image: Prof. Paola Antonietti_Politecnico di Milano
Credit: Politecnico di Milano
Developing new-generation numerical methods for the technological challenges of the 21st century, mainly in sustainability. This is the objective underpinning NEMESIS (NEw GEneration MEthods for Numerical SImulationS), an international researchproject involving Politecnico di Milano and Università di Milano-Bicocca, which today has been awarded one of the 37 Synergy Grants by the European Research Council (ERC). ERC Synergy Grants fund research on topics that are ambitious and complex enough to require the creation of a specific team including two to four researchers operating in strong synergy.
The team of researchers has been awarded EUR 7.8 million for 6 years. It is made up of Paola F. Antonietti, professor of Numerical Analysis and head of the MOX Modelling and Scientific Computing Laboratory of the Department of Mathematics at Politecnico di Milano; Lourenco Beirao da Veiga, professor of Numerical Analysis at Università di Milan-Bicocca; Daniele A. Di Pietro, Université de Montpellier; and Jérôme Droniou, director of research at CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
The NEMESIS project is in the field of applied and computational mathematics and aims to develop a new generation of numerical methods, starting from the theoretical foundations through to their computational implementation. It also faces the challenge of validating their use in sustainability-relevant applications such as geophysics (e.g., in the mitigation of the effects of anthropic activities in the subsoil and energy transition issues) and advanced manufacturing processes.
Specifically, a numerical method will be able to simulate the seismic and environmental risks associated with past and future CO2 storage operations in the subsoil, indicating possible telluric movements or infiltration of pollutants in a given area subjected to this process. Another possible application will be systems for aluminium extraction by smelting, in the Industry 4.0 domain. Mathematical models will be able to simulate the steps for the low environmental impact production of aluminium from bauxite.
This methodology, compared to previous ones, will have a better ability to approximate the data and the geometric domain, will allow for the direct integration of specific physics laws into the numerical domain, thus reflecting the true structure of the physical problem under investigation, and will be more efficient in computational processing.
“The NEMESIS project is the second Synergy Grant won by Politecnico di Milano”, Vice Rector for Research Alberto Guadagnini says, “and addresses fascinating and critically important issues in the field of sustainable development. This is a unique achievement that consolidates Politecnico’s ability to conduct research of excellence and cutting-edge research in important international scientific contexts”.
"The funding of the NEMESIS project," Guido Angelo Cavaletti, Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Milan-Bicocca, says "which will allow a significant improvement in the management of the complex challenges we face in the field of sustainability, is further proof that only teamwork involving researchers with different skills, even from different organisations, can address such important issues."
The two Italian researchers
Paola F. Antonietti, born in 1980, is head of the MOX Modelling and Scientific Computing Laboratory of the Department of Mathematics and professor of Numerical Analysis at Politecnico di Milano. In 2015 she obtained a SIR (Scientific Independence of young Researchers) grant, funded by the Ministry of Universities and Research, with the project 'PolyPDEs: Non-conforming polyhedral finite element methods for the approximation of partial differential equations’. In 2020, she received the 'Jacques-Louis Lions' Prize, awarded every two years by the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS) to young researchers giving outstanding contributions to the field of computational mathematics.
Lourenco Beirao da Veiga, born in 1976, full professor of Numerical Analysis at Università di Milano-Bicocca since 2015, had already been awarded an ERC (Consolidator Grant) in 2016 (project CAVE - Challenges and Advancements in Virtual Elements) and is recognised as a 'Highly Cited Researcher' (a title awarded to researchers whose scientific work has a high number of citations), by the prestigious 'Web of Science’ scientific citation indexing platform. In 2016, he received the 'Jacques-Louis Lions' Prize.
ERC Synergy Grant
The calls from the European Research Council (ERC) are among the most competitive and prestigious in Europe and support frontier research by funding visionary and highly innovative projects. In particular, the Synergy Grant funds research on topics that are so ambitious that they require the creation of a small group of 2 to 4 Principal Investigators (the researchers who supervise and manage the project) acting in strong synergy.
This year, out of 395 proposals submitted under the ERC Synergy Grants programme, 37 projects (5 of which were participated in by Italian scientists) received funding, involving 135 researchers who will carry out their projects at 114 universities and research centres in 19 countries in Europe and beyond.