GENAI-X Kick-off and workshop for team and vision building

June 22, 2026: Kick-off Event for GENAI-X Project

We were delighted to welcome researchers, students, partners, and guests from academia, industry, and public institutions to the public launch event of GENAI-X Project – AI Generalizability in Non-stationary Environmental Regimes.
The event was opened with welcome addresses by Dr. Thomas Nitzsche, Lord Mayor of Stadt Jena, and Prof. Dr. Andreas Marx, President of Friedrich Schiller University Jena Jena. The audience then gained insights into the vision and objectives of GENAI-X through presentations by Prof. Dr. Alexander Brenning, Prof. Dr. Joachim Denzler, Prof. Dr. Markus Reichstein, and Prof. Dr. Christine Römermann.
The scientific program further featured inspiring talks and discussions with Dr. Monique Kuglitsch, Prof. Dr. Michael Habeck, Prof. Dr. Alexander Binder, Dr. Aishwarya Venkataramanan, and Dr. Shijie Jiang, highlighting the challenges and opportunities of developing AI systems that remain reliable in dynamically changing environments.
Out of the members of the ELLIS Unit Jena who are part of the ELLIS – European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems and funded by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung through its CZS Breakthroughs programme, GENAI-X brings together researchers from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Universitätsklinikum Jena, and the Senckenberg Nature Research Institute for Plant Form and Function. The project aims to advance trustworthy AI methods and apply them to pressing environmental challenges such as floods, droughts, and landslides.
A special thank you to all speakers, participants, the organizer Bettina Böhm and Gyulsen Yordanova Akkaya and Christin Sehmsdorf from the multimedia team of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena for making the kick-off event such a success. We are excited to see the collaborations, innovations, and scientific discoveries that will emerge from GENAI-X over the coming five years.