CITEC

Interdisciplinary College 2026: Welcoming Guest Students from Ukraine

CITEC — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 12:51:14 +0100

This spring, the International Office and Faculty of Technology of Bielefeld University had supported a visit of a vibrant group of Ukrainian students to the Interdisciplinary College 2026 (IK) spring school in Günne, Germany. The IK offers a fantastic opportunity for students from around the globe to delve deeper into specific academic areas, experience a new learning environment, present their own research, and immerse themselves in a different culture. This year's spring school focused on Bridging Realities of Brains, Language, and Technology, was therefore also bridging cultures. Co-organized by Alina Deriyeva and Prof. Dr. Benjamin Paassen (Faculty of Technology and Speaker of the Executive Committee of the IK), the IK was visited by five students from Zaporizhzhia University, four students from Dnipro University, and 1 ukrainian student from Bielefeld University.

Prior to the spring school, the invited students also visited the Faculty of Technology, where they learned more about the current research of AG Machine Learning, AG Visual AI for Extended Reality, and AG Human Centric Artificial Intelligence. At the IK, the visitors were engaging in an intensive, interdisciplinary course program at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and neuroscience featuring expert instructors and cutting-edge research presentations. Beyond coursework, the spring school also fostered scientific exchange and networking. The IK team is already planning next year's program (IK2027) which will be related to the technology, trust, and hope and looking forward to welcoming future participants. Special thanks are going to the International Office and Faculty of Technology for providing support.

CAPE at HiPEAC’26 in Krakow: showcasing the future of Cognitive Edge–Cloud Systems

CITEC — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 10:12:53 +0100

From January 26th to 28th, the HiPEAC’26 conference brought together Europe’s leading experts in computing systems and architecture in the beautiful city of Krakow. CAPE was proud to be part of this vibrant event, engaging with researchers, industry representatives, and technology enthusiasts throughout the three-day conference.

A major highlight was our live hardware demonstrator, featuring real-time Kubernetes orchestration running on our eHPS (embedded High Performance Server). This demonstration illustrated how CAPE enables flexible, scalable, and intelligent workload management at the edge. Visitors were able to see firsthand how modular hardware and modern orchestration technologies combine to deliver high-performance, distributed computing capabilities. At the third day we held our HiPEAC workshop “Cognitive Edge–Cloud Architectures, Orchestration, and Standardisation ” where our CAPE members Fred Buining, Jens Hagemeyer, and Yiannis Georgiou presented their view on Digital Sovereignty, the next generation of modular edge servers, cluster orchestration and the cognitive framwork for AI-assisted deployment (see here for more impressions from HiPEAC'26 https://cape-project.eu/2026/02/03/hipeac26/). .

HiPEAC’26 once again proved to be an excellent platform for exchanging ideas, presenting innovations, and strengthening partnerships. The strong interest in CAPE’s modular hardware approach, cognitive orchestration framework, and edge–cloud vision confirms the growing demand for scalable, sovereign computing infrastructures in Europe.

Renewal of TRR 318

CITEC — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:36:25 +0100

The Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio ‘Constructing Explainability’ (TRR 318) at Bielefeld and Paderborn Universities, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), will enter its second funding phase in January 2026. The DFG announced on 21 November that it will extend the interdisciplinary research network on ‘social artificial intelligence’ for another three and a half years after a very successful first term of four and a half years. Around 14 million euros have been approved for this purpose.

CAPE General Assembly in Athens

CITEC — Thu, 4 Dec 2025 17:13:15 +0100

The CAPE team gathered at the premises of IPTO in Athens for the bi-annual project meeting to review the current progress and plan the next steps. We are pleased to see that the detailed specification phase completed in June is now bearing fruit: hardware development has advanced significantly, with the first GPUSoC-to-COM-HPC integration prototypes already manufactured and successfully tested. Software development is also moving forward: SECAPI powers the automated generation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Infrastructure from Code (IfC) SDKs that allows engineers to deploy their workloads on CAPE. We look forward to presenting the current project status at HiPEAC in January and beginning the first full HW/SW integrations soon!

Follow the CAPE project updates on cape-project.eu and on LinkedIn.

IISY Student wins Top Prize at the German Multimedia Award

CITEC — Wed, 3 Dec 2025 11:14:34 +0100

We are delighted to share that Jannis Müller, currently a Master’s student at the Faculty of Technology and part of the IISY programme, together with Arthur Freye, has won the main prize in the German Multimedia Award mb21 in the age category 21–25. Their award-winning project focuses on the sonification of quantum systems, offering an innovative way to make complex quantum behaviours audible and intuitively understandable. The project originated as their joint bachelor’s thesis, supervised externally by Thomas Hermann while both students were still studying in Gießen. Since then, Jannis has joined us at IISY, and we are proud to see his continued academic and creative achievements recognized at a national level.

The jury’s laudation, highlighting the originality and scientific relevance of their work, can be found here: https://www.mb21.de/wettbewerbsjahr_2025.html?articles=qsynth (Information about the main prize in the 21–25 category is shown on the right-hand side.) Although exact numbers have not been officially published, the competition reportedly featured more than 200 submissions, with only a small number invited to the final event in Dresden - making this accomplishment even more impressive. This success is not only a personal milestone for Jannis and Arthur, but also reflects the creativity and research-oriented mindset we aim to foster at IISY and the University of Bielefeld.

Congratulations to Jannis and Arthur on this remarkable accomplishment!

CUMIN: New Qualification Program Connects IT and eHealth Research

CITEC — Thu, 2 Oct 2025 13:01:13 +0200

BMFTR-funded project trains specialists at the interface of computer science and medicine Digitalization is transforming medicine, creating a noticeable shortage of specialists who can conduct research at the intersection of computer science and healthcare. This is precisely the gap that the new qualification program CUMIN aims to fill. Funded by the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), the program is now launching at Bielefeld University to train tomorrow's experts.

The CUMIN qualification program specifically targets master's students and doctoral candidates from STEM and related disciplines. The goal is to inspire and empower highly qualified young talents for the challenges and opportunities of eHealth research. The name CUMIN stands for Curriculum for promoting medical interest and interdisciplinary network building (Note: using the German acronym structure).

Over a three-year period, a practice-oriented curriculum prepares participants for a scientific career in digital health. The content includes topics such as data platforms in medicine, algorithmic approaches in systems medicine, and clinical decision support systems, thus showing strong alignment with CITEC's research areas. The program is deliberately more than just a lecture series. Participants apply their knowledge practically across six modules that include block seminars, a hackathon, and excursions to clinics or industry partners. At the end, they develop their own research proposal, which can lay the foundation for a doctorate or further project.

This interdisciplinary initiative is led by Prof. Dr. Philipp Cimiano, head of the Semantic Databases research group and Principal Investigator at the CITEC Cluster of Excellence, and Prof. Dr. Annika Hoyer. Head of the research group Biostatistics and Medical Biometry at the Medical School OWL at Bielefeld University. As a strategic cooperation project, CUMIN combines the expertise of Bielefeld University and Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences (HSBI) to ensure unique, practice-oriented training.

Prof. Cimiano emphasizes the relevance of this synergy for CITEC: "With CUMIN, we are creating a unique opportunity to attract talented computer scientists and natural scientists to medical research. The development of intelligent assistance systems for medicine is a central theme at CITEC. This program will help train the next generation of researchers in this field." More information about the program and application process can be found on https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/zwe/citec/research/projects/cumin/

SemDial 2025 - Bialogue "Meaningful Interaction"

CITEC — Thu, 4 Sep 2025 12:25:21 +0200

Bialogue 2025 is the 29th edition of the SemDial workshop series and takes place from September 3–5, 2025 at CITEC, Bielefeld University. The theme of Bialogue 2025 is Meaningful Interaction. For years, the SemDial workshops have explored how humans and machines communicate in dialogue. But with conversational AI now moving beyond the lab and into daily life, the question has become more pressing: Are these interactions truly meaningful? This year’s workshop shows research that digs deeper into the foundations of meaningful interaction - whether through cognitive mechanisms, computational models, user perspectives, or ethical considerations. By bringing together empirical, theoretical, and computational work, Bialogue 2025 aims to shed light on what it really takes for human-machine dialogue to matter.

The workshop is organised by CITEC researchers in collaboration with TRR 318 Constructing Explainability and CRC 1646 Linguistic Creativity.

Workshop on creative practices in human-LLM interaction

CITEC — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 09:45:56 +0200

The SAIL network organises a workshop titled Jailbreaking and other creative practices in human-llm interaction. Ole Pütz, Elena Esposito and Jonas Mieke are excited to invite various European researchers from different academic backgrounds to a workshop on creative practices in human-LLM interaction, taking place on August 28 in the Faculty of Sociology (building X) at Bielefeld University. We have put together a great program with exciting presentations and enough time for in-depth discussion of our work-in-progress projects and papers.

If you want to attend our event as an interested guest / audience, please register here (it's free, but the number of guests is limited): link to registration

Friederike Eyssel gives an invited keynote at "AI for good" global summit

CITEC — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:45:41 +0200

On July 10, Friederike Eyssel gives an invited keynote on the topic "Robots for all? Make robots more accessible!" at the UN AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva. Link to the Abstract

Inaugural lecture "Human-Centered AI for (Mental) Health" held by Prof. Dr. Hanna Drimalla

CITEC — Thu, 3 Jul 2025 13:58:31 +0200

Prof. Dr. Hanna Drimalla from the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence group will held her inaugural lecture with the title Human-Centered AI for (Mental) Health. The lecture takes place on Friday, July 4, 2025 at 14:00 in the lecture hall of the CITEC building.

The 3rd TRR 318 Conference: Contextualizing Explanations - ZIF, Bielefeld University

CITEC — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:13:55 +0200

The 3rd TRR 318 Conference: Contextualizing Explanations took place on June 17 and 18 at ZiF, Bielefeld University.

How can AI explanations be contextualized so that they are relevant to users and strengthen their decision-making? At the 3rd TRR 318 Conference: Contextualizing Explanations, researchers with international and interdisciplinary perspectives came together to discuss the importance of context in explanation processes. The conference highlighted key research questions on contextual explanations: Which contextual variables influence the effectiveness of explanations? How can context be represented algorithmically? And which new approaches support the dynamic adaptation of XAI explanations? Angelo Cangelosi (University of Manchester), Virginia Dignum (Umeå University) and Kacper Sokol (ETH Zurich) were present as keynote speakers. The conference concluded with a panel discussion in which invited researchers shared their perspectives on the topic of “context”.

Programme: https://contex2025.net/

Podcast: https://trr318.uni-paderborn.de/en/media/explaining-explainability

CAPE - General Assembly June 2025

CITEC — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:03:55 +0200

The CAPE team spent three very productive and yet very enjoyable days at the General Assembly in Bielefeld. We discussed the project status and focused on finalizing the architectural design for CAPE. We also held additional sessions on the use cases, planned the HW/SW roadmaps and prepared the first public deliverables. Follow the project updates on cape-project.eu and on LinkedIn.

Who is benefitting from the possibilities of AI?

CITEC — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Smart homes, music or video streaming, navigation or facial recognition: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a growing impact on everyday life. But how transparent are AI systems and how are the companies that produce them controlled? This is the subject of Professor Joanna Bryson from the Hertie School in Berlin. The expert in ethics and technology will give an insight into her research next Thursday, April 20 at 4 pm in a hybrid lecture via Zoom and in person at the CITEC building of the University of Bielefeld (room 1.204). The event is part of the series "Co-Constructing Intelligence", an offer of the Universities Bielefeld, Bremen and Paderborn. The lecture is free of charge. Registration is not required.

Teaching robots to recognise what they see

CITEC — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0100

"Robots deployed in the real world need a sophisticated visual intelligence to cope with the multitude of situations they can encounter". So says computer scientist Professor Dr Enrico Motta of the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) at the Open University in the UK. The dominant deep learning methods are not sufficient for this. Motta will explain how visual intelligence can be improved by combining it with other components of artificial intelligence next Thursday, March 23, at 4 pm, as part of the "Co-Constructing Intelligence" series, a programme offered by the Universities Bielefeld, Bremen and Paderborn.

Read more on https://bit.ly/3ZaBQ7n (in German)