The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) aims to secure the lasting competitiveness of European AI by pooling the expertise of top researchers in machine learning and related fields across the continent. Founded in 2018, the ELLIS initiative has quickly grown into a pan-European network that counts 34 research units at world-class institutions in 20 countries, 14 ELLIS research programs and a pan-European PhD program, which was launched in September 2020. With the ELLIS Institute, a new European lighthouse with model character is thus being created in Baden-Württemberg for research into artificial intelligence (AI). The planned ELLIS institute aims to attract the world's best machine learning talent at all career levels with the "Hector Endowed ELLIS Fellowships" and will provide them with outstanding conditions to conduct pioneering basic research in the field of artificial intelligence. The funded Hector Endowed ELLIS Fellows will find an excellent research environment and high-performance commercial enterprises. In particular, close cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) and the University of Tübingen is planned, for example in the form of joint appointments, doctorates and in the use of infrastructure.
The Institute will be part of Baden-Württembergs Cyber Valley – a central element of the state’s AI strategy and leading international research location in the field of machine learning, machine vision and robotics, established since 2016 in a joint initiative of science and industry in cooperation with the state of Baden-Württemberg and the Max Planck Society. Bernhard Schölkopf, who as director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen played a key role in the founding of Cyber Valley in 2016 and the European Learning and Intelligent Systems Laboratory two years later, will chair the new ELLIS Institute as founding director.
With the ELLIS institute in Tübingen, ELLIS will make an important step towards building a European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems as proposed in an open letter published by leading European AI scientists in 2018. ELLIS expects that similar institutions will be set up at other locations in due course.
Further Reading
- Cyber Valley (27/01/2022): First ELLIS Institute in Tübingen gets go-ahead
- ELLIS (27/01/2022): Hector foundation supports the establishment of an ELLIS institute with 100 million euros
