ELLIS Institutes Whitepaper
 

Context

Europe aspires to be a world-leader in AI, and a global hub for AI research, talent, and translation. ELLIS is a grassroots initiative driving a wave of progress in European AI that can deliver this ambition. Focusing on scientific excellence, technological innovation, and societal impact, ELLIS harnesses the expertise of Europe’s leading AI researchers in an environment that translates progress in AI research to beneficial outcomes for society and the economy.

Since its launch in 2018, ELLIS has built a network of 41 research units across 16 countries; created a highly-competitive pan-European PhD programme, which in 2022 attracted over 1900 applications from 81 countries; and established a research initiative that engages world-leading researchers in 16 cutting-edge programmes that address critical areas of technology development and social need. These existing initiatives have demonstrated the ELLIS network’s value in enhancing the European AI ecosystem at local, national, and international-levels. In its next phase of development, ELLIS will amplify this impact through the creation of high-profile, internationally-leading ELLIS research institutes. This paper sets out an approach to developing such institutes.

To provide context on the concept of ELLIS Institutes covered in this white paper, we begin by recalling some relevant passages from the 2018 ELLIS open letter:

• ELLIS comprises labs in the partner countries at the top academic sites for machine learning & perception research. This allows jump-starting ELLIS by means of (short or long term) co-affiliation and/or secondment of outstanding academics. Excellent researchers across each country may be connected via fellowships, and the links to local research institutions are vital for ELLIS to thrive.
   
• ELLIS researchers can split their time between ELLIS and local university or industry research labs (creating an incentive for industry to co-locate). Collaboration with industry is encouraged and structured using transparent and simple IP rules that ensure that public funding is used in a way that benefits the public. Joint research involving industry and public funding is openly publishable.
   
• ELLIS researchers can found startups based on IP they generate. ELLIS does not aim to optimise short-term licensing income, and rather aims at sustained economic impact in Europe. To this end, it owns a modest share in those startups and claims no further rights as long as the startup is formed in a partner country, thus generating downstream impact (including jobs) in Europe. ELLIS supports startups in terms of (a) generous leave-of-absence rules, (b) temporary use of infrastructure, and (c) help with administration including legal/financial advice.
   
• ELLIS does not need a large headcount for personnel initially (since it strictly only recruits top notch academics), but it does need a long term funding commitment including a plan how the funding ramps up. Each local lab could aim to reach at least the scale of a major Max Planck institute, i.e., around 100 Mio EUR for infrastructure and an annual budget increasing to 30 Mio EUR during the first ten years.

Current Status

The above model was discussed with a number of European governments. This way, ELLIS has directly or indirectly contributed towards the establishment of a number of new structures (e.g., the ETH AI Center, the ELLIS unit Alicante Foundation), however, founding dedicated ELLIS institutes proved harder, and it required private money: based on a donation of 100 Mio EUR from a private foundation, we were able to convince the local government of Baden-Württemberg to help found an ELLIS institute in Tübingen, Germany.

The donating foundation is spending this money only on science, in the form of Endowed Named ELLIS Fellowships which are paid positions that simultaneously come with the title of ELLIS Fellow/Scholar. The local government is contributing the costs of building and administration (up to 2.5 Mio EUR p.a.). Joint recruitments with the local university and MPI are planned.

There is interest in a number of other locations to also establish an ELLIS Institute, and the label of an “ELLIS Institute” is perceived as attractive, allowing people to increase the visibility of a site, attract talent, and seek additional funds – these are goals that ELLIS would like to strongly support. At the same time, we need to ensure that each ELLIS Institute does live up to the standards of our original goals, with modifications based on our lessons learnt. Below, we outline proposed minimal standards. These are based on discussions in the ELLIS board from 2020 to 2023.

The below criteria are not cast in stone, and we realise that founding an institute is significantly more complex than establishing an ELLIS unit, which was in most cases done inside existing institutions. We thus anticipate that there will be no ‘one size fits all’ strategy and we have thus handled the topic directly in the ELLIS board. While we anticipate that we will found an “ELLIS Institutes Committee” in the future, we expect that final decisions of which institution can carry the name ‘ELLIS Institute’ will continue to be up to the board (this is how it has been handled for the Tuebingen ELLIS Institute). However, this needs to be based on transparent criteria, lest it will be nontrivial to defend such decisions should controversies arise.


Criteria for ELLIS Institutes

Funding situation
The financial resources should be substantial, of the order of at least 10 Mio EUR p.a., but taking into account that expenses and salary levels vary across Europe. The funding should ideally be permanent, but at least for a minimum of ten years.

Size
To have significant impact, institutes need critical mass: at least the equivalent of ten groups of 5-10 people (incl. PI, PhD students, and other scientific/technical coworkers).

Legal structure
Institutes need to be able to manage salaries, negotiate contracts, manage their IP. In most cases, this will mean a dedicated legal structure e.g. as a non-profit.

Contribution to the ELLIS Society
ELLIS units are expected to contribute to the ELLIS Society via an annual membership fee or the recruitment of a dedicated full time ELLIS staff member. A site that hosts an institute is expected to make a larger contribution to the ELLIS society, usually by employing several staff members.

Infrastructure
Institutes need to provide dedicated premises & infrastructure as well as administrative and technical services.

Academic Service
ELLIS Institutes give world-leading scientists an environment to drive transformational research. Academic duties thus focus on research and training of the next generation of talent through joint research. Other teaching duties should be non-existent or minimal.

Visibility
Members must mention the ELLIS Institute affiliation on all publications that they worked on while being paid by the institute; co-affiliations are possible.

Profile
An ELLIS institute carries out fundamental work in modern AI and prioritizes people, not programs. However, institutes can have distinct profiles within the general space, with the goal of producing specific societal, economic or technological benefits.
The designation as an “ELLIS Institute” is up to the ELLIS board.

Excellence and Evaluation
PIs in an ELLIS Institute should pass the bar for ELLIS Fellows/Scholars, according to their level of seniority.
To this end, each institute has a dedicated standing committee in charge of (a) PI recruitments at the Institute, and (b) Scholar/Fellow evaluations of the candidates. The committee vets candidates, and produces Fellow/Scholar recommendations which then go to the overall ELLIS Fellows committee (1). Candidates who pass the bar are both (a) given a job offer at the Institute and (b) awarded the Scholar/Fellow rank of the ELLIS Society.


Route towards founding an ELLIS institute

We anticipate that Endowed (named) ELLIS Fellowships could be a tool that many sites could use if they have donors or funding agencies that would like to invest locally and at the same time strengthen ELLIS as a whole. Once a site has a critical mass of such Fellowships, plus a building and an administration to run it, the step to found an institute would be relatively small.


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1) This process runs parallel to the Fellows Selection Committee, which is in charge of Fellows nominated by programs and units, and whose recommendations are also approved at the end by the Fellows committee.