Sheffield Hallam University has secured a major role in ADA-COLLAB, an €18.16 million Horizon Europe research project bringing together 28 organisations to develop the next generation of dependable, autonomous and collaborative artificial intelligence.
The SHU team, led by Alejandro Jimenez Rodriguez, alongside Samuele Vinanzi and Alessandro Di Nuovo, are all members of the Smart Interactive Technologies (SIT) Lab and the Centre of Excellence for AI and Robotics (CEAIR). The team will contribute approximately €1.03 million of research activity to the four-year project. Sheffield Hallam will lead a Work Package dealing with Technical Integration, Embodiment and Interfaces, bringing together technologies developed across the consortium and supporting their integration into functioning embodied AI systems.
ADA-COLLAB will investigate how AI can move beyond systems that primarily generate information towards autonomous agents capable of planning, acting and collaborating with people and other AI systems. The project is centred around three principles: autonomy, collaboration and dependability, and will develop mechanisms for safe action, human oversight, social cognition and collaboration.
The technology will be demonstrated across areas including countering disinformation, personalised neurorehabilitation following stroke, and dependable multi-robot coordination for lunar exploration.
The proposal received the maximum possible score of 15/15 in its European Commission evaluation, achieving 5/5 for Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of Implementation. Evaluators described the research as highly ambitious and highlighted its potential to advance beyond current approaches to large-model-based autonomous AI.
The award places Sheffield Hallam, the SIT Lab and CEAIR, in a leading systems-integration role within a major international programme on autonomous and embodied AI, strengthening the University's position in socially intelligent AI, multi-agent systems and robotics, and its links with leading European research institutions and technology organisations.
