The ERC-TAMING project

In 2014 I was Laureate of an ERC-Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). It resulted in the ERC-TAMING project 

TAMING intends to provide a systematic methodology for solving hard nonconvex polynomial optimization problems in all areas of science. Indeed the last decade has witnessed the emergence of polynomial optimization as a new field in which powerful positivity certificates from real algebraic geometry have permitted to develop an original and systematic approach to solve (at global optimality) optimization problems with polynomial (and even semi-algebraic) data. The backbone of this powerful methodology is the "Moment-SOS hierarchy" also known as "Lasserre hierarchy" which has attracted a lot of attention in many areas (e.g., optimization, applied mathematics, quantum computing, engineering, theoretical computer science) with important potential applications. It has become a basic tool for analyzing hardness of approximation in combinatorial optimization and the best candidate algorithm to prove/disprove Khot's famous Unique Games Conjecture. Recently it has become a promising new method for solving the important optimal power flow problem (OPF) in the strategic domain of energy networks.

TAMING was launched in the Fall of 2015 at an inaugural workshop Geometric and Numerical Foundations of Movements organized jointly within the ERC-Actanthrope and ANR-Entracte projects of Jean-Paul Laumond and  Nicolas Mansard respectively.

Within TAMING we have also co-organized with the french RTE company, an international workshop on the Optimum Flow Power and Stability Assessment of Power Systems  for large-scale Electricity networks, in Versailles in January 2018.