The FNR is pleased to communicate that 2 projects have been selected for funding in the 2025 OPEN Call. The OPEN programme provided funding for a limited number of high quality research projects in areas that are not covered by the national research priorities.
As the FNR prepares for a new legal framework and strategic cycle, the OPEN programme is now discontinued to ensure closer alignment with national research priorities and to better respond to the evolving structure and needs of the research ecosystem.
Funded projects
| Acronym | Project title | Host institution | PI | FNR funding |
| ENTANGLE | Structure – Function Investigation Of Forage Leguminous Seed Sourced Galactomannans | Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology (LIST) | Christos Soukoulis | EUR 536,000.00 |
| Keywords | galactomannans; hydrocolloids; soluble fibres; thickening and gelling properties; molecular conformation properties | |||
| Abstract | Galactomannans are heterogeneous polysaccharides comprising a β-(1→4) D-mannose backbone branched with α-(1→6) linked D-galactose monomeric units. Due to their broad techno-functionality, including thickening, gelling, cryogel forming, and interface stabilising properties, galactomannans are the second most important class of plant-based industrial hydrocolloids. Previous studies have shown that the mannose-to-galactose ratio (M/G) is probably the most important molecular parameter associated with the techno-functionality of galactomannans. Thus, highly substituted galactomannans (M/G ~ 1-2) are cold water-soluble and exert satisfactory thickening and gelling potential. On the contrary, galactose-depleted galactomannans (M/G >2) exhibit lower cold-water solvation affinity but better gelling and cryogel forming capacities. Despite their industrial importance, galactomannans currently face a significant supply-demand gap. This is not only due to the steadily increasing use of galactomannans in industrial commodity applications (food, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, composite materials, etc.) but also to the fact that the yield of galactomannan-producing crops (i.e., fenugreek, guar, tara, carob, and cassia) is being reduced due to climate change and the geographically and ecologically restricted cultivation of these crops. Recently, our team demonstrated that the seeds of forage legume crops such as alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) and clover (Trifolium pratense L.) are promising bioresources of industrially relevant galactomannans with an Mw of 1500-2200 kDa and M/G <1.2. A broad range of functionalities, including thickening, gelling, soft cryogel forming, and mild prebiotic properties, have been bestowed. However, in their native form, these forage legume galactomannans outperform only fenugreek gum. The ENTANGLE project will aim to assiduously study alfalfa galactomannan and its enzymatically debranched (partially degalactosylated) and depolymerized (partially hydrolyzed mannan backbone) derivatives. The alfalfa galactomannan biopolymers will be characterized in terms of their molecular structure configuration (Mw, M/G, pattern of the galactose depleted to galactose substituted regions, hydrodynamic radius, radius of gyration, intrinsic viscosity, etc.), techno-functional properties (thickening, gelling, cryogel forming, water solvation affinity and swelling etc.), and prebiotic potential (in vitro digestibility and fermentability, formation of short-chain free fatty acids, and impact on the microbial population diversity of a synthetic gut microbiota model). For the first time, a machine learning-driven (random forests) structure-function assessment of the modified alfalfa galactomannans will be conducted to understand the mechanistic basis of the interplay between structural configuration and technological and prebiotic properties. It is aspired that ENTANGLE will advance the knowledge in the domain of underexploited forage legume seed galactomannans. In the long term, it is envisioned that ENTANGLE will act as a know-how incubator for future R&D collaborative activities in the field of sustainable, eco-resilient, and techno-economically promising hydrocolloids with relevant industrial stakeholders. | |||
| Acronym | Project title | Host institution | PI | FNR funding |
| SIDE | Surfaces In 3-dimensional Spaces And Extensions | University of Luxembourg | Jean-Marc Schlenker | EUR 386,000.00 |
| Keywords | hyperbolic manifolds, quasifuchsian manifolds, minimal surfaces, constant curvature surfaces, pleating lamination | |||
| Abstract | Special surfaces, such as minimal surfaces, surfaces of constant Gauss curvature, or pleated surfaces, have played a significant role in the last decades in progress in understanding 3-dimensional manifolds of constant curvature and their moduli spaces. They have also been important in “higher Teichmüller theory”, that is, the analysis of spaces of representations of surface groups (or discrete hyperbolic groups) into Lie groups. The first aim of SIDE (Surfaces in 3-Dimensional spaces and extensions) is to make further progress in several questions concerning those special surfaces in 3-dimensional spaces of constant curvature, in particular hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Its second aim is to extend some of the questions or results known in hyperbolic 3-manifolds to a “universal” setting, to questions on convex domains or convex surfaces in H3 without group actions. Finally, it will also strive to extend some existing results and tools concerning special surfaces in 3-dimensional hyperbolic manifolds to Hitchin representations. SIDE is composed of four objectives. 1: CMC foliations in hyperbolic manifolds. This objectives includes questions on the existence of constant mean curvature (CMC) foliations of some quasifuchsian manifolds, as well as the possible existence of foliations of closed hyperbolic manifolds by closed minimal surfaces. 2: Convex domains in quasifuchsian manifolds. The first question in this objective is whether a quasifuchsian (or convex co-compact) hyperbolic manifold is uniquely determined by the induced metric on the boundary of its convex core — we would like to use recent progress on the dual, and related, bending lamination conjecture, to tackle this questions. Other questions are related to the renormalized volume of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, and specifically to a measured foliation at infinity which plays a role in the variations of the renormalized volume. 3: Convex domains in H^3. Here we consider whether a general convex subset of $\HH^3$ — in particular, one that is not bounded — is uniquely determined by boundary data that includes the induced metric on the boundary (or, dually, the third fundamental form of the boundary). It is related to Objective 2, but the techniques used tend to be different. 4: Pleated surfaces and k-surfaces for Hitchin representations. The main goal here is to define a suitable extension for Hitchin representations of the notion of k-surfaces for representations in PSL(2,C) or PSL(2,R)xPSL(2,R). We would like to find an extension for such that a unique invariant surface exists for any Hitchin representation. Each of those objectives is composed of several goals. Some of the goals correspond to well-identified open problems in the area, while others are likely to be more tractable. | |||