European Laboratory For Learning And Intelligent Systems

ELLIS - the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems - is a pan-European AI network of excellence which focuses on fundamental science, technical innovation and societal impact. Founded in 2018, ELLIS builds upon machine learning as the driver for modern AI and aims to secure Europe’s sovereignty in this competitive field by creating a multi-centric AI research laboratory. ELLIS wants to ensure that the highest level of AI research is performed in the open societies of Europe inclduing 39 research units, 14 research programs and a PhD & Postdoc Program.

History

The organization was inspired by the Learning in Machines and Brains program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. ELLIS was first proposed in an open letter to European governments in April 2018, which stated that Europe was not keeping up with the US and China. It urged that European governments act to provide opportunities and funding for world-class AI research in Europe.

It was founded on 6 December 2018 at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).

Board

The members of the board are:

* Serge Belongie (University of Copenhagen & Cornell University)
* Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi (Università degli Studi di Milano)

Florence d'Alché-Buc
(Télécom Paris)

Nada Lavrac
(Jožef Stefan Institute)
* Neil D. Lawrence (University of Cambridge)
* Nuria Oliver (ELLIS Alicante Unit Foundation , Institute of Humanity-centric AI)
* Bernhard Schölkopf (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems) Chairman

Josef Sivic
(Czech Technical University, École Normale Supérieure & INRIA)
* Sepp Hochreiter (Johannes Kepler University Linz) ''Board guest''

ELLIS units

ELLIS is creating a network of research sites distributed across Europe and Israel. Currently, there are 39 ELLIS units in 14 countries. The long-term goal is to establish a set of world-class ELLIS institutes, each acting as the core of a local AI ecosystem.

Research programs

In addition to ELLIS units, a European network of top researchers working at locations throughout Europe is being established, organized into 14 ELLIS Programs. These Programs, directed by outstanding European researchers and including leading researchers as Program Fellows, focus on high-impact problem areas that have the potential to move the needle in modern AI.

The ELLIS Programs are inspired by the CIFAR Program model, and closely collaborate with the CIFAR LMB (Learning in Machines and Brains) Program. Each Program has a budget for 2-3 workshops/year to enable meetings of 10-15 Fellows plus guests for intensive scientific exchange. Workshops can be co-located with academic meetings (usually) held in Europe, or organised as stand-alone events, usually at (and with the support of) ELLIS unit sites.

PhD & Postdoc Program

The ELLIS PhD & Postdoc Program supports excellent young researchers by connecting them to leading researchers across Europe and offering a variety of networking and training activities, including summer schools and workshops. ELLIS PhDs and postdocs conduct cutting-edge curiosity-driven research in machine learning or a related research area with the goal of publishing in top-tier conferences in the field.

References

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Artificial intelligence associations
2018 establishments in Europe
Organizations established in 2018