PhD AI Governance
PhD researcher in AI governance and regulation, focused on empirical legal research for the Netherlands and the EU.
Key tasks: regulatory analysis, stakeholder engagement, and policy recommendations.
Required: Master's degree with a focus on AI regulation and governance; interdisciplinary work within the DECIDE project.
Description
Fully funded PhD position for empirical legal research into the governance and regulation of Artificial Intelligence, with a focus on the Netherlands and the EU. The researcher collaborates interdisciplinarily with AI researchers, legal experts, political economists, and societal stakeholders, and publishes in both academic journals and accessible reports and policy papers. The PhD position is structured interfaculty; the PhD candidate is jointly based at Campus Fryslân in Leeuwarden and at the Faculty of Humanities in Groningen, with supervision in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Twente with technical AI knowledge and experience in application areas such as healthcare.
Job requirements
Essential:
- A Master's degree with a focus on AI regulation and governance.
- Strong interest in and motivation for interdisciplinary work, preferably with colleagues from law, political economy, data science, and philosophy.
- Strong analytical and writing skills, with expertise/experience in legal and empirical research (interviews, focus groups, survey design, etc.).
- Interested in working with data and data science methods for evaluating AI systems.
- Excellent command of the English language.
Desirable:
- Knowledge of AI ethics, data protection, or digital rights.
- Familiarity with policy research or stakeholder engagement.
- Proficiency in Dutch is an advantage due to the focus on citizen participation/engagement.
Tasks
- Collaborating across disciplines with other PhD candidates, postdocs, and societal stakeholders to achieve concrete impact.
- Participate in joint training programs on inter- and transdisciplinary research methods, citizen participation, and summer schools.
- Contribute to research that connects theory and practice.
- Mapping the rapidly changing AI regulatory landscape, including the EU AI Act, associated implementing legislation/policy, and adjacent frameworks such as data protection laws.
- Investigating how AI regulations can be made practical and tangible for citizens, businesses, and public institutions.
- Collaborating with computer scientists to determine how legal requirements can be technically implemented.
- Engaging stakeholders through surveys, workshops, and co-creation sessions to identify challenges and opportunities in AI adoption.
- Developing policy recommendations and guidelines to increase transparency, accountability, and trust in AI systems.
- Publishing research results in academic journals and presenting at conferences.
Working conditions
- Year-end bonus of 8,3% and a holiday allowance of 8%.
- Offering extensive opportunities for personal and professional development.
- PhD candidate position with an appointment duration of 18 months plus 2,5 years (total appointment period for the PhD).
Description of the organization
The University of Groningen is a top European university where interdisciplinary research and education are central. The university strives for an open academic community with an inclusive and safe working environment and collaborates with businesses, governments, and civil society organizations.
The DECIDE project is a large-scale, NWO-funded research initiative within the National Science Agenda. It brings together ten Dutch universities, more than fifty academic researchers, and thirty societal partners in an inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration. DECIDE develops strategies for the design and implementation of transparent, citizen-enhancing AI systems, with applications in domains such as healthcare, mobility, public administration, and healthy living. The project is organized into ten work packages: six focus on disciplinary perspectives and four on citizen empowerment scenarios in specific domains.