The new ELLIS Barcelona Unit will promote excellent research into artificial intelligence

The Barcelona ELLIS Unit, vital for consolidating Catalonia’s position as a leading European AI research and innovation hub, was presented today at a ceremony that took place at the Institute of Catalan Studies. Integrated into the network of 43 local units of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), the new unit brings together 23 excellent researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) from nine Catalan research institutions and will help to attract talent and boost the economic and technological development of Catalonia.

The Catalan unit’s future lines of work include organising various seminars with international experts, events to showcase research into AI carried out in Catalonia and the ELLIS programme for PhD and post-doctorate students.

The Barcelona ELLIS Unit fulfils the need to promote interdisciplinary research into AI, establish collaboration between experts from various institutions at both Catalan and European levels, maintain industry links and attract and retain talent in this field. With the support of the Catalan Government and in coordination with stakeholders in the country’s knowledge system, and as part of the Catalan Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Catalonia.AI), the Barcelona ELLIS Unit helps to consolidate the region as a leading European centre for technological development.

The Barcelona ELLIS Unit promotes interdisciplinary, cross-cutting research into artificial intelligence. Its field of work includes fundamental and applied research into automatic learning and other related areas, such as computer vision, robotics and natural language processing. The Unit’s areas of expertise include the interaction between robots and humans, understanding human behaviour, safe and reliable AI, bioinformatics, medical imagery and open innovation.

The Barcelona ELLIS Unit is made up of 23 excellent researchers from five universities and four research centres in the Catalan artificial intelligence ecosystem: the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the University of Barcelona (UB), the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), the Centre for Computer Vision (CVC), the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC), the industrial Robotics and Information Technology Institute (IRI/CSIC-UPC) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS).

Barcelona ELLIS prioritises maintaining significant links to local and international industry, collaborating with a shared perspective on creating AI systems that foster well-being in fair, egalitarian and sustainable societies. In the current context of research and the accelerated implementation of AI, being part of the ELLIS network makes it possible to position Catalonia as a key hub in this field of research, offering a privileged opportunity to make progress in automatic learning in an ethical way that is beneficial to humanity. The Barcelona Unit is committed to research and innovation, as well as generating influence in regard to drafting policies that promote these objectives.

The Unit has the support of the Catalan Government, in coordination with stakeholders in the country’s knowledge system, as part of the Catalan Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Catalonia.AI), led by the Department of Enterprise and Employment. The Barcelona Unit is jointly run by Dr. Carme Torras, a research professor at the Industrial Robotics and Information Technology Institute (IRI/CSIC-UPC), and Dr. Dimosthenis Karatzas, assistant director of the Computer Vision Centre and a lecturer at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.