José Santos-Victor, current President of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (DEEC), and Isabel Trancoso were appointed Fellows of ELLIS – European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems. Catarina Barata, was appointed a Scholar by the same institution. ELLIS's Fellows and Scholars program aims to create an advanced scientific community focused on Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.

José Santos-Victor’s research at the Institute of Systems and Robotics (ISR) focuses on "how to develop artificial (robotic) systems that use vision and other sensory modalities to 'understand' the world around them, and to investigate, model, and understand how vision is used in biological systems like insects or humans." He also conducts research in humanoid cognition systems, collaborating with neuroscientists and psychologists.

Isabel Trancoso conducts research at INESC-ID in various areas related to spoken language processing, including microblog translation, disfluency detection, and conversation quality evaluation.

Catarina Barata, from ISR, conducts research in machine learning applied to medical image analysis and the development of cancer therapies. This research is being carried out in collaboration with oncologists and molecular researchers.

Fellows have different roles, acting as ambassadors. They supervise PhD students, create units and institutes associated with ELLIS, provide strategic advice and define objectives, and select new Fellows based on scientific excellence. The evaluation process includes the number of publications at leading scientific conferences, citation impact, and international awards received by the candidates.

Scholars are junior researchers who demonstrate the skills necessary to reach the Fellow level.

The ELLIS Fellowship Programs bring researchers together at regular meetings throughout Europe, offering significant international visibility.