DFG to Fund Nine AI Projects in Cooperation with Partners in France and Japan

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is funding nine artificial intelligence projects in cooperation with the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, France) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST, Japan).

Based on review statements by internationally renowned experts, the DFG Joint Committee and the competent ANR and JST committees have now selected these nine trilateral projects from among the 36 project proposals submitted. Researchers from all three countries will be cooperating on these projects, which will receive funding amounting to approximately €7 million from the institutions involved; the funding will be spread over a period of three years. The DFG will only be providing the project funding required by the scientists in Germany, i.e. approximately €2.4 million. The ANR and JST will be proceeding in the same way.

In April 2019, the DFG, ANR and JST decided to issue a call for a joint funding initiative for artificial intelligence based not only on criteria of scientific excellence but also on a similar system of values. The three partners are convinced that the subject of artificial intelligence is ideally suited for a joint call, since it is globally relevant and can be addressed particularly effectively by adopting a multi-national approach. The initiative is intended to focus on research questions relating to basic methodical approaches, autonomous decision-making systems, and approaches to interaction between humans and artificial intelligence systems.

In July 2019, the DFG, ANR and JST accordingly issued a call for proposals for trilateral interdisciplinary research projects in the area of artificial intelligence. The proposals were reviewed during a virtual review session held on 2 September 2020 - previous plans had to be changed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Four reviewers from each of the countries involved stated their position on the 36 proposals submitted.

The nine projects selected to receive funding will be launched on 16 November 2020 at a kick-off event to take place during the "Japan-France-Germany Trilateral Symposium on AI". For the DFG, the trilateral cooperation is one of several modules intended to promote research in the area of artificial intelligence. Up until 2022, projects in all areas of AI research will be granted funding within the framework of various DFG programmes that will make up a strategic funding initiative.

The nine trilateral projects in detail: (in alphabetical order according to the university locations of the DFG projects)

• "User-Adaptive Artificial Intelligence for Human-Computer Interaction" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Elisabeth André, University of Augsburg; Professor Dr. Jean-Claude Martin, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Orsay; Dr. Yukiko Nakano, Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Saitama)
• "Research on Real-Time Compliance Mechanisms for AI" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Adrian Paschke, FU Berlin; Professor Dr. Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, Sorbonne University; Professor Dr. Ken Satoh, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo)
• "Knowledge-enhanced information extraction across languages for pharmacovigilance" (Project leader: Professor Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Möller, TU Berlin; Dr. Pierre Zweigenbaum, Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur (LIMSI), Universitaire d'Orsay; Professor Dr. Yuji Matsumoto, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma)
• "Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Michael Beetz Ph.D., University of Bremen; Dr. Aurélie Clodic, Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes (LAAS-CNRS), Toulouse; Dr. Takayuki Kanda, University of Kyoto)
• "AI empowered general purpose assistive robotic system for dexterous object manipulation through embodied teleoperation and shared control" (Project leader: Professor Jan Reinhard Peters Ph.D., TU Darmstadt; Professor Dr. Liming Chen Ph.D., Ecole Centrale Lyon; Professor Dr. Yasuhisa Hasegawa, University of Nagoya)
• "AI for Ageing Societies: From Basic Concepts to Practical Tools for AI-Facilitated Cognitive Training" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Tonio Ball, University Medical Center Freiburg; Alexandre Gramfort Ph.D., The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, INRIA Saclay - Ile de France; Dr. Mihoko Otake-Matsuura, Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Riken)
• "Enhanced data stream analysis: combining the signature method and machine learning algorithms" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Joscha Diehl, University of Greifswald; Professor Dr. Marianne Clausel, Université de Lorraine; Dr. Nozomi Sugiura, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology JAMSTEC, Kanagawa)
• "Understanding and Creating Dynamic 3D Worlds towards Safer AI" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Carsten Rother, University of Heidelberg; Dr. David Picard, École des Ponts ParisTech; Professor Dr. Ko Nishino, University of Kyoto)
• "Learning Cyclotron" (Project leader: Professor Dr. Andreas Dengel, Professor Dr. Jochen Kuhn, TU Kaiserslautern; Professor Dr. Laurence Devillers, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Professor Dr. Koichi Kise, University of Osaka)