PhD AI Governance
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Description
PhD researcher to conduct empirical legal research on AI governance and regulation, focusing on the Netherlands and the EU. The role is interdisciplinary, collaborating with AI researchers, legal scholars, political economists, and societal stakeholders, and includes producing academic publications, widely accessible reports, and policy briefs. The position is embedded in a large interdisciplinary research project and involves working as part of a multidisciplinary team based at Campus Fryslân and a city-center faculty, with external supervision collaboration from colleagues with technical AI expertise.
Job requirements
- Essential: a Master's degree with a focus on AI regulation and governance.
- Essential: strong analytical and writing skills, with expertise or experience in legal and empirical research methods (interviews, focus groups, survey design, etc.).
- Essential: interest in working with data and data science methods to generate insights for AI system evaluation.
- Essential: excellent proficiency in English.
- Essential: strong interest and passion for interdisciplinary work with colleagues from law, political economy, data science, philosophy, or related fields.
- Desirable: knowledge of AI ethics, data protection, or digital rights.
- Desirable: familiarity with policy analysis or stakeholder engagement.
- Desirable: proficiency in Dutch is an asset for citizen participation and engagement tasks.
- Personal qualities: curious, proactive, flexible, collaborative, and eager to translate complex regulations into actionable insights.
Tasks
- Collaborate across disciplines with other PhD candidates, postdocs, and societal stakeholders to achieve real-world impact.
- Participate in joint training programs on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methods, citizen engagement, and summer schools.
- Contribute to research that bridges theory and practice and publish findings in academic journals and conferences.
- Map the evolving AI regulatory landscape, including the EU AI Act and adjacent frameworks such as data protection laws.
- Investigate how AI regulations can be made practical and tangible for citizens, businesses, and public institutions.
- Work with computer scientists to explore technical implementations of legal requirements.
- Engage stakeholders through surveys, workshops, and co-creation sessions to identify challenges and opportunities in AI adoption.
- Develop policy recommendations and guidelines to enhance transparency, accountability, and trust in AI systems.
Working conditions
- End-of-year bonus of 8.3% and a holiday allowance of 8%.
- Extensive opportunities for personal and professional development.
- Employment term for the PhD candidate: 18 months plus 2.5 years.
Description of the organization
The hosting research university supports interdisciplinary research and teaching, collaboration with businesses, government institutions, and societal organizations, and aims for an open, inclusive academic community.
The DECIDE project is a large-scale, nationally funded research initiative under the Dutch Research Agenda. It brings together multiple universities, many academic researchers, and societal partners in an inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration to develop strategies for transparent, citizen-empowering AI systems.
The project addresses real-world challenges across domains such as healthcare, mobility, public governance, and healthy lifestyles, and co-develops strategies with societal stakeholders to create solutions with tangible societal impact. DECIDE is organized into ten work packages that cover disciplinary perspectives and citizen-empowerment scenarios.