Every day an enormous amount of unstructured data issues from an abundance of different sources like the Internet and mobile devices. How can all this information be bundled, processed, and analyzed? The is the research topic occupying IT Professor Carsten Lutz, who was recently awarded a coveted “Consolidator Grant” by the European Research Council (ERC).

Over the next five years Professor Lutz will receive two million euros of funding from the ERC. The 43-year-old computer scientist has been teaching and researching at the University of Bremen since the end of 2008. The extra funding will be used to build up his team – and it creates a little more freedom to explore new lines of research. “Naturally, I’m thrilled about the high award”, says Lutz, whose specialties are artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science. The precise title of his ERC project is “Custom-Made Ontology Based Data Access”.

Wikipedia for machines

“We are working on how to apply methods of artificial intelligence onto data integration”, says Lutz. “To do this we use so-called ontologies to bring the data together in a structured way, something like a Wikipedia version for machines instead of humans.”

Consolidation of research groups

The ERC Consolidation Grant is one of Europe’s best known and most coveted research awards. In 2014 the Bremen computer scientist was among the 1,200 applicants who submitted proposals in his particular field. As a rule, the acceptance rate is less than ten percent. By means of this funding line the European Union helps excellent researchers consolidate their own research groups and carry out independent research projects.