The goal of the ELLIS Unit Jena is thus to combine fundamental development in machine learning with challenges concerning spatio-temporal environmental and climate dynamics for a better understanding of the Earth system and its components. The ELLIS unit Jena is involving two research institutions and the university at the interface between climate/environmental science and machine learning with an emphasis on scientific knowledge integration in and knowledge generation from machine learning approaches. A keyaspect is the integration of knowledge into machine learning methods as appropriate assumptions – this can be qualitative knowledge about causal relationships („causal modeling“) or quantitative knowledge about functional relationships, which can be „cast“ into physical, chemical, biological or geo-ecological formulas („hybrid modeling”). The ELLIS unit Jena will also strive to help Artificial Intelligence (AI) to best serve sustainable development via links to politics, business and civil society.

ELLIS is the European excellence network “European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems”. ELLIS was created in 2018 as a result of a movement of the European scientific and research community in Artificial Intelligence, with the aim of placing our continent on the forefront of excellent research in artificial intelligence.