EurAI invites member societies to submit proposals for hosting the 2nd and 3rd European Summer School on Artificial Intelligence, ESSAI 2024 and ESSAI 2025.

ESSAI is a new, yearly recurring event organised under the auspices of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI) https://www.eurai.org ESSAI intends to serve as a central hub for PhD students and young researchers working in “all aspects of AI”. The structure of ESSAI has been deeply inspired by the ESSLLI (European Summer School on Logic, Language and Information), organised in 1989 by the Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI). The ESSAI Summer School covers two weeks of courses and workshops in the summer, in different sites around Europe, for beginning and advanced students and junior and senior researchers. ESSAI provides foundational, introductory, and advanced courses in all areas of AI, emphasising topics that allow students to gain a broad view of AI and understand connections between subdisciplines. In addition, it hosts four evening lectures in which prominent researchers present interdisciplinary overviews of recent developments for a broad audience. ESSAI also offers several social activities for students and researchers alike. ESSAI summer schools aim to attract around 400/500 students from Europe and elsewhere. ESSAI wants to develop into an important meeting place and forum for discussion for students and researchers interested in the interdisciplinary study of Artificial Intelligence in a broad sense. One of the main attraction points is ESSAI’s unique scientific and social atmosphere.

One of the tracks of ESSAI consists of advanced tutorials on a specific subject and corresponds to the traditional ACAI school organised by EurAI since 1989.

ESSAI courses and the ESSAI program are selected by an ESSAI Program Committee, elected by the ESSAI Standing Committee, consisting of EurAI Board Members and chosen people from the previous editions of ESSAI. The ACAI track program of ESSAI instead is decided by you as local organisers in consultation with the ESSAI PC for the final details.

The school can occur any time in the Summer of 2024 and 2025. It should aim at hosting 400/500 students, with a variety of courses (around six parallel tracks) for two weeks. Facilities for evening lectures are also important. ESSAI 2024 and ESSAI 2025 are planned as in-person events, but support for live-stream/recording of the lectures will be appreciated. Local organisers should provide lunch and coffee breaks and organise social events. The aim is to keep registration, travel, and accommodation costs low.

Please provide a concise PDF document addressing the above points; in particular, please answer the following point regarding the event:

Names of the organisers EurAI member society supporting the application Possible dates for the summer school How do you plan to advertise the summer school Tentative registration fees, an estimate of costs, and break-even of the event Explain why you/your group are a good host for the summer school State whether your host institution will support the school, e.g., by providing free/cheap lecture rooms Explain the benefits of the location (costs, reachability, attractiveness for students, social events

Please also give details of the ACAI tutorial track organisation:

Description of the ACAI topic Structure of ACAI tutorial track program Number of days (usually one week, but flexibility is allowed) Length of the tutorials (2, 3 or 4 hours, but flexibility is allowed) Tentative list of lecturers

For your convenience, here are pointers to ESSAI 2023 (which, as the first school, was only one week and held together with ESSLLI) and recent ACAI schools:

ESSAI 2023, Slovenia, Ljubljana (joined with EU ICT48 TAILOR Summer School)

ACAI 2022, Barcelona, Spain, Explainable AI (joined with EU ICT48 TAILOR Summer School)

ACAI 2021, Berlin, Germany, Human-Centered AI

ACAI 2019, Chania, Crete, AI for Multi-Agent Worlds

ACAI 2018, Ferrara, Italy, Statistical Relational AI

EurAI shall provide start-up money for 12.000€ or ESSAI 2024 and ESSAI 2025 to help cover the cost of organising ESSAI. After the conference, this money will be returned to the EurAi account. The Organizing Committee is obligated to provide EurAI with a proposal for the registration fees for ESSAI (including planned registration fee waivers for lecturers, etc.) for approval by EurAI before posting this publicly. EurAI will provide travel grants worth between €250 and €750 each, up to a total of no more than €12000, to students participating in ESSAI, the EurAI eligibility rules, as published on the EurAI web pages.

Proposals should be sent as a single pdf file to Marija Trifuncevic at e-mail: executive-secretary@eurai.org

Also, for any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Marija Trifuncevic at the email above.

The deadline for submission is <15/09/2023> AoE.