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Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture  the allocation of 255 million EUR to universities for piloting new practices in doctoral education for three years starting in 2024.

The proposal from the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence flagship, "Finnish Doctoral Program Network in Artificial Intelligence", was granted 100 new doctoral positions (25.5 million EUR). This consortium includes 10 Finnish universities (in alphabetical order: Aalto University (coordinator), LUT University, Tampere University, University of Eastern Finland, University of Helsinki, University of Jyväskylä, University of Oulu, University of Turku, University of Vaasa, Åbo Academy University).

“This is another fantastic initiative to strengthen high-level AI research in Finland, and we are very excited to build a world-class PhD program with mobility, quality supervision and multi-disciplinarity in mind,” says Arno Solin, assistant professor in machine learning at Aalto University and director of the doctoral network. One of the aims of the doctoral education pilot is to increase collaboration with industry, as well as leverage the benefits and applications of AI across scientific fields.

There's a big push in Finland to recruit top talent, boost the use of AI in business and build AI expertise, and the launch of the doctoral program in AI is part of this momentum. In tandem, the existing is projected to grow into a world-class AI research hub, , that will bring AI expertise into use for different fields. Read about the expanding, cooperative AI initiatives of FCAI and its partners .

A joint call for doctoral researchers will be publicized soon, with the first cohort of students expected to start in August 2024. Information will be updated at . The first application round is open until April 2, 2024.