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.