The Federal State of Baden-Württemberg supports a joint doctoral research program of Ulm University and Ulm University of Applied Sciences. The program entitled "Cognitive Computing in Socio-Technical Systems" provides funds for 12 PhD students over an initial period of 3 years. The program’s overall goal is to develop innovative concepts for cognitive machines. Such self-learning technical systems will enable the realization of intelligent service robots and companion systems, which provide adaptive services to humans and ease the use of complex technology for them.

Joint speakers of the doctoral research program are Prof. Dr. Manfred Reichert, Director of the Institute of Databases and Information Systems at Ulm University, and Prof. Dr. Christian Schlegel, an expert for real-time systems and autonomous robots in the Faculty of Computer Science at Ulm University of Applied Sciences.

The doctoral research program will link fundamental research with application orientation

The interdisciplinary educational profile for the junior researchers will connect research questions and approaches from Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Psychology. In particular, the doctoral research program will benefit from the core fields of expertise of both universities and integrate basic technology research with application-oriented method development. Ulm University, for example, will contribute with its expertise in the Special Research Area "A Companion Technology for Cognitive Technical Systems" and its expertise the field of "Adaptive Process Management". Ulm University of Applied Science, in turn, will provide its renowned expertise in service robotics as well as the development of intelligent production and conveyor systems.