European Research Network of Excellence “ELSA” Extended until August 2026

The European Commission has announced the extension of ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI for an additional twelve months. ELSA is one of only nine “Networks of Excellence” funded by the European Union to support research in key technologies, including Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI). ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI focuses on foundational research on the security and safety of machine-learning-based Artificial Intelligence. After the European Commission’s decision, the network will extend its work until the end of August 2026.

ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI officially started on September 1st, 2022. It is a growing network compromising 26 founding members -including CVC- dedicated to outstanding research and innovation in safe and secure Artificial Intelligence. Based on the EU funding period, ELSA
was scheduled to end in August 2025.

But since its founding, ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI has created leading research and resulted in high-impact results. Hence, the European Commission decided to extend the Lighthouse until August 31st, 2026.

The extension will enable the network members to deepen their research and continue their leadership in new trends and developments within AI research and beyond, such as the advent of LLMs, the EU AI Act, or new Generative Models. Additionally, researchers and experts from within the ELSA networks have been providing their advice to the EU AI Office on the implementation of the EU AI Act. The extension allows them to continue their efforts.

Besides intensifying research, the extension will stabilize the Europe-wide connection, collaboration, and synergies created within ELSA as well as the four main pillars of the European Lighthouse:

• The ELSA Work Packages and Use Cases, which streamline the research within ELSA and foster the bridge between academia and industry
• The ELSA Benchmarks, available on the ELSA Benchmarks platform.
• ELSA-hosted Industry Calls, which so far have supported twelve startups and SMEs with €60.000 of funding each, intense collaboration, and network, research, and industry expertise.
• The ELSA Mobility Fund, which enables postdocs, PhDs, and experienced researchers to travel for research purposes.
  
  Prof. Dr. Mario Fritz, ELSA Coordinator and Faculty at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security concludes: “With the extension of ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI, the European Commission has enabled a diverse network of excellent researchers to carry on their outstanding work and strengthen Europe’s position within the landscape of
  groundbreaking foundational AI research and innovation. We are excited about the opportunity to keep adding value to European research – through our own work as well as funding mobility, startups, and SMEs.”
  
  ELSA – European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI supports Europe’s goal to strengthen its role in AI technology and software research as well as its safe development. The Lighthouse is committed to delivering excellent research. Of the over 220 ELSA-acknowledging papers on diverse AI topics, ranging from robust Bayesian networks to explainable AI, ethics, and AI Governance, a significant number have been presented at top-tier venues, such as NeurIPS, ICML, or USENIX. The European Innovation Radar Platform currently features six ELSA innovations.