Our University will be responsible for guiding the health and life sciences course
August 3, 2020 - Is called PhD-AI.it the first national PhD in Artificial Intelligence he sees UCBM among the lead universities of one of the five new research doctorate courses that will be activated. The doctorate is the result of an agreement with the CNR signed at the Campus Bio-Medico last July 23 in the presence of the minister of the University Gaetano Manfredi. Our University will have the task of guiding the new doctoral course on Artificial Intelligence for health and life sciences.
“The application of artificial intelligence in the field of health and life sciences foreshadows scenarios of rapid evolution towards increasingly predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine. The training course involves the design, development and application of innovative methods, tools and systems that can be used both for basic biological and bioengineering research, and for experimental, translational and clinical medical research, in order to maximize the impact of science on health and the quality of human life,” he explains Eugenio Guglielmelli, vice-rector for research UCBM and member of the Steering Committee of this national doctorate set up by the MUR at the CNR.
The lead universities of the other PhD courses in Artificial Intelligence focused on the other four areas of specialization will be: the University of Naples Federico II, for the area agrifood and the environment; Sapienza University of Rome, for the su area security and cybersecurity; Polytechnic of Turin for the area Industry 4.0 and University of Pisa for the area company.
In addition to the latter and the CNR, other Italian universities and research institutions will also participate, selected through an open call that will be launched in September. The goal is to bring together all national resources to pursue scientific excellence and, at the same time, ensure a broad and qualified coverage of national universities and research institutions.
PhD-AI.it doctoral students will receive both "horizontal training", on the foundational aspects of AI, common to the five courses, and "vertical training", relating to their own area of specialisation. The National Doctorate in Artificial Intelligence will be coordinated by the National Coordination Council, which will promote, integrate and coordinate the common training activities between the various locations.
The PhD-AI.it will start with the 2021/2022 academic year (37th cycle). A total of 194 scholarships are already available for the first two cycles (97 co-financed by the CNR and 97 co-financed by the MUR through the University of Pisa), for a total investment which, with the co-financing of the universities, exceeds 15 million euros.
For the PhD led by UCBM there are at least 20 scholarships per cycle to which other doctoral scholarships can be added financed directly by the universities involved, by companies, research institutions, foundations and other public and private entities. The call for admission to PhD-AI.it will be published in early 2021 and the courses will start in November 2021.
As regards the new doctoral course in Artificial Intelligence for Health and Life Sciences, Guglielmelli concludes: “Given the particular nature of the contexts that concern health, an interdisciplinary training approach will be used within the context of the doctorate. In particular, the problems related to the acceptability and ethical value of technical solutions based on AI by healthcare professionals and patients will also be addressed and their effective and efficient integration into modern healthcare processes, increasingly digital, decentralized, accessible on the move and automated".
