Postdoctoral researcher on Human – Centred Artificial Intelligence (0.6-1.0 FTE)

Department

Faculty of Economics and Business

Organisation

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, University of Groningen, V25.0019

Job description

The University of Groningen is offering a postdoctoral research position on Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence (HCAI). The position is linked with and funded from European research projects in this area. As part of the successful thread of HCAI STAR (https://star-ai.eu – Safe and Trusted Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence in Future Manufacturing Lines), HumAIne (https://humaine-horizon.eu – Hybrid Human-AI Decision Support for Enhancing Human Empowerment in Dynamic Situations), AI4Work (https://ai4work.eu – Human-Centric Digital Twin Approaches to Trustworthy AI and Robotics for Improved Working Conditions), SkillAIbility (https://skillaibility.eu - Co-designing human centric pathways for future skills in manufacturing through augmented, empowered, inclusive, and symbiotic complementarities between AI, automation and human task), and the newly approved AIXpert (An agentic, multi-layer, GenAI-powered backbone to make an AI system explainable, accountable, and transparent), the University of Groningen is seeking to recruit an ambitious researcher to expand our team working in this area and contribute towards innovative HCAI research, further strengthening and developing our national and international multi-disciplinary synergies, and producing high quality outcomes and publications.

Your role
We offer an appointment for a Postdoctoral researcher with an anticipated start as soon as possible, as part of our European collaborative research projects. Your role will be to conduct research in HCAI, contribute to and lead in some cases project research and technical reporting, dissemination activities, as well as empirical and experimental research. You will also be expected to liaise with and support other researchers, especially PhD researchers working in the same projects. You will engage in regular project meetings and workshops together with the project partners, demonstrating initiative. A brief outline of current relevant projects follows.

The relevant Horizon Europe projects HumAIne, AI4Work, SkillAIbility, and AIXpert
You will be part of highly dynamic and engaging teams, within the consortia of the European collaborative projects HumAIne, AI4Work, SkillAIbility, and AIXpert. You will work within the Department of Operations, and be expected to engage with colleagues from other Departments, the Faculty and University, and Faculty, University, and broader partners beyond the University.
The projects include technology providers (including AI providers), industry experts from multiple domains, academic & research institutions, and other organisations, offering the right partnership mix of stakeholders to integrate a multi-stakeholder viewpoint on HCAI research.

I. HumAIne: Knowledge – Infused Artificial Intelligence for Human-Technology Integration
The effective integration of data and knowledge in HCAI in HumAIne is based on knowledge representations in the form of ontologies, knowledge graphs, and neuro-symbolic learning, offering sound grounding also for Large Language Model (LLM) outcomes to drive knowledge-infused AI. The incorporation of domain knowledge is hardly achievable without the collaboration of multi-stakeholder teams, and therefore HumAIne takes a co-creative and evaluative approach to shaping Knowledge-Infused Artificial Intelligence. The research in this project takes a multidisciplinary perspective with effective multi-stakeholder co-creative and evaluative approaches to harness domain-relevant expertise and knowledge. Pilot project-use cases offer a rich testbed for the validation of the developed approaches.

II. AI4Work: Human-Centred Digital Twins in Industrial Work Environments
Digital twins enjoy significant take-up in a wide range of industries and application domains. The live coupling of the physical and digital worlds in digital twins targets the near real time operation and control of physical systems, in a mixed physical-digital-human system. AI4Work research targets the development of Human-Centred Digital Twins (HCDT), via the twinning of physical and digital entities in socio-technical system contexts, with clear emphasis on the actual role, contribution, and benefit of the human operator. A HCDT would be more effective if it achieves a cognitive coupling between humans and machines. A starting point for such coupling is to develop context models for situation awareness. Overall, the project research involves requirements, methods, tools, and a proposed framework for sliding work sharing between human and non-human (e.g. AI, robots) actors, including their deployment and cross-domain evaluation in multiple project uses cases.

III. SkillAIbility: Co-designing human centric pathways for future skills in manufacturing through augmented, empowered, inclusive, and symbiotic complementarities between AI, automation and humans
The objective of the SkillAIbility project is to create human-centric pathways to future HCAI skills and jobs for all in the digital transition for the manufacturing industry. AI can exacerbate social disparities and inequalities, especially for vulnerable groups. To mitigate such risks, the project targets societal, industrial, academic, and regulatory dimensions, through co-designing education, training and relevant AI tools with workers, especially vulnerable groups, using empowering, inclusive, and symbiotic complementarities between AI, automation, and humans. Our team will mainly focus on roadmapping, creation of future scenarios for augmentation, empowerment, and symbiosis between humans and AI/automation technologies, on the design of human technologies for symbiotic work organisation contexts, and on leading use cases through co-design principles for inclusive AI.

IV. AIXPERT: An agentic, multi-layer, GenAI-powered backbone to make an AI system explainable, accountable, and transparent
AIXPERT envisions a future where AI systems are explainable, transparent, accountable, and robust, fostering trust in human-machine interactions. The AIXPERT solutions will measure the efficiency and accuracy of AI systems and will also provide contextual explanations, offering insights into the data and models used to generate outcomes. The integration of Knowledge Graphs (KGs) with AI agents will link the data and the actions taken by AI agents. Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) will enable AI to learn and adapt based on real-time user interactions. The dynamic creation and configuration of AI agents will allow users to customise and deploy agents, primarily powered by Large Language Models (LLMs). AIXPERT will leverage human-centred design principles, incorporating participatory design and usability studies. Our team will lead the development of an auditing and evaluation framework, the development of social equity-centred and ethically aligned models, and will contribute to the Integration of Knowledge Graphs and Large Language Models (LLMs) for enhanced decision-making, their application in Manufacturing use cases, and the overall cross-domain validation and societal impact assessment of AI systems.

About the University of Groningen
Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative centre of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Belonging to the best research universities of Europe and joining forces with prestigious partner universities and networks, the University of Groningen is truly an international place of knowledge.

Faculty of Economics and Business
The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) has an inspiring study and working environment for students and employees. International accreditation enables the Faculty to assess performance against the highest international standards. It also creates an exciting environment of continuous improvement. FEB's programmes, academic staff and research do well on various excellence ranking lists.

Requirements

- PhD in Management / Industrial Engineering, Computing, Engineering, or other relevant Science discipline (completed or near completion).

The desired experience and competences are the following

- You should be a proactive, self-driven individual, with critical thinking, who can excel in an environment that offers collaboration options, within the supervising and organisation teams, but also within the extensive project partnership, able to perform within project timescales.
- You should have project management skills demonstrable from previous project experience.
- Competences in data analytics, machine learning / AI (for example in Python and relevant machine learning libraries), as well as interest and ability to expand such competences.
- Experience with programming for data management and data integration would be an advantage.
- Excellent communication skills and proficiency (written and verbal) in English.
- Excellent technical and research report writing skills.
- Ability and interest in combining theory with experimental research.
- Readiness and willingness to engage/collaborate with consortium partners and other researchers as a team player working in an interdisciplinary environment.
- Experience from working in the past on collaborative research projects will be an advantage.
- A track-record of conducting high quality research with outcomes such as relevant publication(s), deliverables, or developed tools.

Conditions of employment

Contract length: 24 months.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

- A salary, depending of relevant work experience from a minimum of € 3,378 up to a maximum of € 5,331 (salary scale 10) gross per month based on a full-time position (1.0 FTE).
- A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income and an 8.3% end-of-the-year allowance.
- A postdoctoral appointment, for a duration of 24 months, A post will be offered with a probation period of 4 months, when a go/no go decision will be made to conclude the contract within 6 months, or offer contract extension for the remaining period. Subject to funds availability and satisfactory progress, the contract may be extended beyond the 24-month period.

Starting date: as soon as possible

Job Application

The application package consists of the following separate documents 1. Your CV. 2. A motivation letter that makes a clear link to the job and a short research statement (max 1 A4). 3. A scan of your degrees, including transcripts where appropriate. 4. Proof of English proficiency. 5. Other relevant documents. Documents 1-4 are compulsory. Please note that incomplete application packages will not be taken into account. An assessment may be part of the application procedure, consisting of psychological tests and an interview. If you are interested, we invite you to apply no later than 16 February 11:59pm / before 17 February 2025 Dutch local time (Central European Time) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website). The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/ Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code We provide career services for partners of new faculty members moving to Groningen. Unsolicited marketing is not appreciated.

Additional information

For additional information, please contact:

Dr Christos Emmanouilidis (for information on the research projects)
[email protected]

In your application, please always include the job opening ID V25.0019

Extra informatie kan worden verkregen via een van de volgende links:

Dr Christos Emmanouilidis

Digital application form