CLAIRE and partners oppose cuts to EU’s AI research budget

The Confederation of Laboratories of Artificial Intelligence in Europe (CLAIRE), the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) and the European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI) issued a joint open letter opposing significant research budget cuts for European AI research.

The EU needs to ambitiously invest in excellence in science and innovation at the regional, national and European levels. This is particularly important in fields such as Artificial Intelligence, which is at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that we are immersed in, and is poised to produce general-purpose technologies that are major drivers of innovation, future growth and competitiveness, with long-term profound impact across all sectors of economy and society.

CLAIRE, ELLIS and EurAI have therefore called upon the members of the European Parliament and the European Council to ensure that HORIZON EUROPE, the next EU programme for science and innovation, is adopted rapidly with the budget required to allow Europe to address the most substantial challenges. CLAIRE, ELLIS and EurAI also have called upon the governments of EU member states to support HORIZON EUROPE’s full budget.

Under the new HORIZON EUROPE programme, all successful research funding mechanisms should be reinforced. This includes notably the European Research Council programmes ,which substantially support excellent research in Europe. To further strengthen Europe’s position in frontier research, funding should be available for innovative initiatives as well as for existing and successful collaborations.

Cutting funding for excellence in science and innovation in the EU’s next long-term budget would be a failure to protect our future and that of the generations to come. CLAIRE, ELLIS and EurAI therefore strongly oppose any cuts to the research budget for the next funding period. Cutting the research budget would be a mistake that the EU cannot afford to make.

You can access the joint open letter by CLAIRE, ELLIS and EurAI here: bit.ly/3j5vX7A? 

For further information, please contact contact@claire-ai.org.