge-states. Especially, the interplay between topology and interactions is not well understood and the existence of many interesting states, such as topological insulators, fractional Chern insulators and topological superfluids, is predicted, but have not yet been observed. In recent years, great progress has been made in engineering topological band structures for quantum gases. Whereas theoretical proposals are well developed, so far there are only few experimental realizations of topological band structures, especially for fermionic quantum gases. In this action, we want to create non-trivial topological band structures and explore (many-body) phases that can emerge for fermions and mixtures of bosons and fermions. We will map out the Berry curvature and study the detection of edge states, which provides a clear signature of a non-trivial topology. For the first time, we will realize a new creation and detection method for topological band structures and study high spin Fermi systems in topological optical lattices.

SIHAFA explores the late Ottoman (1890s–1918) Arabic ideosphere of the Eastern Mediterranean through its periodical press. SIHAFA transcends the individual periodical for a systematic and computational study of the periodical press as a discursive field and at scale in order to better understand both the intellectual history of the Eastern Mediterranean at a crucial historical juncture and periodical production itself. As MSCA fellow, Dr. Grallert will receive crucial training at Universität Hamburg and will scrutinise a digital corpus of seven Arabic journals from Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo and Damascus with more than 7 million words (the result of his current research) through a combination of stylometric authorship attribution, social network analysis, and close reading of bio-bibliographical dictionaries. He will evaluate theoretical and methodological approaches, workflows, and tools developed in the Global North for their applicability to cultural heritage of the Global South. A secondment at Uniwersytet Jagielloński will provide methodological training in stylometry. The research objectives are to: (1) fill a gap in research by developing and evaluating methods for the study of Arabic periodicals; (2) challenge established narratives of the Arabic Renaissance (nahda) by re-introducing non-Syrian and Muslim authors and periodicals from beyond Cairo and Beirut commonly ignored by scholarly literature through the leading research question "What were the core nodes of authors and periodicals in this ideosphere and how did they change over time?"; (3) help establish the field of Arab Periodical Studies through community building across the postcolonial north-south divide. SIHAFA is committed to FAIR data and open access. Dr. Grallert will produce and publish: ground-breaking research to be published in English and Arabic; improved digital scholarly editions; authority files; an OCR model for Arabic periodicals; and a plain text corpus of authorship candidates.

Our climate fundamentally depends on the abundance and behaviour of its smallest clouds: shallow trade cumulus clouds. Their response to climate change is a major uncertainty in climate projections, with the most pressing but least understood question being: What is the role of mesoscale convective organization in trade cumulus feedbacks? Rain affects convective organization through its re-evaporation, which triggers downdrafts and cold pools. Cold pools can create large ‘cloud holes’ surrounded by cloud arcs. But how the size and lifetime of cold pools link to the initial rain evaporation and downdrafts, and how they influence cloud cover and thus the radiative budget is unclear. Critical reasons for these knowledge gaps are a lack of rain process observations and the fascinating range of scales involved. ROTOЯ is driven by the opportunity for ground-breaking advances in observing, simulating, and understanding organized precipitating shallow convection to elucidate the role of rain and cold pools for climate. My goal is to answer three questions: (i) What is the impact of evaporation, downdrafts, and cold pools on the trade-wind layer equilibrium state? (ii) Under what conditions do cold pools organize or disorganize shallow convection? (iii) Do cold pools increase or decrease total cloud cover in the trades? To answer these questions, I will create a unique multi-year dataset of rain evaporation, downdrafts and cold pools by applying new remote sensing retrieval techniques to existing trade cumulus observations. Combined with cutting-edge numerical simulations using super-droplet microphysics, the project promises to fundamentally improve our understanding of how organized shallow clouds may change with warming and the implications this has for the hydrological cycle. ROTOЯ is a unique opportunity for me to focus my broad expertise in observing and modeling clouds to answer three critical questions of tropical meteorology and climate science.