Building on nearly 500 applications received through its first three international calls, AI4I opens a new search for scientific leaders ready to build and lead the next generation of AI research laboratories in Turin
AI4I on August 26, 2026, launched its 4th Call for Founding Heads of R&D Laboratories, opening a new international search for outstanding researchers and scientific leaders with the ambition to shape new research directions at the intersection of frontier artificial intelligence and industrial transformation.
Applications are open until December 15, 2026, at 11:59 PM CET. The selected Founding Heads will be based in Turin, with hybrid arrangements that may be negotiated.
From attracting talent to building a global research community
The new call builds on AI4I’s growing ability to attract highly qualified researchers from across the world. The Institute’s first three international calls for R&D Lab Heads generated nearly 500 applications, with more than half of the candidates for whom citizenship data are available coming from outside Italy.
Today, AI4I has 13 R&D Laboratories and an increasingly international scientific community, bringing together researchers with experience across some of the world’s leading universities, research centres and technology organisations.
The 4th Call marks the next step in this trajectory: attracting scientific leaders who will not simply join an existing research programme, but will have the opportunity to create and shape a new R&D Laboratory from the ground up.
A call for scientific vision and leadership
AI4I is looking for researchers capable of making major, original contributions to frontier AI and its industrial applications.
Candidates are invited to propose a distinctive R&D Laboratory, define its scientific identity and set out a credible four-year path from research excellence to reusable technological assets, industrial validation and impact.
The scope of the call is deliberately broad. Proposals may address foundational AI methods, enabling technologies or application-driven domains. AI4I is particularly interested in ambitious ideas capable of combining scientific originality with a clear potential to generate technological and industrial value.
Nine areas of particular interest — and an open horizon
Within this broad scope, AI4I has identified nine areas of particular interest, reflecting emerging scientific and industrial opportunities:
- AI for Operations, Optimization and Industrial Decision Systems: AI, optimization and control for forecasting, planning, scheduling and decision-making under uncertainty in production, logistics, supply chains, transport and energy.
- Domain Foundation Models, Multimodal Industrial AI and AI Resources: multimodal learning, knowledge representation and structured reasoning for the adaptation and verticalization of foundation models and reusable AI resources in industrial domains.
- Agentic AI for Cyber-Physical Systems: AI agents that autonomously design, evaluate and improve policies and algorithms through closed-loop interaction with simulators, digital twins and real-world systems, under physical, safety and operational constraints.
- Efficient Embodied AI: efficient and deployable AI across the HPC-to-edge continuum, including compression, co-design, distributed learning, Edge AI, TinyML and embodied models.
- AI for Materials Discovery, Automated Experimentation and Circularity: AI-driven discovery and optimization of materials, chemicals and manufacturing recipes through active learning, scientific agents and self-driving laboratories.
- Digital Twins, Synthetic Data and Scientific–Industrial Simulation: reusable AI methods for digital twins and simulation, including surrogate modelling, uncertainty quantification, synthetic data, virtual commissioning and sim-to-real transfer.
- Cognitive Security Technologies: AI for protecting industrial, software and cyber-physical systems through vulnerability discovery, threat detection, response automation and human-in-the-loop security operations.
- Collective Intelligence and Collaborative Multi-Agent Systems: open collectives of AI agents, humans, robots and digital infrastructures, with a focus on coordination, decentralized learning, interoperability and transparent governance.
- Human-Centered AI for Adaptive Human–Machine Collaboration: AI for human–robot and human–AI collaboration, shared autonomy and adaptive interaction across complex industrial and safety-critical environments, combining multimodal learning, game theory, optimization and representation learning.
These areas are not intended to delimit the call. Proposals outside them, spanning multiple fields or introducing entirely new research directions are equally encouraged, provided they are grounded in a compelling scientific vision and a credible path towards industrial impact.
Founding a Lab, not simply leading one
The role of a Founding Head goes beyond scientific leadership. Selected candidates will be responsible for designing, establishing and growing one of AI4I’s core research laboratories.
They will define long-term scientific objectives and shorter-term milestones, recruit and lead international teams of researchers and engineers, develop advanced research programmes and turn their results into reusable software, models, datasets, benchmarks, prototypes, intellectual property and industrial demonstrators.
Founding Heads will also be expected to build collaborations with academia and industry, attract competitive public and private funding and contribute to positioning AI4I as an internationally recognised centre for AI research and innovation.
Performance will be assessed against annual and multi-year KPIs covering five core dimensions: scientific excellence; technology and reusable assets; industrial and societal impact; financial growth; and leadership and management.
From a scientific idea to a four-year plan
A distinctive feature of the new call is the AI4I Strategic Plan & Onboarding Worksheet, which candidates are required to use to develop the strategic plan for their proposed Laboratory.
The document asks applicants to translate their scientific vision into a concrete four-year development plan, addressing scientific and technical originality, industrial applicability and synergies with AI4I, team building, budget and revenue plans, execution roadmap and milestones, infrastructure requirements, durable technological assets, KPIs, risks and governance.
The aim is to identify not only outstanding researchers, but scientific leaders capable of building internationally competitive and sustainable research organisations.
Research from frontier science to real-world validation
AI4I’s R&D Laboratories operate primarily across Technology Readiness Levels 2–6, connecting frontier research with real-world experimentation and validation.
Each Laboratory is expected to produce internationally visible science while developing assets that can be reused and transferred across industrial contexts. Laboratories are also expected to grow beyond their initial endowment by attracting competitive research funding, industrial collaborations and technology-transfer opportunities.
Cross-fertilisation among Labs is a central element of the model, enabling researchers working in different AI fields to share methods, technologies and infrastructure.
Computing, engineering and an ecosystem built around research
Founding Heads will have access to AI4I’s GPU-based accelerated computing and high-performance data infrastructure, together with specialised support in HPC, software engineering and data engineering.
The Institute’s research environment also includes continuous exposure to frontier international research through the FCSP Institute of Advanced Study, collaborations with leading universities and research institutions, support for European and national research programmes and a dedicated business development function connecting researchers with industrial partners.
AI4I also operates a spin-off-friendly policy, supported by relationships with venture capital funds, accelerators and the wider deep-tech ecosystem, creating opportunities to translate research results into new technologies and entrepreneurial initiatives.
An international opportunity based in Turin
AI4I offers Founding Heads a renewable four-year appointment, with a pathway to a permanent position based on performance against agreed KPIs and targets.
The package includes a gross annual salary ranging from €70,000 to €120,000, plus a 25–35% performance-based component, relocation support and a start-up grant whose scope and phasing will be determined through the Laboratory’s approved strategic and financial plan. Eligible researchers relocating to Italy may also benefit from tax exemptions of up to 90%, subject to applicable legislation and individual eligibility.
Selected Founding Heads will have the opportunity to recruit their own international teams of researchers, engineers, postdoctoral fellows and PhD candidates, while receiving support for competitive grants, industrial partnerships, intellectual property, licensing, spin-offs and public-private research programmes.
The next generation of AI research, from Turin
With its fourth international call, AI4I is moving into a new phase of its development: from building its first research community to expanding an internationally competitive scientific ecosystem in Turin.
The ambition is to create an environment in which researchers can pursue frontier AI, build their own teams and scientific programmes, access advanced computing and engineering capabilities and bring research closer to industrial application.
For the next generation of Founding Heads, the challenge is therefore larger than taking on a new position: it is the opportunity to build a Laboratory, define its scientific identity and turn an original research vision into lasting technological and industrial impact.
