By Peter Spyns for GovTech Europe.
Senior policy adviser with the Flemish Department of the Economy, Science and Innovation
The Flemish Government has supported the development of artificial intelligence to the tune of almost €150M per year since July 2019. The funding complements the European Co-ordinated AI plan and illustrates the importance attributed to AI.
The concept has been acclaimed as an essential technology of a new industrial revolution, with data as its “oil”. Through the decades, it has become an ubiquitous and enabling technology. It can be applied in almost every aspect of society, including personal lives, without it really being visible for the (end-)user. Even for military and surveillance usage, AI has become so important that many countries are pursuing it as an enabler in the field – not just world superpowers.
AI is believed to be able to contribute to solving major societal problems, such as climate change, and smart energy solutions. It is no wonder that many governments are feeling compelled to invest in it, as well as related research and innovation, (R&I) to secure their position in the global economy and geopolitical competition.
Europe is the ‘third way’
Standing in contrast with the hardly-restricted and free-capitalist vision of AI in the United States and the stricter, state-controlling and surveillance vision of AI in China, the European Union and its Member States promote an ethical and trustworthy vision on AI. This ‘third way’ vision is operationalised in the European Co-ordinated Plan on AI, which invites member states and regions to define their own AI policy plan to support and invest in AI according to the commonly agreed objectives.
The distribution of competences regarding R&I in Belgium is such that the Belgian federated entities own the major policy and financial levers and drivers for R&I on AI, while the federal level only has an administrative coordinating role. Therefore, it is not surprising that some federated entities in Belgium have already developed an AI strategy (e.g. the Flemish plan started on July, 1 2019), while a Belgian co-ordinated strategy is still lacking.
Even though the Flemish AI plan was designed while the European plan was still under construction, many objectives turned out to be compatible, striving towards the same goals. Though the specific Flemish AI plan was approved by the Flemish Government in 2019, R&I on AI was already funded for several decades, resulting in a strong Flemish AI ecosystem. The five Flemish universities have built up strong and highly complementary AI research groups, all Flemish research centres have embraced AI – with imec [an international R&D firm based in Leuven] being a world player – and young and promising Flemish enterprises have acquired a leading role in their niche.
With all this, it’s not surprising that Flemish funding for AI is quite substantial. Accounting for all AI subsidies through various support channels, Flanders invests roughly €150M in research and innovation for AI each year. That amounts to almost 7% of the total Flemish R&I budget (€2.13BN in 2021).
The three major funding streams for the past year are:
- Funding for fundamental and basic AI research: €15.5M (via The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO))
- Funding for AI R&I by (mainly) enterprises and university colleges: some €30M for “core AI” projects and some €70M for what are labelled “AI-related” projects (via the Flanders Enterprise and Innovation Agency (VLAIO))
- Funding for a specific AI plan (see below); €32.185M (via the Dept. of Economy, Science & Innovation (EWI) and VLAIO)
In more specific terms, AI Flanders – the region’s AI plan – consists of three main pillars:
- The research pillar: activities to strengthen demand driven and cutting edge strategic basic research at Flemish universities and research centres (€12.185M per year)
- The development pillar: initiatives to foster the take-up and professional use of AI by all industry sectors through a variety of supporting measures (€15M per year)
- The societal pillar: various activities regarding dissemination, education and training, and ethical issues on AI (€4.815M per year)
The research pillar functions in a triple-helix setting with the five Flemish universities, the four Flemish strategic research centres and one collective research centre. This is designed to ensure that the research agenda is driven by a combination of research strengths and demand by industry partners. The pillar addresses four main research challenges: AI-driven data science, edge AI, collaborative AI and human-like AI. Case studies for potential solutions are generated based on industry demand in four main areas: health, energy, industry 4.0 and citizens and government.
The development pillar is geared towards supporting companies with an increasing level of in-house AI expertise. At the lowest level this involves advising, informing, guiding and raising awareness. At the more advanced stage, companies are encouraged to engage in collective knowledge acquisition and distribution activities, so that they can absorb able AI knowledge to be able, at the highest level, to initiate in-house AI development and implementation projects. Cooperation with knowledge institutions is recommended at all stages.
The societal pillar is subdivided into three different strands:
- Skills and training (€3M per year)
The Flemish AI Academy acts as a broker (and, where needed, as a developer) of AI courses in a doctoral school setting, as well as for higher level professionals continuing their education. In addition, funding also supports the improvement of digital skills in general and AI in particular in secondary schools and on the company floor (“on the job”).
- Ethics (€750k per year)
The ethics strand is closely aligned with the Knowledge Centre Data & Society that investigates legal, ethical and societal aspects of artificial intelligence and data-driven applications. It also facilitates the creation of tools, advice and recommendations on the ethical dimensions of AI.
- Public Outreach (€1.1M per year)
The public outreach strand is a more diverse set of activities such as broadcasted short videos on several application domains of AI, educational documentaries, a twice-yearly survey on AI adoption by companies (called the AI barometer), calls for citizens science projects, etc.
All the building blocks of the Flemish AI plan are up and running. Now, more attention and effort will be spent on increasing the international visibility of the Flemish AI ecosystem, i.e. by developing collaborations with other AI programmes and centres around the world, as well as local awareness.
In the latter case, we will investigate how citizen science calls could be turned into a more structural form of citizen participation – in the spirit of the Horizon Europe missions. In addition, in order to foster the uptake of AI by government, better links with the programme for innovation procurement (that support many important AI projects) could be established.
Flemish investment in AI is quite substantial. But even if the region’s AI plan is performing to expectations and running smoothly, more efforts can be made to align it more closely with other government policies, and increase its impact in future.
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About the author & further reading:
Peter Spyns is a senior policy adviser with the Department of Economy, Science and & Innovation within the regional government of Flanders in Belgium. He has been working with the Flemish administration for over 16 years, and among other responsibilities, co-ordinates the department’s policy on AI, sciences and innovation, knowledge engineering, and digital humanities.
For more information, visit https://www.ewi-vlaanderen.be/en/flemish-ai-plan, which lays out even more specifics of the Flemish AI plan: the processes, the goals, and the outcomes.
