ELLIS is a pan-European effort initiated in 2018 to secure the excellence of European machine learning research. It aims to ensure that Europe continues to be competitive with big economies, such as the US and China, and benefit from the newest findings of AI research.
With the units, ELLIS wants to strengthen European AI research and collaboration between European researchers.
The unit will be founded in Aalto University and the University of Helsinki and hosted by the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence FCAI. Samuel Kaski, the Director of FCAI and Academy Professor at Aalto University, sees this as an excellent opportunity to boost basic AI research, which is the basis of all AI-related applications and impact. “Finland is very strong in AI research, and this new status is one indication of that.”
Professor Kaski believes that the ELLIS unit helps Finland to maintain its position as an attractive destination for top-level international researchers. It also gives current AI researchers in Finland more reasons to stay.
ELLIS aims to offer European researchers outstanding opportunities to carry out their research in Europe and to nurture the next generation of young researchers in the important field of AI. All ELLIS units will arrange visits and events as well as provide funding for doctoral students in the ELLIS PhD programme.
The other cities selected to host a unit are Alicante, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Darmstadt, Delft, Freiburg, Linz, Lausanne, Leuven, Oxford, Prague, Saarbrücken, Tel Aviv, Tübingen, Vienna, and Zürich.