MSCA Doctoral Network grant awarded on AI for road safety: ‘IVORY’
Road accidents cause more than 1.35 million fatalities per year globally. The UN and European Union want to eliminate these traffic fatalities. The newly awarded Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network ‘IVORY’ addresses this goal and will kick-off in September 2023. It will set up an industrial doctorates network to develop a new framework for optimal integration of AI in road safety research, and train a new generation of leading researchers in the field. Eleonora Papadimitriou of the TPM faculty of TU Delft is the leading scientist and will be coordinating the network. Other TPM researchers that are involved are Amir Pooyan Afghari, Filippo Santoni de Sio and Pieter van Gelder.
IVORY stands for AI for Vision Zero in Road Safety. It aims to develop responsible, fair and impactful AI for road safety, new ways of road user support and human-vehicle-environment interaction, new scalable and equitable AI technologies for proactive infrastructure safety management, and a sustainable knowledge sharing network on AI for road safety. IVORY takes a design-for-values approach for AI in road safety, operationalising the ethical principles of justice and explainability, and providing efficient AI solutions also for disadvantaged groups.
Papadimitriou: ‘I am very pleased that we were awarded this Doctoral Network grant. We will combine knowledge of safety science, engineering, data science, human factors and ethics to tackle this urgent societal challenge of road safety. I am looking forward to start implementing the network and to enhance the careers of thirteen young researchers through both academic and industrial exposure, and to create an online learning and networking platform for AI in road safety to be available after the end of the project for future researchers in this field.’
IVORY consists of 4 academic and 8 non-academic beneficiaries, and 8 associated partners from 10 countries.
About MSCA Doctoral Networks
The MSCA Doctoral Networks aim to train creative, entrepreneurial, innovative and resilient doctoral candidates, able to face current and future challenges and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit. The MSCA Doctoral Networks will raise the attractiveness and excellence of doctoral training in Europe. They will equip researchers with the right combination of research-related and transferable competences and provide them with enhanced career perspectives in both the academic and non-academic sectors through international, inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary mobility combined with an innovation-oriented mind-set.