VI industry partner Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) received an Industrial PhD grant from the Research Council of Norway. The project will be closely connected to Visual Intelligence's "Earth observation" innovation area.
VI industry partner Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) received an Industrial PhD grant from the Research Council of Norway. The project will be closely connected to Visual Intelligence's "Earth observation" innovation area.
By Petter Bjørklund, Communications Advisor at SFI Visual Intelligence
"Receiving this grant is a great recognition of the high-quality ongoing collaboration between KSAT and Visual Intelligence (VI). It gives us opportunities to further strengthen our already high competence and impact in earth observation and solve new and interesting challenges."
This is what Kristoffer Wickstrøm says about the Industrial PhD grant, which VI partner KSAT received on June 3rd. The Industrial PhD scheme—established by the Research Council of Norway—aims to boost research efforts and long-term competence-building for Norwegian trade and industry through the recruitment of doctoral candidates.
The scheme also seeks to promote closer cooperation between industry and research organizations as a step in promoting knowledge transfer from researchers to society at large.
The Industrial PhD project will focus on using satellite imagery and machine learning for sustainable oil spill monitoring. Early detection of spillage is important for minimizing its negative environmental impact on the marine ecosystem—both at sea and the shores, Wickstrøm says.
"However, the vastness of the ocean makes monitoring difficult. Satellite imagery is key to monitor large areas effectively but requires labor-intensive analyses. Automated solutions based on machine learning can help alleviate the need for manual labor—thus improving the monitoring procedure as a whole," he explains.
While formally a KSAT project, the PhD project will be conducted in close collaboration between the industry partner and the UiT Machine Learning Group. It is also closely tied to VI's "Earth observation" innovation area.
"KSAT and Visual Intelligence has a longstanding and tight collaboration that has led to cutting-edge fundamental and applied research that tackles real-world problems —with direct links to improved products. Working with KSAT—an internationally leading company—is highly beneficial due to the diverse and interesting problem settings that often require completely new technology to tackle efficiently. This leads to interesting research questions and new fundamental research, which in turn leads to improved products and applications," says Wickstrøm.
"This tight collaboration is a win-win situation—both for KSAT and Visual Intelligence as a whole", he adds.
The project is estimated to begin in September/October 2025.
Several of our researchers represented SFI Visual Intelligence at EurIPS 2025 – the NeurIPS-endorsed European AI conference.
Congratulations to Senior Research Scientist Anders Waldeland, who was awarded the Digital Trailblazer Award 2025 at the Dig X Subsurface conference in Oslo, Norway.
Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence that can automatically measure the heart's structure – both quickly and accurately (Popular science article on sciencenorway.no)
Congratulations to Jørgen Agersborg, who successfully defended his PhD thesis at UiT The Arctic University of Norway on November 28th.
State Secretary Marianne Wilhelmsen visited UiT The Arctic University of Norway to learn more about SFI Visual Intelligence and UiT's AI initiatives in education and research.
KI-chatboten Grok har fortalt brukere at verdens rikeste mann er både smartere og sprekere enn noen andre i verden – inkludert basketballstjernen LeBron James og Leonardo da Vinci (Norwegian news article on tv2.no)
Forskere har utviklet kunstig intelligens som automatisk kan måle hjertets struktur – både raskt og presist (Norwegian popular science article on forskning.no)
The Visual Intelligence Graduate School gathered our early career researchers for a 3-Day Science Communication workshop at Skibotn field station outside of Tromsø, Norway.
Onsdag inngikk Aker Nscale og UiT Norges arktiske universitet en ti-årig samarbeidsavtale for å utvikle og styrke kompetansemiljøene for kunstig intelligens i Narvik og Nord-Norge. Aker Nscale garanterer for 100 millioner kroner i avtaleperioden (news story on uit.no)
Centre Director Robert Jenssen and PhD Candidate Lars Uebbing had two fruitful days together with researchers at The Alan Turing Institute's headquarters in London
Centre Director Robert Jenssen represented Visual Intelligence at Outlook North in Harstad, Norway
Senior Research Scientist Anders Waldeland is nominated for the Digital Trailblazer 2025 Award. The winner is announced at the Dig X Subsurface conference in Oslo, Norway in December.
Visual Intelligence researchers have developed an AI to automatically measure the heart's structure – both quickly and accurately. They believe it can help doctors detect and treat cardiovascular diseases faster.
Samuel Kuttner and Elin Kile presented research on PET and artificial intelligence at evening seminar on early detection of prostate cancer organized by the Norwegian Prostate Cancer Assocation.
Centre Director Robert Jenssen represented Visual Intelligence at Svarte Natta 2025 – North Norway's journalist and media conference organized by the Norwegian Union of Journalists.
Congratulations to PhD Candidate Preetraj Bhoodoo, who recently won the Best Poster Presentation Award at the PRESIMAL Autumn Reserach School 2025.
We happily welcome Sigurd Almli Hanssen and Adrian Duric as new PhD Candidates at SFI Visual Intelligence's hubs in Tromsø and Oslo respectively.
AI expert Eirik Agnalt Østmo explains that the law is intended to make AI technology safe for everyone (Popular science article on sciencenorway.no)
Aitor Sánchez is a PhD candidate at the Intelligent Systems Group of the University of the Basque Country in Spain. He visited Visual Intelligence in Tromsø from March to June 2025.
We happily welcome Nicolo Grometto as a new PhD Candidate at SFI Visual Intelligence in Bodø, Norway.