TU Delft selected as ELLIS unit for AI and machine learning

The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent systems (ELLIS) have selected TU Delft for establishing one of its units for European research excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning. The unit is comprised of top researchers who will work on tackling fundamental challenges in AI with a focus on research excellence and societal impact.

The Delft ELLIS unit will focus on using learning techniques as a key enabling technology to deal with complex tasks, and making intelligent systems adapt to their environment including social circumstances. The main goals of the Delft ELLIS unit are:

1. investigate intelligent systems that are sustainable in the long run and that have sufficient meaningful human control
2. understand how to use socially-aware AI to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of complex socio-technical systems and the quality of life for all members of society
3. develop - specifically in the context of technical systems such as infrastructures and robots - novel AI methods for making complex yet explainable decisions, for instance by humans-AI collaboration to explore the consequences of such decisions.

Within this context, the ELLIS Delft unit offers unique research and education strengths to high-profile faculty members in the following fields:

•  sequential decision making (e.g., reinforcement learning, scheduling) with applications in domains like robotics, vision, self-driving cars, smart energy systems, transportation, smart cities, and cybersecurity,
•  interaction (multi-agent/actor decision making), with applications such as in human-AI interaction and collaboration, crowdsourcing, and web technologies,
•  machine learning techniques for bioinformatics in the context of healthy living, disease diagnosis and prevention, and microbiological industrial processes.

The Delft ELLIS unit is headed by Prof. dr. Robert Babuska, supported by Frans Oliehoek and Jens Kober (advisory board).

About ELLIS

The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) is a pan-European effort initiated in 2018 to foster European research excellence in machine learning and related fields. Grassroots initiative assembling top European talent in machine learning mobilizes more than 200 Mio in funding across Europe for the next 5 years. In 2019, ELLIS announced the establishment of the first 17 ELLIS units across 10 European countries and Israel.

The establishment of the ELLIS units is the next step towards the realization of the ELLIS vision of an intergovernmental European AI program with multiple ELLIS institutes performing world-class multi-disciplinary research in machine learning and related areas.

More information
European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) press release