Media inquiries only: press@2026.ijcai.org
- U Bremen Research Alliance: Aylin Krieger
- German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI): Swantje Schmidt
- German Informatics Society (GI): Elena Müller
- IJCAI Social Media Chair
IJCAI-ECAI Media Brief
Please refer to the following document for the media brief.
Press Releases
09.07.2026: AI Becomes the Talk of the Town: Bremen Launches the Summer of AI
When several thousand AI experts from around the world come to Bremen in August 2026 for the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the debate on artificial intelligence will not remain confined to the conference hall. Instead, it will move into the heart of the city. Citizens, school students, vocational trainees and companies are being actively invited to experience artificial intelligence, understand its implications and engage in dialogue with internationally renowned experts.
https://idw-online.de/de/news874265
Bremen is a strong hub for AI and technology transfer. The port industry is a prime example of how research, business and government collaborate on digital, resilient and secure infrastructure. IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will present this strength to an international audience.
https://idw-online.de/de/news871253
In the international competition to host the world’s leading conference on artificial intelligence, Bremen prevailed over significantly larger locations. The decisive factor was a comprehensive package rarely seen in this form: outstanding research, well-established transfer structures, and an AI strategy that was developed early and implemented consistently. From August 15 to 21, 2026, the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence – European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-ECAI) will bring several thousand AI experts from around the world to the Hanseatic city.
More: https://idw-online.de/de/news?id=869122&type=semanticsearch
AI Made in Germany: 90 Seconds to Pitch the Future
Meet the Next Generation in AI Research, some of the early-career researchers shaping the future of artificial intelligence across Germany as they present their work in just 90 seconds. This social media campaign showcases the breadth and diversity of artificial intelligence as a field and its many subfields, featuring voices of PhD students and young researchers from across the German AI ecosystem. It brings together a wide range of perspectives across regions, institution types, and areas of AI research, spanning universities, research institutes, and AI centres nationwide.
As part of the lead-up to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 in Bremen, the social media campaign Next Generation in AI Research highlights the strength of Germany’s AI ecosystem — from foundational machine learning and robotics to trustworthy AI, healthcare, climate science, industry applications, and human-centered technologies. By showcasing these research areas and the scientists driving them, the campaign offers a snapshot of the priorities that define Germany’s AI landscape and influence the future direction of AI research and innovation.
These short presentations aim to amplify emerging researchers and their ideas while encouraging audiences to explore their work further — whether by visiting a project website, reading a paper, or connecting with the researchers directly online or during IJCAI-ECAI 2026. More broadly, the campaign seeks to foster visibility, collaboration, and a more inclusive and internationally connected AI research community — one built not on the work of a single mind, but on the collaboration and teamwork of researchers who have co-created spaces of knowledge sharing and scientific excellence since the very first IJCAI in 1969.
In the month leading up to IJCAI-ECAI 2026, join us in discovering the next generation of AI researchers and how they are shaping tomorrow’s AI.
If you are interested in contributing to the campaign and showcasing your AI research in just 90 seconds, we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out to the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Press Team at https://2026.ijcai.org/press/
Meet the Researchers
Kevin Baum (DFKI Saarbrücken, RAIME) — Bridging the gap between philosophy and AI to ensure responsible and ethical machine behaviour.
Connect: Personal Website or LinkedIn
“AI systems are becoming agents that make decisions in courts, classrooms, and hospitals. The challenge is to ensure they do the right things for the right reasons, guided by human values. Aligning AI with human values is not just a technical challenge—it is also a political one.” – Kevin Baum (DFKI Saarbrücken, RAIME)
Melya Boukheddimi (DFKI Robotics Innovation Center) — Designing AI-driven frameworks for task-oriented humanoid robots and legged locomotion.
Connect: DFKI Profile
“My research is driven by an ideal: to develop humanoid robots that help people—from assisting in disaster response to reducing the physical burden of demanding work.” – Melya Boukheddimi (DFKI Robotics Innovation Center)
Adriano Lucieri (DFKI / TU Kaiserslautern) — Improving the explainability of deep learning-based computer-assisted diagnosis systems for medical imaging.
Connect: IDW News or LinkedIn
“AI will only truly transform healthcare if we can trust its decisions. Accuracy alone is not enough. AI systems must also be trustworthy. In healthcare, that means being transparent in their reasoning, fair across different patient groups, and rigorously evaluated beyond performance metrics alone.” – Adriano Lucieri (DFKI / TU Kaiserslautern)
Brian Moser (DFKI / University of Kaiserslautern) — Investigating the boundaries of strongly-conditional generative AI for image enhancement and dataset distillation. Connect: Personal Website or LinkedIn
“When images are used to make decisions, they need to be more than just pretty—they need to be trustworthy.” – Brian Moser (DFKI / University of Kaiserslautern)
Christina Plump (Universität Bremen) — Optimisation under uncertainty in application domains.
Connect: LinkedIn
“If you have an optimisation problem in an experimental domain and are seeking collaboration, reach out to us. Let us work on uncertainty-aware optimisation methods that improve reliability and reduce the risk of overconfident decisions.” – Christina Plump (Universität Bremen)
Theo Vincent (DFKI Darmstadt, SAIROL) — Developing autonomous learning algorithms that solve sequential decision problems with minimal resource requirements.
Connect: Interview Video or LinkedIn or BlueSky
“I am excited about the future of learning algorithms that can learn from experience, just as humans do. To find out more about this research, visit my website.” – Theo Vincent (DFKI Darmstadt, SAIROL)