EurAI invites member societies to submit proposals for hosting the 4th and 5th European Summer School on Artificial Intelligence, ESSAI 2026 and ESSAI 2027.

Starting in 2023, the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI) has organized a yearly European Summer School on Artificial Intelligence ESSAI.
ESSAI intends to serve as a central hub for PhD students and young researchers working in all aspects of AI. The ESSAI Summer School covers one week of courses and workshops in the summer, at different sites around Europe, for both beginning and advanced students, and junior and senior researchers. ESSAI provides introductory and advanced courses in all areas of AI, emphasizing topics that allow students to gain a broad view of AI and understand connections between subdisciplines. 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 is developing 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 attractions 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 selected organisers from the previous editions of ESSAI. The ACAI theme and track program of ESSAI are decided by the local organisers in consultation with the ESSAI Standing Committee for the final details.

The school can take place any time in the Summer of 2026 and 2027. It should aim at hosting 400-500 students, with a variety of courses (around six parallel tracks) for one week. Facilities for evening lectures are also important. ESSAI 2026 and ESSAI 2027 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. Plans for low-cost student accommodations are particularly welcome.

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 (where possible avoiding large international conferences such as ICML and IJCAI).
• How you plan to advertise the summer school.
• Tentative registration fees, an estimate of costs, and break-even point of the event.
• Explain why you/your group would be 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 of student accommodation, reachability, attractiveness for students, social events).

Please also give details of the ACAI tutorial track organisation:

• Description of the ACAI theme.
• Structure of ACAI tutorial track program (in the last editions we reserved the last slot of the day to ACAI, instead of having a parallel track of tutorials).
• Number and length of the tutorials (usually two hours each, but flexibility is allowed).
• Tentative list of lecturers.

For your convenience, here are pointers to recent ESSAI and earlier ACAI schools https://eurai.org/essai-acai:

• ESSAI 2025, Slovakia, Bratislava.
• ESSAI 2024, Greece, Athens (with EU ICT48 TAILOR Summer School).
• ESSAI 2023, Slovenia, Ljubljana (with EU ICT48 TAILOR Summer School).
• ACAI 2022, Spain, Barcelona, on Explainable AI (with EU ICT48 TAILOR Summer School).
• ACAI 2021, Germany, Berlin, on Human-Centered AI.
• ACAI 2019, Chania, Crete, on AI for Multi-Agent Worlds.
• ACAI 2018, Italy, Ferrara, on Statistical Relational AI.

EurAI shall provide start-up money of 12.000€ for ESSAI 2026 and ESSAI 2027 to help cover the cost of organising ESSAI. After the conference, this money will be returned to the EurAI account. The Organizing Committee is obliged 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 €12,000, to students participating in ESSAI, according to the EurAI eligibility rules and as published on the EurAI web pages.

Proposals should be sent as a single PDF file to Amanda Figueras, EurAI Executive Secretary at: executive-secretary@eurai.org.
Also, for any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Amanda Figueras at the email above.

The deadline for submission is December 15, 2024, AoE.