UOC joins Catalan unit of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems

Catalonia will play home to one of the four new units of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), the pan-European artificial intelligence (AI) network of excellence that brings together the best researchers in the field. The new ELLIS Unit Barcelona, in which the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) is participating, will become the third largest of the forty that make up the network and, according to the Government of Catalonia, "is an endorsement of the high quality and impact of the research carried out in Catalonia in the field of AI".

The researchers involved in the laboratory include Àgata Lapedriza, the leader of the Artificial Intelligence for Human Well-being (AIWELL) research group, affiliated to the eHealth Center and the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications at the UOC. Lapedriza said that joining the ELLIS Unit Barcelona is "very good news. First, it's recognition of Barcelona's machine learning and AI community. Second, the unit will enhance the profile of what we are researching, and create new opportunities for research." Other researchers working with ELLIS the Prof. David Masip –director of the UOC Doctoral School– and Carles Ventura, who are all members of the AIWELL group.

Support from the Government of Catalonia's Catalonia.AI programme

The candidacy of the Catalan ELLIS unit was put forward by the Catalan Government, working in coordination with institutions in the country's knowledge system, as part of the Artificial Intelligence Strategy of Catalonia (Catalonia.AI) led by the Ministry of Business and Labour. The Catalan Minister of Business and Labour, Roger Torrent i Ramió, assessed Catalonia's membership of the European AI network in very positive terms, and pointed out that "this once again makes Catalonia a European benchmark in research and technological excellence". He added that "initiatives like this help us generate and attract new research talent, and retain the talent we have in Catalonia, which is essential for the country's business sector".

Meanwhile, the Catalan Minister of Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal i Farreras, said that the opening of an ELLIS unit in Catalonia was a milestone in "establishing Catalonia as a key node in the field of artificial intelligence research in Europe, a field of study with a direct impact on the welfare of citizens and the productivity of the production sector". Nadal said that "the coordination between the agents in the Catalan knowledge system and the Government, which culminated in the confirmation of this great news, once again demonstrates that when we work together as a system, we are worth much more than the sum of our individual contributions."

Nine research agents involved

With a research team consisting of 21 researchers, the ELLIS Unit Barcelona will connect the scientific community of five universities and four research centres in the Catalan knowledge system. In addition to the UOC, it includes the University of Barcelona (UB), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Computer Vision Center (CVC), the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (IRI/CSIC-UPC), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) and the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC).

In Catalonia, the new unit will undertake interdisciplinary and cross-cutting research in AI, forge strong links with industry, and train the next generation of outstanding talent in this field. In its work, it will focus on fundamental research on machine learning and related fields, including vision, robotics and natural language processing.

The Catalan unit will be led by Carme Torras, PhD in Computer Science and head of the Perception and Manipulation research group at the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (CSIC-UPC). A mathematician specializing in robotics and artificial intelligence, Dr Torras won the National Research Prize in 2020 for her research on AI and assistive robotics. The co-director of the ELLIS Unit Barcelona will be the associate director of the CVC and professor at the UAB Dimosthenis Karatzas. According to Torras, "the ELLIS network is a privileged ecosystem for developing AI in a way that is ethically beneficial to humanity. The new ELLIS Unit Barcelona is looking forward to joining forces and contributing to achieving this objective."

Catalonia – a hub of innovation, leadership and talent in AI

Catalonia has excellent capabilities that make it an ideal location for outstanding work in the field of artificial intelligence. It has an internationally renowned scientific and academic community working on AI, with more than 25 research groups at 16 different institutions, in addition to first-rate scientific infrastructures. It also has a strong ICT sector, with 180 companies specializing in artificial intelligence, which have a turnover of €1.35 billion and employ 8,500 workers.

The Government of Catalonia established the Catalonia.AI strategy in 2020 with the aim of making Catalonia into a hub for innovation, leadership and attracting talent and companies in the field of AI. Responsibility for the creation of the ELLIS Unit Barcelona fell to the Artificial Intelligence Research Alliance of Catalonia (AIRA). Along with the Centre of Innovation for Data tech and Artificial Intelligence (CIDAI), the Catalan Observatory for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (OEIAC) and the AI community in the Digital Catalonia Alliance (DCA), ARIA is one of the four pillars of the Catalonia.AI strategy, which specifically focuses on promoting research in artificial intelligence and attracting and retaining talent in this field.

A European AI research network

ELLIS is a network of fundamental research excellence in artificial intelligence in Europe, advancing the state of the art, generating technological innovation and creating a positive social and economic impact. Founded in 2018 as the result of a movement among the European scientific community, it aims to make Europe a pioneering region and strengthen technological excellence and sovereignty in a discipline as strategic as AI.

Apart from Barcelona, the other three new units that have been added to ELLIS are in Graz (Austria), Potsdam (Germany) and Trento (Italy). With these new additions, ELLIS currently has 39 units in 14 different countries, linking the best researchers in the field to drive excellent research and the highest level of competitiveness on an international scale, and to shape the future of AI in Europe towards human-centred, beneficial and safe AI.

Press contact

Rubén Permuy
rpermuy@uoc.edu
+34 659 05 42 39

 

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