Success stories from the Cyber Valley Innovation Campus

Members of the Cyber Valley Innovation Campus include the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), Universities of Tübingen and Stuttgart, Fraunhofer IAO and IPA, ELLIS Institute Tübingen, and Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT). As leading research institutions, they have announced the following exciting developments since the start of 2026.

Bernhard Schölkopf joins UN global AI panel

Bernhard Schölkopf (Scientific Director of the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, Director of Empirical Inference at the MPI-IS, and Co-Director of the Tübingen AI Center) has been appointed to the United Nations’ International AI Scientific Panel. Schölkopf will represent Germany while contributing to the international dialog on AI governance. Read more.

André Biedenkapp awarded Emmy Noether funding for research on generalization in reinforcement learning at KIT

Over the next three years, André Biedenkapp will receive approximately 1.2 million euros for his Emmy-Noether research group. Biedenkapp’s research is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and will examine how AI systems can better transfer their learned behavior to unknown situations. Read more about his research project here (German).

Jens Kober joins ELLIS Unit Stuttgart and Fraunhofer IPA

On March 1, Jens Kober joined the University of Stuttgart as a full professor at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence. His position is a joint appointment, as he is additionally Research Team Lead at Fraunhofer IPA, showcasing the importance of collaboration between Cyber Valley Innovation Campus members. Kober was previously Associate Professor at TU Delft and Co-director of the ELLIS Unit Delft. Read more here.

ELLIS Institute Tübingen cooperates with the UK on AI safety

Maksym Andriushchenko and Bernhard Schölkopf from the ELLIS Institute Tübingen contributed to the second annual International AI Safety Report commissioned by the UK government. The report was authored by more than 100 leading AI experts and considers the latest scientific findings on AI’s risks and capabilities. Read more.

Meanwhile, other scientists from the ELLIS Institute Tübingen are working with the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Sahar Abdelnabi, Maksym Andriushchenko, and Jonas Geiping have been granted two years of funding to research AI safety. Read more.

Peer Nowack begins project on climate change and AI at KIT

In collaboration with the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung, Peer Nowack is exploring the concept of an “AI world model”. This approach uses AI to model long-term changes in global and regional weather patterns. The project will continue until 2031 and has an initial funding budget of five million euros. Read more about the project here.

Maksym Andriushchenko awarded a grant for research into AI safety at ELLIS Institute Tübingen

Coefficient Giving has awarded Maksym Andriushchenko, Principal Investigator at the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, a grant of one million dollars for his “AI Safety and Alignment” research group. His research will play a pivotal role in AI safety by reducing the risks from general-purpose AI models and ensuring that AI is deployed safely. Read more here.

Maria Wirzberger and Thomas Wortmann appointed as W3 professors at the University of Stuttgart

Two Cyber Valley fellows— Maria Wirzberger and Thomas Wortmann—have been appointed as W3 professors at the University of Stuttgart. As spokesperson for IRIS, Wirzberger continues to play a pivotal role in Cyber Valley’s public engagement activities. In 2021, Wortmann was appointed as the first architect at IMPRS-IS to expand the frontiers of computational methods in architecture, engineering, and construction.

Renate Sachse joins MPI-IS in Stuttgart as an Independent Research Group Leader

Since January 1, Renate Sachse has been leading the independent research group “Mechanics of Intelligent Structures”. Her group develops high-fidelity simulation models to capture the complex, nonlinear deformation behavior of thin-walled, compliant, and soft robotic systems. Read more here.