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The BMBF-funded competence center HUMAINE – Metropole Ruhr Transfer Hub for Human-Centered Work with AI (HUMAINE) – develops tools for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into work processes that serve to improve working and living conditions.

The focus is on innovative tools at the interface between AI development and AI use. The analysis and validation are carried out with practical pilot applications in the healthcare industry and industrial SMEs. Synergies between the areas are being exploited and successive multipliers for applications in other sectors are being integrated. The solution approaches are made available beyond the native context for regionally based companies via the HUMAINE competence center. The focus lies on the reliability of AI, user-friendliness, support for employees while consistently utilizing the performance potential of humans in the work process, and even the development of new business models in order to achieve growth. An important point here is the social acceptance of AI and addressing its potential for better working conditions in order to avoid AI serving purely rationalization purposes.

In the future, the regional competence center HUMAINE will be the port of call for companies in the region interested in AI in order to establish employee-friendly forms of work and provide supporting consulting and development services as well as networking opportunities. University-certified training is another important area of offerings. The competence center will be located on the Mark 51 ̊7 business incubator and technology campus in Bochum. A long-term collaboration for development between research and practice, organized through memberships, is to be established and used for the sustainable development of the regional economic power.

The project brings together researchers from the fields of work science, neuroinformatics, engineering, psychology and social science with stakeholders from various medium-sized companies and transfer specialists in the Ruhr valley.

The HUMAINE Competence Center is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the program “Future of Value Creation – Research on Production, Services and Work” and supervised by the Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTKA) (funding code: 02L19C200). The funding comprises approximately 8 million euros for an initial period of four years (04/2021-03/2025). Within the funding guideline “Future of Work: Regional Competence Centers of Work Research”, HUMAINE is one of four competence centers funded throughout Germany with a focus on the design of new forms of work through artificial intelligence.