IWM involved in two projects of the new Hector AI + Education Future Fund

The University of Tübingen is receiving €6.2 million from the H.W. & J. Hector Foundation to support six research projects on artificial intelligence (AI) and education, as well as several accompanying initiatives. The newly established Hector AI + Education Future Fund aims to develop meaningful applications of AI in schools and educational institutions and to provide scientific guidance for their use. The Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) is significantly involved in two of the funded projects, contributing its expertise in psychology, computational linguistics, and didactics to the design of AI-supported learning environments. The funding period is three years. By combining computer science, psychology, and empirical educational research, the projects will create concrete solutions for educational practice, which will be made freely available after completion.

Project Immersive AI

Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Peter Gerjets, head of the IWM lab on Multimodal Interaction, researchers are working together with the Tübingen AI Center to develop a virtual and augmented reality application. At its core is an AI-based dialogue partner that accompanies learners in social VR scenarios and helps them actively explore and explain content. The project connects the latest developments in multimodal language models with concepts of self-regulated learning and provides exemplary materials for biology lessons.

Project AI-LIT

The project AI- LIT, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Detmar Meurers, head of the IWM lab on Language and AI in Education, focuses on language support in early childhood education. In cooperation with Ludwigsburg University of Education and the University of Hanover, the team is developing an app that individually enables dialogic reading—an established educational intervention—through AI-supported dialogues, thus making this effective method scalable. The goal is to strengthen language skills already at preschool age, providing a foundation for the development of expressive ability, reading comprehension, and educational success.