The University of Groningen (RijkUniversiteit Groningen – RuG) is the second oldest University in the Netherlands. It is an international University that focuses on all disciplines of science and technology, typically listed among the top 100 Universities globally in most global ranking lists. Since the establishment in 1614, the university has brought forward striving academics, the first female student, the first Dutch astronaut and various Nobel prize winners. With approximately 45.000 combined student and staff members, RuG plays a key role in educational, research and innovation-oriented initiatives relevant to AI and Digitalisation, contributing also strongly to the National AI coalition of the Netherlands (NLAIC.nl). The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) scores highly on several international rankings and belongs to the 1% of business schools worldwide with both EQUIS and AACSB accreditations. FEB empowers and connects students, academics and external stakeholders to have a joint positive impact on regional, national and global economic and business challenges in science and society, participating strongly in educational activities and multiple EU-funded projects on Human-Centric and Trustworthy AI across a wide range of application domains.
Why is the University of Groningen relevant to AIXPERT?
RuG operates the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI enabling it to bring together a truly multi-disciplinary perspective on AI under the motto digital prosperity for all. Rug’s FEB participates strongly in educational and research activities on Human-Centric and Trustworthy AI across a wide range of application domains.
With this expertise in the AIXpert project the RuG team:
- Leads the Work Package “Auditing and evaluation framework development”, including leading the human-centric explainability evaluation framework, and contributing towards individual dimensions needed for trustworthy and human-centric AI systems, delivering a comprehensive AI trustworthiness auditing and evaluation framework, a key for the responsible development and use of Artificial Intelligence.
- Operates as a key connecting partner for the whole consortium, leading the project’s innovative co-creation approach for user requirements elicitation and pilots’ definition, synthesising individual perspectives and expertise that individual project partners bring-in to the project.
- Leads the work on how Agentic-AI systems and models integrate social-equity and ethical considerations across their lifecycle, from design, to development, all the way to deployment and auditing.
- Strongly contributes towards the integration of domain-specific knowledge in AI-decision making, with a particular emphasis in the Manufacturing and Maintenance domains, through the integration of Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models in Agentic AI pipelines.
- Steers the project’s approach for cross-pilot validation and societal impact assessment of Agentic AI systems, considering the operational viability, scalability, transferability, and societal consequences of such systems.
- Coordinates the AIXpert partnership’s activities on standardisation and policy recommendations, based on the experience produced through its research and wide-ranging piloting across domains.
Meet the Team
Bio
Christos carries experience from positions in Industry, Academia, Research, & Innovation bodies, working at the intersection of engineering, computing and industrial management. He has led projects related to Human-Centric & Trustworthy AI for diverse domains, with a particular focus on Production, Asset, & Maintenance Management. He has Editorial appointments in journals such as IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, Engineering Applications of AI, Neural Computing & Applications, Journal of Risk & Reliability, and Annual Reviews in Control and standardisation contributions at CEN, ISO, & IEEE. He is Senior IEEE Member, Founding Fellow of the International Society of Engineering Asset Management, member of IFIP WG5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems and member of several IFAC TCs, having been scientific vice-chair of IFAC’s TC 5.1 Manufacturing Plant Control, chair of WG Advanced Maintenance Engineering Services and Technology, and chairing the TC between 2026 and 2029.
Bio
Bio
Anastasios is a PhD researcher at RuG, affiliated with the OPERA research group in the FEB. His research focuses on the development of a human-centric framework for evaluating and auditing agentic AI systems in real-world operational settings. He investigates how such systems behave within complex workflows, with particular emphasis on explainability, traceability, auditability, and human-AI interaction. His work aims to bridge technical evaluation with organizational and human factors, enabling more transparent, reliable, and accountable use of AI in safety-critical domains such as manufacturing.
He holds an MEng in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), with a specialization in computer science.
Bio
Guillermo is a PhD researcher in FEB, affiliated with the OPERA research group. His research addresses the integration of domain-specific knowledge in agentic AI systems, with particular emphasis on the interplay of Knowledge Graphs as grounding infrastructure for Large Language Models in industrial and manufacturing contexts. Prior to his doctoral studies, he accumulated professional experience across consulting and edtech, including roles as an AI engineer and Analytics Product Manager across the Netherlands and the UK. He holds an MSc cum laude in Technology and Operations Management from RuG, wherein his coursework and thesis focused on the application of machine learning and AI methods to operational systems.