Five New Units Join the ELLIS Network: Cote d’Azur, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Ireland, and Norway
ELLIS Units are local hubs of scientific excellence where outstanding researchers collaborate closely, exchange ideas across disciplines and develop long-term research agendas. By bringing leading scientists together in dedicated locations, the Unit model builds critical mass in expertise, infrastructure and mentorship, and helps distribute cutting-edge AI research across the continent.
The new Units strengthen the network in two ways. Côte d’Azur, Hamburg and Innsbruck are located in countries already represented in ELLIS. They deepen existing research ecosystems and broaden national collaboration by involving additional institutions and regions. Norway and Ireland are new countries in the network, integrating new talent pools and research communities into ELLIS’ wider AI landscape.
Several themes stand out across the new Units:
Interdisciplinary research with real-world relevance. The Units apply machine learning to challenges in science, medicine, engineering, technology and society. Hamburg focuses on the natural sciences and engineering, including climate science, physics and the biomedical sciences. Innsbruck works on AI systems that generalise beyond their training data and provide interpretable explanations. Ireland brings together AI, data science, the arts, humanities, social sciences and health research. Norway addresses societal, environmental and technological challenges, with particular emphasis on the Arctic and Nordic region.
Strong links between academia, industry and society. Côte d’Azur builds on established ties with major industrial partners as well as SMEs and start-ups, to transfer research into health, digital infrastructures, creative industries and intelligent mobility. Ireland works with domain experts, policymakers and societal stakeholders so that AI solutions are relevant to the people who use them. Hamburg and Norway likewise aim to foster innovation and collaboration across institutions, industry and society.
Training the next generation. All new Units are committed to educating future researchers, innovators and founders, and to connecting local talent with the wider ELLIS community.
Trustworthy and open AI. Norway aims to advance intelligent systems that are trustworthy and beneficial to society, while Côte d’Azur promotes open and reproducible research through open access publications, open source repositories and open weights models.
Together, these Units expand ELLIS’ geographic reach and enhance collaboration across complementary areas of AI expertise, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness in AI research.
As Josef Šivic, ELLIS Fellow, member of the ELLIS Units Committee and former ELLIS Board Member, said:
Every new Unit went through a rigorous evaluation by ELLIS Fellows, and each brings something distinctive to the network. Welcoming the first Units in Ireland and Norway, and strengthening our presence in France, Germany and Austria, brings us closer to a truly European network of excellence in AI research. We look forward to working with our new colleagues to build a strong, collaborative research community.
Welcome to our 5 New Units:
Unit Director: Pietro Michiardi (EURECOM)
Unit Coordinators: Lise Cudin (EURECOM) and Simone Rossi (EURECOM)
Located in Sophia Antipolis, Europe’s first technopole, the Unit advances fundamental AI research and its transfer to health, digital infrastructures, creative industries and intelligent mobility. It aims to train a new generation of researchers who can bridge academia and industry, building on established ties with partners such as Amadeus, ARM, SAP, Kyndryl, Orange, Bosch, Renault Group and Thales Alenia Space, as well as numerous SMEs and start-ups. The Unit also promotes open and reproducible AI research, including open access publications, open source repositories and open weights models.
Unit Directors: Stefano Panzeri (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf) and Nihat Ay (Hamburg University of Technology)
Unit Coordinator: Katrin Schöning-Stierand (University of Hamburg)
The Unit advances machine learning research in the natural sciences and engineering, extending the ELLIS network to the Hamburg Metropolitan Region in northern Germany. Its research areas include the foundations of ML, ML for cognitive and cyber-physical systems, climate science, physics and the biomedical sciences. By strengthening interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration, and connecting to ELLIS programs and Units, it aims to make Hamburg a more attractive center for ML research and to educate the next generation of innovators, researchers, key employees and founders.
Unit Director: Justus Piater (University of Innsbruck)
The Unit aims to consolidate and expand AI and ML research in Western Austria, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and build strong connections with other ELLIS Units and global AI/ML research centers. Its research focuses on AI systems that understand real-world principles and phenomena, generalize beyond their training data and generate interpretable explanations. The goal is to apply these capabilities to challenges in science, medicine and technology.
Unit Director: Noel O’Connor (Dublin City University)
The Unit advances fundamental AI research, particularly in core ML and related fields such as computer vision, natural language processing and information retrieval. It fosters an interdisciplinary approach that brings together AI, data science, the arts, humanities, social sciences and health research as part of a national network; Rinn AI, Ireland’s centre for research and innovation in data science and AI. The Unit works with domain experts, policymakers and societal stakeholders so that AI solutions are relevant to end users and address real-world challenges. It also aims to bring together researchers from across Ireland and train the next generation of ML and AI researchers.
Unit Directors: Michael Kampffmeyer (The Arctic University of Norway), Robert Jenssen (The Arctic University of Norway), Jukka Corander (University of Oslo)
Unit Coordinator: Petter Bjørklund (The Arctic University of Norway)
The Unit advances fundamental and applied AI and ML research to address societal, environmental and technological challenges, with particular emphasis on the Arctic and Nordic region. It connects and strengthens Norway’s distributed AI and ML community, fostering talent, innovation and collaboration across institutions, industry and society. As part of ELLIS, it contributes Norwegian expertise and perspectives to the network and works with Units and institutes across Europe to advance intelligent systems that are trustworthy, effective and beneficial to society.
These five new Units join the five new and two expanded Units announced in May 2026.
Learn more about all of the ELLIS Sites.
