Value and Impact through Synergy, Interaction and coOperation of Networks of AI Excellence Centres

Project Information

VISION

Grant agreement ID: 952070

DOI

10.3030/952070

Project closed

EC signature date 5 June 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 31 August 2024

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 1 998 910,00

EU contribution

€ 1 998 910,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - VISION (Value and Impact through Synergy, Interaction and coOperation of Networks of AI Excellence Centres)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2024-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The European AI community is fragmented, and this stands in the way of progress, particularly where methods and techniques from more than one area of AI are required. Leveraging the work done by the CLAIRE, AI4EU and others towards overcoming this fragmentation, the VISION project aims to bring together Europe's AI community and enable synergies, especially across the four European networks of excellence centres in AI (NoEs) under ICT-48-2020.
The VISION consortium has been constructed to maximally leverage existing efforts. Its partners are strongly connected to Europe's AI organisations, initiatives and projects, including CLAIRE (ULEI, CIIRC, DFKI, FBK, Inria, TNO), AI4EU (Thales, UCC), EurAI (UCC), and the DIH network (Intellera, TNO through DIHNET), as well as BDVA and euRobotics (Inria, TNO), ELLIS (CIIRC, Inria) and the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on AI (DFKI, UCC).
As human talent is a limiting factor in AI research and development in Europe, VISION is supporting the four NoEs, and the AI community at large, in attracting, educating, and harnessing talent through a range of coordinated and unified "European AI"-branded outreach, dissemination and promotion activities. VISION also facilitates mechanisms for leveraging Europe's strength in AI, ensuring diversity and inclusion across languages, cultures, and gender.
Closely working with the NoEs, VISION coordinates a Europe-wide approach to educating and up-skilling human resources in AI, including cross-disciplinary AI training initiatives and curricula, integrating ethics, humanities and technical disciplines, while leveraging the expertise brought together in the NoEs.
The overall aim of the VISION project is to reinforce, interconnect and mobilise Europe’s AI community, and to orchestrate and accelerate Europe's transition to a world-leading position in the research, development and deployment of AI technologies.

More specifically, VISION's objectives are to:
• mobilise the European AI community;
• strengthen the synergies between Europe's AI networks of excellence
• foster strong connections between academia and industry
• help develop a European approach to AI skills education
• promote the EU as an attractive environment for AI research and researchers

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

VISION has created and is now supporting a streamlined mechanism for the NoEs to communicate their activities and achievements, thus facilitating communication between the NoEs, outreach to the AI community and its stakeholders beyond the ICT-48 ecosystem, and to the general public. Based on the insights and recommendations resulting from the M36 review, VISION has focussed on the following main action points for the project period M36 - M48:

- VISION has led the co-creation process of a unified European AI brand and the implementation of a Common Visual Identity for the Networks of Excellence, that is easy to recognise and apply, can be adopted beyond the NoEs, provides a symbol acting as a unifying modifier while preserving the distinct identity of the particular NoEs and that clearly indicates their joint commitment to "European excellence in trustworthy AI".
- VISION has led the process and developed a first prototype of a mapping of the AI Research and Industry ecosystem to strengthen synergies and facilitate collaboration between the NoEs in the form of an interactive website, based on the Networks of Excellence (NoEs), which should be integrated with the AI-on-Demand Platform. This process included amongst others the development of a shared taxonomy of research topics and application areas, a survey, the construction a list of respondents.
- VISION has supported the development and promotion of the Joint Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), led by TAILOR and ELISE, providing an overview of the areas of research interest pursued across the networks, complementing the Strategic Research Agendas that have already been published by the respective NoEs, thus further enhancing cross-NoE cooperation and synergies.
- VISION has organised, facilitated or supported diverse cross-NoE working groups and regular meetings in close collaboration with and including representatives from all other NoEs to advance collaboration, support joint activities and promote tackling strategies of cross NoE-challenges: quarterly project coordinators meetings, monthly project managers meeting, monthly communications club meetings, bimonthly cross-network working group meetings on academia-industry collaboration, regular meetings of the ecosystem mapping working group, occasional meetings of the AIDA working group, occasional meetings of the joint SRA working group.

In a nutshell, major progress has been achieved in several important areas, including sustainability and strategic directions of the NoEs and VISION activities, Design, initial implementation and facilitation of ecosystem mapping, the joint SRA & European AI Trend Radar, enhancing
European Strategic Research & Innovation AI Dialogue is marketed by the creation of NoE visual branding and promotional materials, as well as the overall facilitation of cross-NoE communication and coordination through regular meetings, events, and shared resources.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Since VISION is not a technical project, but rather a coordination and support action (CSA) for the NoEs that are funded as RIAs, "progress beyond the state of the art" is not a goal of the project. However, through facilitating interaction and sharing of expertise between the NoEs, VISION is contributing to improvements in the state of the art in solving AI problems achieved by the RIAs it is coordinating and supporting. Considering the role AI techniques and systems are increasingly playing as a key enabling technology across all sectors, this has major socio-economic impact and societal benefits

ICT-48 +2 Networks of excellence