Call for programmes: PhD contracts in Artificial Intelligence

At the end of the "AI for Humanity" day held in Paris on 29 March 2018, during which the President of the French Republic delivered a speech on artificial intelligence (AI), a national programme for AI was initiated with a major research component.

Contributing to doubling the number of PhD students trained in AI is one of the objectives of this research component, which was presented on 28 November by the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the Secretary of State for Digital Technology and the Secretary General for Investment.

In line with this objective, the ANR launches a call for "PhD Contracts in Artificial Intelligence - Organisation" programmes. This call for programmes is open to all institutions authorised to award the Doctorate. It aims to co-finance 200 PhD contracts in AI at the national level.

This ANR call will be completed by the financing of CIFRE theses in AI (~100 additional PhD contracts) managed by the National Association of Research and Technology (ANRT).

The doctoral programs funded by the ANR will have the mission of developing AI training in France. They must be implementable within the framework of one or more existing doctoral schools (Ecole Doctorale) accredited by MESRI to which the teams of the candidate institution are attached.

Since the 3IA Institutes funded by the national AI research programme will themselves host many doctoral candidates, the programmes proposed in this call must be outside the 3IA Institutes. However, they will have to actively participate in the actions of the national AI research network coordinated by Inria.

Application procedure

The application file must include the following three elements:

• a form to be completed online
• a descriptive document to be deposited on the submission site
• an annex with the curriculum vitae of potential PhD supervisors that should be uploaded on the submission site before the deadline September 13^th.
• an annex containing the letters of commitment from the co-funders. They should be provided before September 30^th