Center Activities
The scope of activities of the Center include:
- Promoting joint research projects in the areas of our six central research topics.
- Operating the CLS doctoral training program.
- Providing visiting opportunities in research and education for scientists, PhD students and Postdocs in areas such as machine learning, robotics, micro-robotics, computational vision, as well as learning systems, selforganization and control.
- Organising joint summer schools, workshops and conferences on autonomous and complex learning systems in order to advance the education of Master and PhD students.
- Seeking synergies with network partners in Southwest Germany and Switzerland.
- Strengthening possibilities regarding industrial interactions and co-sponsorships.
Network Partners
CLS is part of a strong AI community in the adjacent regions of Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany and Switzerland, with partners including:
- The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems, the Europe-wide (ELLIS) network.
- The ELLIS Institute Tübingen, launched in July 2023 and set to become a world-renowned center for pioneering basic research in the field of artificial intelligence, aiming to attract the world's best machine learning talent.
- The ETH AI Center, the ETH-wide centre for AI research, providing ETH Zurich with the space and resources to intensify AI research in terms of foundations, applications and implications.
- The Cyber Valley initiative based in Stuttgart/Tübingen, Europe’s largest research consortium in the field of artificial intelligence with partners from science and industry.
- The International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS), the doctoral program of Cyber Valley.
Faculty affiliations
Academic exchange within CLS at the senior researcher level is deepened by mutual affiliations:
- Bernhard Schölkopf, Director at the MPI-IS in Tübingen, was appointed as an Affiliated Professor of Empirical Inference at the Department of Computer Science (D-INFK) at ETH Zurich, starting on January 1st, 2019.
- Metin Sitti, a Director at the MPI-IS in Stuttgart, was appointed an affiliated professor of Physical Intelligence at the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (D-ITET) at ETH Zurich, starting on June 1st, 2020.
- Arrangements for the appointment of ETH Professors as Max Planck Fellows at the MPI-IS in Tübingen/Stuttgart are in progress.
Cooperation Agreement
The activities of the Center for Learning Systems are underpinned by an official Cooperation Agreement between the two parties, the Max Planck Society and ETH, and signed off by the respective Presidents and their deputies. The initial agreement, drawn up in 2015, was extended in 2020 to cover the period until April 30, 2025. The Cooperation Agreement regulates the following areas:
- Organisation
- Collaborative Activities
- Evaluation
- Funding
- Personnel
- Facilities
- Center Results and Intellectual Property Rights
- Confidentiality
- Publications
- Liability
- Duration of the Agreement
- Disputes
- Compliance with Laws and Regulations
Center participants with questions about any of these topics should contact the CLS Coordinator for further information.