EJEA – European Japan Experts Association

The Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB) in cooperation with the European Japan Advanced Research Network (EJARN), the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) and Freie Universität Berlin (FU) would like to invite you and your colleagues to the

Virtual Panel Discussion

EU-Japan Relations: Beyond the Strategic Partnership Agreement

on Thursday, November 26, 2020

09:30 – 11:00 (CET) / 17:30 – 19:00 (JST)

In July 2018, the EU-Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) was signed and in February 2019, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) went into force. In times of increasing protectionism and challenges to free trade, the EU and Japan see the SPA and the EPA as key to support a rules-based international trade system with the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the core. At the same time, the SPA and EPA underline shared fundamental values and principles such as the rule of law, a strong commitment to human rights and joint support for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

This panel discussion intends to evaluate the initial period since the EPA went into force and to analyse the progress of EU-Japan cooperation under the new rules as well as the effects of the SPA and EPA/Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on EU-Japan relations. It brings together academics, government officials and business representatives to discuss the EU-Japan cooperation in the areas of politics, business, trade, energy security and digitalization.

The event will be held in English.

For further details please refer to the program on our website.

The virtual panel discussion will be streamed from the Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB).

For your virtual participation via Zoom please register by returning the requested information by email to Ms Tatjana Wonneberg at twonneberg@jdzb.de by November 19, 2020:

Name:

Position:

Institution:

Email:

I consent to the Data Protection Compliance (see below): (Please write Yes/No)

In case you do not wish to participate actively in this panel discussion, we kindly ask you to watch via the provided livestream on the JDZB YouTube Channel.

We are looking forward to virtually welcoming you at the Japanese-German Center Berlin.

Best regards,

Dr. Julia MÜNCH

Secretary General

Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB)

Approximately €7 million in funding for three years / Trilateral projects to complement DFG’s strategic funding initiative for research into AI.

The nine projects selected to receive funding will be launched on 16 November 2020 at a kick-off event to take place during the “Japan-France-Germany Trilateral Symposium on AI”. For the DFG, the trilateral cooperation is one of several modules intended to promote research in the area of artificial intelligence. Up until 2022, projects in all areas of AI research will be granted funding within the framework of various DFG programmes that will make up a strategic funding initiative.

The nine trilateral projects in detail:
(in alphabetical order according to the university locations of the DFG projects)

“User-Adaptive Artificial Intelligence for Human-Computer Interaction” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Elisabeth André, University of Augsburg; Professor Dr. Jean-Claude Martin, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Orsay; Dr. Yukiko Nakano, Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Saitama)

“Research on Real-Time Compliance Mechanisms for AI” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Adrian Paschke, FU Berlin; Professor Dr. Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, Sorbonne University; Professor Dr. Ken Satoh, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo)

“Knowledge-enhanced information extraction across languages for pharmacovigilance” (Project leader: Professor Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Möller, TU Berlin; Dr. Pierre Zweigenbaum, Laboratoire d’Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l’Ingénieur (LIMSI), Universitaire d’Orsay; Professor Dr. Yuji Matsumoto, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma)

“Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Michael Beetz Ph.D., University of Bremen; Dr. Aurélie Clodic, Laboratoire d’Analyse et d’Architecture des Systèmes (LAAS-CNRS), Toulouse; Dr. Takayuki Kanda, University of Kyoto)

“AI empowered general purpose assistive robotic system for dexterous object manipulation through embodied teleoperation and shared control” (Project leader: Professor Jan Reinhard Peters Ph.D., TU Darmstadt; Professor Dr. Liming Chen Ph.D., Ecole Centrale Lyon; Professor Dr. Yasuhisa Hasegawa, University of Nagoya)

“AI for Ageing Societies: From Basic Concepts to Practical Tools for AI-Facilitated Cognitive Training” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Tonio Ball, University Medical Center Freiburg; Alexandre Gramfort Ph.D., The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, INRIA Saclay – Ile de France; Dr. Mihoko Otake-Matsuura, Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Riken)

“Enhanced data stream analysis: combining the signature method and machine learning algorithms” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Joscha Diehl, University of Greifswald; Professor Dr. Marianne Clausel, Université de Lorraine; Dr. Nozomi Sugiura, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology JAMSTEC, Kanagawa)

“Understanding and Creating Dynamic 3D Worlds towards Safer AI” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Carsten Rother, University of Heidelberg; Dr. David Picard, École des Ponts ParisTech; Professor Dr. Ko Nishino, University of Kyoto)

“Learning Cyclotron” (Project leader: Professor Dr. Andreas Dengel, Professor Dr. Jochen Kuhn, TU Kaiserslautern; Professor Dr. Laurence Devillers, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Professor Dr. Koichi Kise, University of Osaka)

Original press release by DFG is here.

The Plattform Lernende Systeme has published a detailed map of Aritificial Intelligence (AI) research institutions in Germany. It provides a powerful database to look for potential cooperation partners in Germany and allows filtering by topic and type of institution.

Link to the map on German AI research: https://www.plattform-lernende-systeme.de/map-on-ai-map.html?FIT=1

Information about the Japanese AI research landscape can be also found on the website of the AI Japan R&D Network: https://www.ai-japan.go.jp/en

The Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), the Japanese-German Center Berlin  (JDZB) and Waseda University published a call for papers for the Japanese-German conference: “Artificial Intelligence and the Human – Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Science and Fiction” (Berlin, June 17-18, 2021).

Papers are invited on the following topics (among others):

1. Which meanings and functions are ascribed to AI technologies and robots?
2. How is science informed by popular discursive images of AI?
3. Which cultural differences are there concerning the relationship between the natural and the artificial? What are the particular traditions of how to represent the human and its technological surrogates?
4. What can the different cultural and conceptual histories tell us about our present and future with artificial intelligence?

Besides papers on these more general topics, we also invite case studies on innovative technologies and their fictional precursors as well as on the social, ethical or political contexts in which they are applied. All contributions are expected to address the comparative perspective on East Asian and Euro-American discourses.

Submission process

1. Extended abstracts of approximately 4,000 to 6,000 characters in length (excl. references) should be submitted no later than 10 February 2021 to ai21@hiig.de
2. Speakers will be notified by 15 March 2021. 

Conference and publication of selected papers in an edited volume 

1. The conference will take place on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 June 2021 in Berlin. 
2. Invitations for the submission of selected full manuscripts sent out in July 2021.
3. Full manuscripts of between 30.000 to 50.000 characters (excluding references) to be submitted by September 2021.
4. Comprehensive review returned to authors in December 2021; final papers due in February 2022.  
5. The edited volume will be published in early 2022. 

More details are here (both in English and in Japanese).

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