The call for chairs is now closed.
The context of ANITI
ANITI is a research program funded from 2019 to 2023 as an “Interdisciplinary AI Institute”.
Following its successful evaluation, we anticipate a continuation of ANITI in a form that we provisionally call ANITI 2.0.
This call for chair proposals, as elaborated with our academic and industrial partners, will allow interested researchers to initiate as soon as possible the construction of their proposals, which can take five (5) possible forms and will run from 2024 for a duration of 4 years.
Certain figures concerning the support of chairs, are subject to change, as indicated each time it is necessary in the text below.
The submitted proposals will run through a two-stage evaluation process: (i) a short list of projects selected by the “ANITI evaluation committee” will form the basis of a coherent program and (ii) an eventual submission to the ANR.
Objectives of the program
ANITI 2.0 is an interdisciplinary research program focused on safe and trusted AI and its scientific and technological interfaces. It extends the achievements and benefits of ANITI towards a broader community, beyond the topics and the teams currently involved in the program, with a particular emphasis for promoting young scientists (Starting Chairs), interdisciplinary and collaborative projects (Synergy and Industrial Chairs). It is based on a sharing model of its results for the benefit of all its members, academic and industrial, and society. Its strategic and scientific objectives are the following.
Strategic objectives
- Conduct a research program seeking to contribute to: (i) fundamental and interdisciplinary knowledge, (ii) R&D developments (low TRL), (iii) technology transfers, social and economic developments
- Amplify the momentum effect of ANITI and extend it towards a broader community and young scientists, for the benefit of Toulouse, and possibly the Occitanie region, in the fields of computational sciences and technologies and their interfaces, in particular towards AI for engineering sciences, life sciences, earth and environmental sciences, as well as towards associated technologies, industries and services
- Consolidate and strengthen ANITI’s assets in AI education and training and its interfaces at all levels: training through research, leadership in EFELIA national program, ANITI Graduate School, initial training, continuing education, initiation and transmission of knowledge to high and middle school students, and the general public
- Intensify efforts in R&D, dissemination of results, support for the development of demonstrators and specific applications, transfer, spin-off, and social and economic added value
- Set its actions on all the preceding objectives within the framework of an ethical commitment to socially responsible research; pursue efforts to disseminate knowledge, animation and promote citizen deliberation in its fields
Scientific perimeter:
Chairs will benefit from an exceptional research environment linking industrial partners, academic researchers and engineers from applied research laboratories to make fundamental and high risk/high gain advances on the foundations of trustworthy AI and on ways to exploit trustworthy AI for critical applications, primarily in the domains of intelligent mobility and industry 4.0 and possibly also in climate, health and food. All proposals in this general area are welcome.
ANITI will be looking particularly for proposals that address issues such as:
- Hybrid AI, frugality and guarantees for AI systems, explicability, robustness, bias, anomalies
- Foundational work on theories of learning and machine learning architectures and their implications in NLP, robotics, vision, but also planning, simulations of complex scientific phenomena, and human centered AI
A chair will work in concert with industrial partners and the results emanating from the research will nourish industrial roadmaps on a variety of industrial concerns: embedded and autonomous systems, advanced engineering design and decision support methods, advanced cobots, multimodal fusion of data, etc.
ANITI encourages all qualified researchers to apply to one of the five forms of chair defined below. It seeks gender balance among chair PIs and associates. It specially encourages junior researchers (within around 10 years of their PhD) to apply for Starting Chairs.
It invites researchers to apply to Synergy Chairs for highly interdisciplinary projects involving up to four PIs, and to Industrial Chairs for projects involving up to four PIs dedicated to addressing a challenge pertinent to one or more industrial partners’ research and development programs. Proposers with already foreseen complementary support and partners are very welcome.
Scientific excellence and feasibility, high risk/high gain and social impact are important criteria for the evaluation of the Chair’s proposed project. Chairs should justify the choice of co-chairs when relevant and their commitments. Chair PIs are expected to contribute at least 50% of their time to the chair. Co-chairs are expected to contribute at least 20% of their time to chair. Additionnally, Chair projects can also involve collaborating researchers who are not submitted to any constraints in terms of time involvement. Note that no budget will be transferred to their institutions.
Proposals will be evaluated through a two-stage procedure:
The submitted proposals will run through a two-stage evaluation process: (i) a short list of projects selected by the “ANITI evaluation committee” (composed of international experts having no conflict of interest with any submission) will form the basis of a coherent program and (ii) an eventual submission to the ANR.
Chair types
Starting and Advanced Chairs (SC, AC)
The concept
- These Chairs are intended to enable one Principal investigator to lead a ground-breaking and ambitious research project
- The project may include industrial partnerships
The PIs
- All PIs must have excellent international research tracks
- Starting Chairs are for PIs who are within their 10 years from their PhD (conditions for eligibility specified in call document)
Synergy Chairs (SynC)
The concept
- Synergy chairs are intended to enable a group of 2-4 Principal Investigators (co-PIs) and their teams to bring together complementary approaches, in order to jointly address fundamental bottlenecks and ambitious research problems
- This is not a regular collaborative project within a focused discipline: complementarity and multi-disciplinarity should be reflected in the project and the organizational structure
- Examples: (i) A SynC bringing together neuroscience, robotics and NLP (Linguistics and CS) together with explainability. (ii) A SynC on AI for the other sciences, bringing together CS, mathematics with physics, biology, neurology, chemistry, climate and environment sciences, or other disciplines for joint breakthrough in one of these fields and AI
The PIs
- All participating PIs must have excellent international research track records
- All career stage categories can participate. There is no official preference for a specific category. Synergy between carreer stages is possible
International Attractivity Chairs (IAC)
The concept
- Attract exceptional, internationally recognized AI researchers to Toulouse
- Promote research projects that contribute to the strategy of ANITI 2.0, reinforce and complement Toulouse talents
The PIs
- The PIs must have excellent international research track records
- The PI may be full time or part time in Toulouse
Industrial Chairs (IC)
The concept
- IC chairs are intended to enable a potentially multi-PI team to lead a ground-breaking and ambitious research project developed in collaboration with one or more industrial partners around a topic dedicated to an application area with large socio-economic impact brought forward by the industrial partners
- The chair team must come with a management plan validated by the industrial partners of the chair. This plan could include milestones, deliverables, workpackages, reviews
- The project will benefit from the ANITI expertise, and is expected to interact with and to contribute to ANITI research and development
The PIs
- The PIs must have excellent international research track records, or have a strong engineering expertise on the project topic
- PIs can come from academic or industrial backgrounds. At least one PI must be from an academic background
Foreseen funding and support (TBC)
Tentatively and subject to revision:
- Up to 450 K€ for AC and IAC, 300 K€ for a SC (i.e., a funding for about 2 PhDs and 24 Postdoc-months for AC); funding commensurate with the group and project size for SynC and IC, in about the same range per PI as AC and SC
- Support for current PI duties (such as part-time teaching relief for faculty members) to foster their involvement in ANITI 2.0 scientific and organizational program; negotiable salary for IAC PIs, possible bonuses for other PIs (depending on their employers)
Provisional calendar (TBC after the announcement of the pending 3IA decision)
- Call presentation webinar: February 10, 9.30 – 11.00 – Register
- Rendez vous between industrial partners and candidates for chairs : March 10 – Register
- Webinar for question/answers: April 7, 9.30 – 11.00 – Register
- Deadline for submission: May 5
- Publication of the selection results: July 15
- Submission of the consolidated ANITI 2.0 program: Sept 1st (TBC)
The call for chairs is now closed
About ANITI chairs
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