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On 19 June 2020, Dr. Marco Miniaci received the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Award from the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The award recognised experienced researchers showing how their participation in the MSCA has had a positive effect on their career, including the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, the stimulation of international networks, job prospects and professional opportunities in academic and/or non-academic sectors.
The aim of the MSCA actions is to strengthen the creative and innovative potential of researchers wishing to diversify their individual skills through advanced training and international and intersectoral mobility.

Marco Miniaci received the prize for his project entitled "HARPOCRATES - Cristaux phoniques intelligents pour la réduction du bruit des avions" ("HARPOCRATES - Intelligent phononic crystals for aircraft noise reduction"), carried out in the CNRS UMR 6294 and supervised by Professor Bruno Morvan at the Laboratoire d'Ondes et Milieux Complexes in Le Havre, and funded as part of a "Marie Skłodowska-Curie European individual grant".

HARPOCRATES designs "intelligent phononic crystals for aircraft noise reduction". The project has promoted the development of next-generation acoustic insulation techniques based on the phononic crystal paradigm, i.e. architecturally engineered composites with unconventional dynamic properties, adapted to control the propagation of elastic waves through band gaps and band gaps, which respectively allow and prevent elastic/sound waves from propagating in specific frequency ranges. The project led to the design, optimisation and experimental validation of a device for controlling elastic waves, promoting theoretical and experimental evidence.
The HARPOCRATES project was conceived as part of the development of new acoustic insulation systems to reduce aircraft noise, in line with the EU's forthcoming policies on noise control in transport, which over the years will require vehicles to be ever quieter.