ETH Zurich and EPFL are part of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems, which aims to foster European excellence in AI Research.
In a virtual ceremony on 15 September 2020, the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) inaugurated thirty research units across fourteen European countries, several of them located at world-class institutions. Founded in 2018, ELLIS aims to bring together excellent minds in multinational labs, increase European presence in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and avoid “brain-drain” of the best scientists to North America and China. Independent from the EU, ELLIS welcomes institutions from all over Europe to join their initiative.
According to the initiators, Europe faces several barriers in keeping up with China or North America in AI-research: salaries at European institutions are not competitive, high teaching obligations keep scientists from devoting more time to their research, and rigid university environments make collaboration with industry and the founding of start-ups difficult. On the other hand, companies such as Google or Amazon have their own research facilities and attract talent not only through higher salaries, but also grant more research freedom. In order to keep the brightest minds in Europe, ELLIS pursues a three-pillar strategy: The first pillar consists of Eleven fellowship programmes, with exceptional scientists conducting research from basic machine learning to applications in health or climate sciences. In addition, ELLIS currently also hosts a programme collecting potential solutions to the Covid-19 crisis. The second pillar is an international and highly competitive PhD programme, and the third consists of the different ELLIS units across Europe, providing research infrastructures, hosting workshops and summer schools and fostering exchange among the European AI and machine learning community. Among the 30 units now in place are some of the European hot spots of modern AI, such as the universities of Oxford, Tübingen and Amsterdam, and the Swiss institutions ETH Zurich and EPFL.
ELLIS recognises that Europe’s biggest strength is its academic culture. To counter the increasing outflow of European talent towards North America or China, the ELLIS programmes will promote the exchange between industry and research, allowing scientists to divide their time between academic and industrial labs or found their own start-ups based on their findings. This is prompting some leading companies to install their own research facilities near ELLIS units, contributing to a flourishing European AI community. ELLIS also strongly encourages the mobility between different institutions, with PhD-students required to spend at least one year in an ELLIS unit in a different country. This way, the initiative aims to foster research excellence and technology transfer in AI, and keep Europe in the race in a highly competitive sector.
With the laboratories and programmes up and running, ELLIS is looking at next steps to maintain Europe’s competitiveness in machine learning and AI: the creation of an intergovernmental organisation. European governments are invited to invest in the initiative and maximise the economic and societal benefits of excellent research in AI. While ELLIS itself is not an EU-initiative, the initiators are hoping to gain some attention from the EU, and advocate for more innovative approaches in EU-bodies such as the High Level Expert Group for AI under the Shaping Europe’s Digital Future strategy. Under the Horizon 2020 call “Towards a vibrant European network of AI excellence centres”, the initiative has already been able to secure €12 Mio in funding, and will continue to explore new ways of fostering scientific excellence in AI and machine learning.