ITALK is a 4 year project (2008–2012) funded by the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

 through Unit E5 "Cognitive Systems and Robotics" of the ICT. It aims to develop artificial agents and robots able to acquire complex behavioural, cognitive, and linguistic skills through individual and social learning. This will be achieved through experiments with the iCub

ICub

An iCub is a 1 metre high humanoid robot testbed for research into human cognition and artificial intelligence.It was designed by the RobotCub Consortium, of several European universities and is now supported by other projects such as ITALK. The robot is open-source, with the hardware design,...

 humanoid robot to learn to handle and manipulate objects and tools autonomously, to cooperate and communicate with other robots and humans, and to adapt to changing internal, environmental, and social conditions.

Consortium

The consortium includes leading research laboratories in cognitive robotics and artificial intelligence.

Partners are:

• University of Plymouth
  University of Plymouth
  Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...
  
   – Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition Research Group - Plymouth – United Kingdom
• Italian Institute of Technology
  Italian Institute of Technology
  The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia or Italian Institute of Technology is a foundation established jointly by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research and the Ministry of Economy and Finance to promote excellence in basic and applied research and to contribute to the economic...
  
   - Dept. of Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences - Genova, Italy
• University of Bielefeld – Applied Computer Science - Germany
• National Research Council – Robotics and Artificial Life - Rome - Italy
• University of Hertfordshire
  University of Hertfordshire
  The University of Hertfordshire is a new university based largely in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, from which the university takes its name. It has more than 27,500 students, over 2500 staff, with a turnover of over £181m...
  
  – Centre for Computer Science and Informatics Research - United Kingdom
• University of Southern Denmark – Department of Business Communication and Information Science - Denmark
• RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Behavior and Dynamic Cognition - Japan