Unit Edinburgh
Established on September 1st, 2020
Unit Mission
The ELLIS Unit Edinburgh, uniting the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, advances world-leading AI research and training. With 23 ELLIS Scholars and Fellows, it combines excellence in NLP, machine learning, robotics, and human-centred AI with strong international leadership and competitive funding, including eight ERC investigators. The Unit co-initiated the ELLIS NLP Programme and drives cross-unit collaboration through workshops, joint publications, shared PhD supervision, and major projects such as UTTER, EuroLLM, AIHub, and CHAI. It also translates research into impact via industry ties, spinouts, and open models, while hosting flagship schools and conferences.
Participating Institutions
Heriot-Watt University
University of Edinburgh
Research Agenda
- Natural Language Processing
- Machine Learning Foundations
- Neuro-symbolic AI
- Explainable, and Trustworthy AI
- Reinforcement Learning, Planning, and Decision Making
- Robot Learning and Embodied AI
- Multimodal Modeling
