Brainstorming on AI Collaboration

The SpacEconomy project is part of the Strategic Research Council projects included in the programme Economy and Welfare in an Era of Strategic Competition (WELEC).

Other WELEC projects include Co-creating Sustainable and Competitive Transition Pathways Towards Industrial Carbon Management for the Benefit of Finnish Society (CO2CREATION), Enhancing Service Integration Productivity with the Support of Artificial Intelligence (EPIC-AI), Generative Artificial Intelligence and Digital Solutions: Improving Effectiveness and Productivity in Healthcare Services (GAINS), and Leadership, Intangible Resources and Innovations as Drivers of AI-Driven Growth (TRANSFORM-AI).

Although the themes of the projects are in some cases quite far apart, they also have much in common. One unifying factor is the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language models, and algorithms both as part of the research itself and as partial solutions in the applications being developed.

Artificial intelligence in all its forms is naturally involved in almost everything, including other Strategic Research Council programmes and their projects.

Ville-Pekka Sorsa, Programme Director of the SKILLS programme (Skills, Labour Supply and Immigration in Future Finland), together with Mika Nieminen, who coordinates the WELEC projects, invited the SKILLS and WELEC projects to a joint brainstorming workshop to explore potential collaboration opportunities.

Projects within the SKILLS programme include Democratising the Teaching and Learning of the Finnish Language: Supporting Immigrant Integration with Artificial Intelligence (DALAI-FIN), The Future of Care Work: Easing the Care Crisis by Studying Bottom-Up and Top-Down Innovations (CAREFUTURE), Migration Scenarios: Population Forecasts to Support Human Capital and Sustainable Integration (MigScene), Technological Development, AI and Immigrants’ Working-Life Skills in the Finnish Labour Market (TAIMI), and Transforming Immigration Systems for Future Skills (TRIM).

The workshop clearly demonstrated that even projects this diverse share much in common – by aligning resources, research can be enhanced and better results achieved. The preliminary meeting generated good ideas that will be explored more concretely later.

The SpacEconomy project was represented at the meeting held in Helsinki on 23 February by Anu-Maija Sundström from the Finnish Meteorological Institute, who uses artificial intelligence in various forms in remote sensing data analysis, as well as Ia Hyttinen and Jari Mäkinen.