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22 November, 2021
Category
Research Awards

AI4EU Expert and NCP Prof Barry O'Sullivan Wins Irish Science Award

AI4EU Expert and National Contact Point (NCP) for Ireland Prof Barry O’Sullivan received the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Best International Engagement Award 2021 on 4 Nov 2021 in an online Science Summit and a ceremony to celebrate the best Irish scientists in eight categories.

Business Category
Public Services
Source
UCC

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Barry OSullivan

Prof O’Sullivan award was the recognition of his international engagement and leadership around trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), and especially his work with the European Commission and other international organisations in developing Europe’s approach to human-centric AI. The award is another trophy adding to his previous SFI Researcher of the Year Award he received in 2016.

Professor O’Sullivan is an AI4EU expert, Work Package 4 Leader on European AI ecosystem creation and development and the NCP for Ireland, which he helped to promote the European AI on-demand Platform and its ecosystem to Ireland and vice versa. Being an academic at the University College Cork’s School of Computer Science & IT, he is a regular keynote speaker for international and European AI events and discussions.

 “I’m honoured to receive this award, and I’m extremely grateful to Science Foundation Ireland for all the support over the last 20 years. I’d like to thank my colleagues at the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, the SFI Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence, the Confirm SFI Centre for Smart Manufacturing, and all my colleagues at University College Cork. I would like to acknowledge the many people at the European Commission and across the European AI community who I’ve worked with over the years. Our work on developing a European approach to Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence is critically important to Europe’s digital economy and its digital and societal wellbeing," Prof O'Sullivan said at the award ceremony.

Prof O’Sullivan is the founding director of the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics at UCC, director of the SFI Centre for Research Training in AI, and principal investigator at the Confirm SFI Research Centre for Smart Manufacturing.

Professor O'Sullivan works in the fields of artificial intelligence, constraint programming, prescriptive analytics (operations research), ethics, and public policy. He frequently contributes to global Track II diplomacy efforts related to AI. He is a co-founder of Stimul.ai.

Professor O’Sullivan served as Vice Chair of the European Commission High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence from 2018-2020. The HLEG-AI defined Europe’s approach to Trustworthy AI. Professor O'Sullivan is a Fellow and a past President of the European AI Association, and a current member of the Executive Council of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He chairs the Advisory Board of the GRACE project at Europol and advises the Leuven.ai institute at KULeuven (Belgium) and the Computational Sustainability Network (USA).

In 2019 Professor O’Sullivan was appointed by Ireland’s Minister for Health to the Health Research Consent Declaration Committee. In 2020 he was appointed Chair of the Oversight Board of Health Data Research UK (North), led by the University of Liverpool. In 2021 he was appointed by the Minister for Health as Chair of the National Research Ethics Committee for Medical Devices.

Edited by
Long Pham
Published on
22.11.2021
Source
UCC