Researchers from FEB, FSE, Law and Medical Sciences receive NWO funding for project AI ELSA Lab for Technical Industry

Researchers from the UG’s Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE), Faculty of Law and Faculty of Medical Sciences have received funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for a large-scale AI research project. The project is titled ‘ELSA Lab for Technical Industry’ (ELSA4TI) and will be part of the National Growth Fund programme AiNed, implemented by the AI Coalition 4 NL.

The responsible development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) requires the careful examination of its ethical (E), legal (L), societal and economic (S) aspects (A). The societal issue that this project addresses is the slow adoption of AI in the Dutch manufacturing sector because of the complex ELSA considerations. This multi-disciplinary project aims at creating user scenarios for the Dutch technical industry and providing practical guidance with a clear vision for the ELSA landscape in the coming years.

Building on previous AI projects

The new project, which will be led by UG-researchers, builds on the success of the researchers’ previous and current projects on Human-Centric AI, such as STAR, HumAIne, AI4Work, SkillAIbility, and the soon to start AIExpert. It will have a total budget of 2.4 million euros for five years. The research team from FEB’s Department of Operations is led by Associate Professor Christos Emmanouilidis and also includes assistant professors Jos Bokhorst and Sabine Waschull. They have secured the support of Philips Consumer Lifestyle BV, Gasunie, Drachten Innovation Cluster and the employer’s association for the Dutch Association of Technology Industries (FME) to work on applications involving AI-driven autonomy and humans in production and technical asset lifecycle management.

The multi-disciplinary project consortium

Reflecting the project’s multi-disciplinary approach, ELSA4TI is a Jantina Tammes School cross-faculty project, where the FEB Research team will work with colleagues from FSE (Ming Cao), the Faculty of Law (Jean Misfud Bonnici), and the Faculty of Medical Sciences (Mirjam Plantinga). The project will be led by the Director of the Jantina Tammes School, Professor Ming Cao. Apart from research teams from the four UG faculties, the consortium also includes the University of Twente and Tilburg University, as well as 13 industrial partners.

More information:

Ming Cao and Christos Emmanouilidis announced the new project during their talks at the National Congress on Autonomous systems in Drachten on April 2.

Read more about the project on the NWO website and the UG website.

Questions? Please contact Christos Emmanouilidis