The Centre for Public Sector Artificial Intelligence (SOSKI) is one of 19 research environments advancing to the final evaluation round with the Research Council of Norway.
"We want the public sector to be at the forefront of developments in artificial intelligence. The public sector should set the premises and research technology that can be used in everything from municipal case management to health research," says Professor Morten Goodwin at the University of Agder (UiA).
Goodwin has led the work on the application to achieve status as a national research centre for artificial intelligence.
The centre's goal is ambitious: Through SOSKI, UiA and partners want to establish Norway as a global leader in ethical and sustainable artificial intelligence. The centre aims to improve trust, efficiency and delivery of public services.
UiA will lead the project while the project leader comes from NORCE.
Three main tracks
Work at SOSKI will follow three main tracks. UiA will lead the technological development, NORCE will lead the work on societal consequences, while Simula will lead the centre's exploration of human-machine interaction.
Partners in SOSKI
- University of Agder
- NORCE
- Western Norway Research Institute
- Østfold University College
- NIBIO
- NILU
- Oslo Municipality Origo
- Kristiansand Municipality
- Bærum Municipality
- Glitre Energy
- Å Energy
- Norwegian Communications Authority
- The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities
- Norwegian Customs
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health
- Norwegian Tax Administration
- Norwegian Mapping Authority
- Norkart AS
- Simula AS
- Stavanger University Hospital
- Stanford University
- University of Lisbon
- University of Copenhagen
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
"We will investigate what happens to the public sector and citizens as technology and artificial intelligence assume a larger role. What does it mean for society when case processing is more or less automated? And how should we as humans relate to this?" says Goodwin.
Several projects underway
Several collaborative projects that will be part of the centre are already underway. One example is KartAi, a project where UiA collaborates with the Norwegian Mapping Authority.
"This involves interpreting zoning plans and building applications with artificial intelligence. The goal is for the municipal sector to acquire a language model that reads zoning plans and applications submitted by citizens. The case processing will thus be partially automated," says Goodwin.
Another example is the collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). The aim is to let artificial intelligence make summaries of research literature. These summaries could serve as the basis for NIPH's recommendations, for example during pandemics.
Decision by June
The Research Council initially received 122 outline proposals, which were narrowed down to 50 complete applications by January 2025. Now the 19 finalists will go through interviews with an expanded expert panel before the final decision is made in mid-June. The 4-6 winners will share NOK 1 billion among them.
"There has been enormous interest in this initiative. Knowledge environments across the country have worked hard to rally the best forces around important research topics. This will be crucial for Norway to assert itself internationally, strengthen its competitiveness and use artificial intelligence for the benefit of society," says Mari Sundli Tveit, CEO of the Research Council of Norway, in a press release.
UiA is also a partner in four of the other 19 finalist projects:
- BONXAI – Bio-inspired AI for Competent Learning
- AI Centre for the Empowerment of Human Learning
- KI-INDUSTRY – Multi-agent AI for Regenerative Industry and Society
- MishMash – Center for AI & Creativity