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<span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Cari amici robotici,</span>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">questo messaggio alla nuova mailing list aperta di I-RIM ha avuto difficoltà di invio.
Lo rimando adesso <font color="#ff0000"><b>con un importante aggiornamento</b></font> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">rispetto al messaggio
che potete aver ricevuto attraverso la vecchia lista di googlegroups (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:irim_ml@googlegroups.com">irim_ml@googlegroups.com</a>).</span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Per favore, seguite le istruzioni aggiornate e registratevi (se non lo avete già fatto) nel portale della proposta
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.centris-ai.eu/join-our-community/">https://www.centris-ai.eu/join-our-community/</a>
oltre che nel foglio elettronico
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S5xHbaZjToAdwJ1HN0r6RAqdKEtyVMlhEfKxfsC9BQc/edit?usp=sharing">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S5xHbaZjToAdwJ1HN0r6RAqdKEtyVMlhEfKxfsC9BQc/edit?usp=sharing</a></span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Grazie</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Antonio
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">--------------------------
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Cari amici,</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">as you might already know, a proposal is being prepared for the ICT-48 call to form a European-wide network of centers of excellence in AI focusing on the second of four pillars called “Intelligent Robots”.The coordinator of the CENTRIS proposal is Prof. Sami Haddadin, of TUM. A message from Sami is appended below.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The proposal philosophy is inclusive, in the sense that all significant groups should be and feel involved, in one way or another. The main management scheme will be cascade funding for a number of agile seed projects, mainly oriented to young PIs from research, startups and SMEs.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">There will be an important involvement of successful researchers and established companies in drafting the strategies of the network, which has the ambition to lay the fundaments of research and Innovation in robotics and intelligent machines for the next decades. There will not be very significant funding for any single partner.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The rough idea is that groups with large dimensions (of the order of 5 independent PIs) should be members of the (large) consortium. They will not have direct funding, but will be able to participate in calls for projects within the consortium. The internal projects will be roughly 2-300K € in size. We estimate that 60% of the total funding will go towards these cascaded funds.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Smaller groups will not be signatories of the grant contract from the start, but will be able to participate in external calls for projects, of similar size as internal.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">We estimate that 20% of the total funding will be dedicated to external calls. The rest of the resources will be invested in the management of the network, staff, travel and overhead of the beneficiaries that will make the network management.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Researchers involved in the strategy and management will not be eligible for participation to the cascade funding schemes. The principle behind all that is that the marginal utility of participation in any of the roles (management partners, research partners, and external) is the same. That is, everyone should be equally happy (and unhappy).</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Further information can be found on our homepage:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><a
href="https://www.centris-ai.eu/" style="text-decoration:none;"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">https://www.centris-ai.eu/</span></a></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><b><font
color="#ff0000"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are welcome to express your interest in participation by putting your inputs in the form </span><br>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.centris-ai.eu/join-our-community/" id="LPlnk694010" class="" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="" style="text-decoration: underline; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.centris-ai.eu/join-our-community/ </span></a></span></font></b></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><b><font color="#ff0000">It will be also very useful to us if you complete the information provided with entries in this spreadsheet
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S5xHbaZjToAdwJ1HN0r6RAqdKEtyVMlhEfKxfsC9BQc/edit?usp=sharing" moz-do-not-send="true">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S5xHbaZjToAdwJ1HN0r6RAqdKEtyVMlhEfKxfsC9BQc/edit?usp=sharing</a>
(the spreadsheet includes already few examples, please edit and complete directly your rows).</font></b>
</span></p>
<span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">The coordinator, Sami Haddadin, and his aides Tanja Robnik <</span><a
href="mailto:tanja.robnik@tum.de" style="text-decoration:none;"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">tanja.robnik@tum.de</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">and Jan Harder </span><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:j.harder@tum.de" moz-do-not-send="true"><j.harder@tum.de></a> at TUM/MSRM, are in CC, and will follow up directly.</span>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">All the best,</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Antonio
</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:16pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">___________</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Message from Sami Haddadin, Coordinator of the CENTRIS proposal</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Dear friends and colleagues from the European robotics community,</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">As many of you know and are already involved, we currently coordinate a joint research proposal for the ICT-48 call to form a European-wide network of centers of excellence in AI focusing on the second of four pillars called “Intelligent Robots”. This is the first call in the strategic agenda of Europe’s AI research. It aims for setting up a network and support the community, so subsequent lines of action may follow. It is sought to be inclusive and involve our entire community.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">With rather short time for writing such an important proposal, we are in the process of gathering a strong alliance of as many European robotics researches as possible. From this broad community that has already met in parts at ICRA and recently in Paris, a task force including </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"
style="line-height:1.2;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Rachid Alami, Alin Albu-Schäffer, Tamim Asfour, Michael Beetz, Antonio Bicchi, Aude Billard, Etienne Burdet, Wolfram Burgard, Raja Chatila, Francois Chaumette, Daniel Cremers, Paolo Dario, Alessandro De Luca, Paolo Fiorini, Sami Haddadin, Marco Hutter, Alois Knoll, Sabine Köszegi, Danica Kragic, Maarja Kruusmaa, Cecilia Laschi, Andreas Liebl, Achim Lilienthal, Giorgio Metta, Anibal Ollero, Angelika Peer, Jan Peters, Alessandro Saffiotti, Giulio Sandini, Jose Santos-Victor, Bruno Siciliano, Roland Siegwart, Thierry Simeon, Stefano Stramigioli, Carme Torras, Ales Ude, Bram Vanderborght, Luigi Villani, Markus Vincze</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">has recently been put together that started its work for consolidating the discussed ideas into a convincing concept for our Robotics Community. Now, we would like to ask you as members of our community to actively get involved and become part of this joint effort, support and help if you feel this is important and deserves your support!</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">You are very welcome to express your interest in participation on our homepage:</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><a
href="https://www.centris-ai.eu/join-our-community/"
style="text-decoration:none;" moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">https://www.centris-ai.eu/join-our-community/</span></a></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Soon, we will approach the entire community with subsequent steps and hope you all support this wonderful and truly inclusive effort of our European robotics community.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">At this point I also would like to introduce Tanja Robnik and Jan Harder (</span><a
href="mailto:tanja.robnik@tum.de" style="text-decoration:none;"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#1155cc;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">tanja.robnik@tum.de</span></a><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">; <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:j.harder@tum.de" moz-do-not-send="true">j.harder@tum.de</a>) at TUM / MSRM, they will serve as key point of contacts so that communications run smoothly.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">All the very best,</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Sami & Rachid</span></p>
<br>
<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.3800000000000001;text-align:
justify;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Coordinator / Co-Coordinator</span></p>
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