The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions aim to foster excellence in the training, mobility and career development of researchers by funding research training projects. The MSCA COFUND 2021 call for projects, which closed last February, was launched to stimulate regional, national and international programs. SOUND.AI, led by Sorbonne University and partners of the University Alliance, is one of the winning projects.
SOUND.AI is an MSCA COFUND program. The COFUND action co-finances regional, national and international training and career development programs. It disseminates MSCA best practices by promoting high standards and excellent working conditions, sustainable training and international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral mobility through two forms of programs:
- Doctoral programs that provide research training activities to enable doctoral students to develop and expand their skills and competencies in preparation for their doctorate;
- Postdoctoral programs that fund individual fellowships for advanced research training and professional development for postdoctoral researchers.
The SOUND.AI project
SOUND.AI is part of the PhD programs and will implement a highly selective program of 30 PhD positions starting in 2023 for five years, led by Sorbonne University and 30 partners, who together form an abundant research, teaching and industrial community dedicated to AI.
The project will rely on the scientific and strategic policy of Sorbonne University and its partners to effectively develop both fundamental and applied projects and to concretize the efforts of the community around three comprehensive interdisciplinary and intersectoral programs that respond to the international challenges "One Humanity", "One Health", "One Earth":
- Changing Societies, Languages, and Cultures;
- Comprehensive Approach to Health ;
- Resources for a Sustainable Planet.
SOUND.AI PhDs will be recruited internationally, with global perspectives facilitated by mobility.
The project partners
In addition to Sorbonne University, the project implementation partners are associated within the framework of the Sorbonne University Alliance since 2012: MNHN (National Museum of Natural History), UTC (Compiègne University of Technology), INSEAD (European Institute of Business Administration), members of the Alliance and four research organizations partners of the Alliance: INRIA, IRD, INSERM and CNRS. They actively support education through research and pedagogical innovation as well as through the creation of experimental multidisciplinary programs.
Numerous national and international associate partners
The associated extra-academic partners complement each other and their transversal competences naturally fit into the three axes of the program. They also provide training on subjects in which they are specialized: APHP (health), cultural data (BnF), artistic creation (Ircam), renewable energies (IFPEN), AI systems certification (LNE), City of Paris (popularization).
In addition, international partners in Europe (ELLIS, CLAIRE, UCL) and North America (MILA, UC Berkeley, OBVIA) offer a very wide range of partnerships to the laureates, whether for cotutelle, international mobility or participation in training sessions. All of them are high-level and share a common goal of developing "human-centered AI" research and are therefore very relevant to the vision of SOUND.AI.
The industrial partners are also complementary, which is also an essential element for the research and training of fellows. Their diversity: large corporations (EDF, Suez, Essilor, Pierre Fabre, SIEMENS, Valeo), SMEs (CRITEO, Naver Labs), start-ups (Datacraft, Hugging Face, OpenClassrooms) will allow the laureates to glimpse different professional cultures through training activities or secondments. This diversity is an asset of the program, as it will allow us to refine the quality of the content offered to the laureates in a professional perspective.
Translated from
Focus sur SOUND.AI, projet européen sélectionné dans le cadre du COFUND MSCA
