Ellis establishes AI research units in Amsterdam, Delft and Leuven

The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (Ellis) has announced the establishment of the first 17 units in 10 European countries and Israel. The units are built around outstanding AI researchers and are devoted to tackling fundamental AI challenges with a focus on research excellence and societal impact. Their locations include Amsterdam, Delft and Leuven. The establishment of the units is the next step towards realizing the Ellis vision of an intergovernmental European AI program with multiple institutes performing multidisciplinary research in machine learning and related areas.

Ellis is a pan-European effort to foster European excellence in machine learning and related domains. It aims to offer European researchers opportunities to carry out their research in Europe and to nurture the next generation of young researchers in this strategically important field. Its goal is to enable European competitiveness in modern AI.

The 17 units were chosen out of 28 proposals from 13 countries. Each is committing 1.5 million euros per year of local funding for at least five years. The proposals from Alicante, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Darmstadt, Delft, Freiburg, Helsinki, Linz, Lausanne, Leuven, Oxford, Prague, Saarbrücken, Tel Aviv, Tübingen, Vienna and Zürich were selected by an international evaluation committee. Criteria were proven scientific excellence and the implementation of measures to foster Ellis’ mission.