• The candidate will be asked to provide a further interpretation of the chair based on her/his expertise and added value as part of the selection process
• Showing leadership in research ensuring coherence within and between various activities and projects at the Department, whilst exploring and initiating connections with the other chairs in the Department and with other departments of the OU.
• Developing new research findings that are important for artificial intelligence, for instance by supervising a healthy number of Ph.D. students.
• Having and maintaining a strong publication record in refereed journals.
• Attracting new research funding (EU, science foundations, internal funds) and research opportunities.
• Embedding the research expertise in the curriculum of the Master AI program, in close cooperation with the department staff and outside experts, for instance in the form of new courses on current and relevant topics.
• Guiding students in their MSc. graduation research.
• Addressing practitioner and stakeholder audiences through professional and popular publications and through public lectures.
• Playing an active role in the societal debate on artificial intelligence.
• Liaising with civil society, governments and research institutions concerning issues with regard to artificial intelligence and its consequences.
• Representation of the department of Computer Science (and AI), the faculty of Science, and the OU within and outside the institution.
• Management tasks on behalf of the faculty/department. The successful candidate will be expected to take on leading roles in the Department or Faculty (e.g. Department Head, Program leader, Research coordinator, etc.)

• A strong academic profile in artificial intelligence, as demonstrated by an excellent publication record in typical AI venues (including, but not limited to IJCAI, ECAI, ICML, ECML, NeurIPS, TOAC, etc), successfully completed PhD project supervisions, and proven ability to attract external funding;
• A Ph.D.- degree in the field of artificial intelligence, Computer Science, or similar fields;
• Proven management skills, with a willingness to take on leading roles in the Department;
• A willingness to contribute to the research programmes of the OU and multidisciplinary collaboration across faculties;
• An established record of successful (interdisciplinary) collaboration and an existing (international) network;
• Excellent teaching skills, as demonstrated by positive course and/or program evaluations in previous functions;
• Experience with the development of new academic teaching programmes in the field of artificial intelligence;
• An ability to connect with researchers from different disciplines and inspire them to work in joint projects;
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
• Experience in (or willingness to get acquainted with) online teaching;
• A command of the Dutch language or willingness to learn it;
• In possession of the Basic qualification for academic teaching (BKO) from a Dutch university, an equivalent teaching qualification, or a willingness to obtain it.

Fixed-term contract: temporary period of 18 months with permanent perspective.

The successful candidate will get a permanent contract with a probationary period of 18 months. The salary will be determined on the basis of your experience and qualifications but will be in accordance with the general salary scale H2 of the CAO-NU. An indication of the maximum gross salary is €8881.-  per month, for a full-time appointment.

The Open Universiteit provides good secondary benefits such as training, mobility, part-time employment and paid parental leave.

We expect the candidate to be present in Heerlen for an average of 2 days a week

Open Universiteit

Flexible studying anywhere in the Netherlands and (Belgium) Flanders
The Open Universiteit is the part-time university in the Netherlands. Students follow personalised and activating academic distance education and disciplinary research is carried out within the various fields of science. Students can complete bachelor and master programmes, but also shorter programmes. The characteristics of education are openness, flexibility and quality (see www.ou.nl/rankings). The Open Universiteit has over 17,000 students and more than 750 employees. The OU has branches in the Netherlands and Belgium (see www.ou.nl/studiecentra). The main office is located in Heerlen.

The latest technologies and educational insights are applied both in the bachelor's and master's programmes and courses and in projects and programmes with partners. Nationally and internationally, the OU plays an important role in the innovation of higher education. Education is interwoven with research, which also ensures that the current state of science is incorporated. The Open Universiteit invests not only in disciplinary research in nine scientific fields, but also in research in a multidisciplinary programme: Innovating for resilience.

Faculty of Science

The faculty of Science is one of the six faculties of the Open Universiteit. Education, research and valorisation are the main tasks. The faculty offers academic bachelor and master programmes in the fields of Computer Science, Information Science, and Environmental Sciences, including a recently developed Artificial Intelligence master programme (started February 2022). The faculty’s research programme focuses on Innovating for Resilience. Furthermore, the faculty is partner in the Center for Actionable Research of the OU (CAROU). The faculty has Ph.D.-students who conduct research on various current topics within the research programme. As a result of the interdisciplinary focus on education and research, as well as the close link with practice, work at our faculty provides many innovative and challenging opportunities for entrepreneurial researchers.

Center for Actionable Research of OU (CAROU)
The Center for Actionable Research of the Open University (CAROU), is a young and dynamic research group of talented scientists, engineers, facilitators, and makers. Conducting actionable research is our goal; research that has real, observable, tangible, actionable outcomes with both academic and business value. In order to achieve our goal, we like to build co-creation partnerships with organisations at the Brightlands Smart Services Campus in Heerlen where we are conveniently located, the region and elsewhere in order to support their innovative efforts both in the technological and social domains. The research lines at CAROU includes Affective Computing, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Logistics, and Manufacturing Analytics.

Department of Computer Science
The Department of Computer Science is an enthusiastic and ambitious group of approximately 35 people (29 fte). Its research program THIS (Towards High-quality and Intelligent Software), focuses on four program lines: artificial intelligence, teaching and learning, software quality, and security and privacy. The group contributes to these challenges through excellent research and online teaching programmes, covering a large diversity of topics, e.g. deep learning applications in industry, computer vision, natural language processing, intelligent tutoring systems, privacy-aware technologies, reinforcement learning, Bayesian networks, cyber-security, automated software testing, and responsible AI. The online academic educational programmes of this Department have received the highest accolades in the country in this domain for years.