Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

European Commission awards € 9 million to two innovative doctoral network projects involving Unimore

Among the projects to be funded by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks 2025 call, two directly involve the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Unimore), which will receive a total of over €9 million in funding. The MSCA Doctoral Networks programme aims to develop innovative doctoral training schemes to prepare highly qualified PhD candidates, enhancing their skills through collaboration between academic and non-academic organisations from across Europe.

The two projects involving Unimore are: ELLE – European Doctoral Network on Secure and Safe Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Foundation Models, in which Unimore is a scientific partner, coordinated locally by Professor Lorenzo Baraldi from the “Enzo Ferrari” Department of Engineering; and MORPHEOS – neuroMORPHic fluidic circuits Enabled by artificial iOn channelS, a project coordinated by Unimore, with Professor Denis Garoli from the Department of Sciences and Methods for Engineering as lead investigator.

“These projects reflect the value of the research carried out by the academic staff and researchers who proposed them,” commented the Unimore Vice-Rector for Doctoral Education and Advanced Training, Professor Franco Zambonelli. “They are also particularly significant because the funding is intended to train new PhD graduates—research professionals capable of driving innovation in strategic areas both locally and across Europe.”

The ELLE project will train 15 doctoral candidates across several European countries over a period of 48 months, with a total budget of approximately €4.5 million. It aims to establish a European doctoral network to educate a new generation of scientists and professionals in the field of artificial intelligence, strengthening Europe’s leadership in the development of safe and trustworthy AI technologies.

Unimore is a partner in the project alongside the University of Cagliari (coordinator), Helmholtz-Zentrum für Informationssicherheit (Germany), the University of Helsinki (Finland), the University of Lancaster (United Kingdom), the Centre de Visió per Computador CERCA (Spain), the University of Genoa, the University of Pisa, and the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (France).

“Within ELLE, we will address the main scientific and technical challenges that hinder the practical implementation of AI models compliant with the provisions of the EU AI Act and related regulations, particularly in light of the recent paradigm shift that has led to the widespread adoption of foundation models,” explained Professor Lorenzo Baraldi of Unimore.

These challenges include ensuring key properties of trustworthy learning algorithms, namely technical robustness and safety; privacy and data governance; and interpretability and transparency. At the same time, the project will consider models capable of continuous adaptation in safety-sensitive and mission-critical tasks, where data streams are non-stationary and subject to unexpected changes in their statistical properties.

Through the MORPHEOS project, in which Unimore acts as coordinator, 15 doctoral candidates will be trained across several EU countries, with a total budget of €4.7 million. The project aims to develop next-generation hybrid nanopore technology for neuromorphic computing. MORPHEOS envisions iontronic neuromorphic computing as a foundational technology that will push the boundaries of computing by closely mimicking the internal functioning of the human brain.

The project partners include nine world-leading academic groups and two high-tech companies: Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the University of Cambridge (UK), the University of Groningen (Netherlands), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), as well as the companies Portal Biotech (Netherlands) and Elements srl.

“The artificial intelligence revolution urgently requires greater energy efficiency and new computational approaches. Neuromorphic computing promises to deliver computing power at a lower energy cost than current von Neumann architectures, drawing inspiration from the brain. The brain’s superior performance lies in its ability to process and store information within the same unit, and in its use of different information carriers—ions and neurotransmitters rather than electrons,” commented Professor Denis Garoli from Unimore’s Department of Sciences and Methods for Engineering.

Categorie: International - english, Notizie_eng