PhD position in Knowledge Engineering for Scholarly Applications

Scholarly data encompasses all resources generated during scholarly endeavours, produced to accelerate knowledge within a specific domain, for example the biodiversity sciences or social history research. Knowledge systems are built to effectively integrate data within and across disciplines, on the one hand for the preservation of knowledge, and on the other for data synthesis and the discovery of new knowledge. Domain knowledge is challenging to engineer, aiming to model the real world, and the production of high-quality domain knowledge is challenging, as it requires domain expertise and thus a fruitful dialogue between domain expert and engineer. Historical data, even though paramount for understanding contemporary data, is especially challenging to handle for instance by (i) the differing scientific paradigms requiring one to deal with the representation of rich contexts, and (ii) the need for flexible knowledge organisation to handle changing scientific paradigms, as well as integration of data with other scientific domains. Recently, the introduction of AI techniques in such knowledge engineering workflows have become more prevalent. The central question of this project is what are efficient workflows that effectively employ domain experts, AI agents, and knowledge engineers in the engineering of scholarly knowledge and data? 

We are looking for a PhD candidate to work on the creation of hybrid workflows or architectures for knowledge engineering in scholarly domains. You will address questions such as:

• What are efficient knowledge engineering workflows or architectures for scholarly applications?
• How can we design quality criteria for the evaluation of engineered scholarly knowledge?
• Can we build tools that automatically recommend workflows for specific application domains?

The PhD position will be jointly supervised by dr. Lise Stork and prof. Paul Groth from the Intelligent Data Engineering Lab.

What are you going to do?

You are expected:

• to perform research
• to publish and present the results in international journals and leading conferences, and to write a PhD thesis
• to collaborate with the member of the research group involved
• contribute to our education activities as assistant to a course and/or guiding students in their thesis work

What do you have to offer?

We are looking for a candidate with:

• an MSc in computer science, artificial intelligence or a related field
• a creative and independent mindset
• strong programming skills in Python
• a university-level understanding of machine learning
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• fluency in English, both written and spoken
• the willingness to work collaboratively with other researchers

Not required, but helpful:

• Experience with knowledge engineering technologies (e.g. knowledge graphs)
• Experience setting up user studies or working with users
• An affinity for applications of technology
• Contributions to open source projects

Our offer

A temporary contract for 38 hours per week for the duration of 4 years (the initial contract will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it will be extended for a total duration of 4 years). The preferred starting date is as soon as possible. This should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). We will draft an educational plan that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. We also expect you to assist in teaching undergraduates and master students.

The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant experience, ranges between € 2,770 in the first year to € 3,539 in the last year (scale P). UvA additionally offers an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UFO profile ‘PhD candidate’ is applicable. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable.

Besides the salary and a vibrant and challenging environment at Science Park we offer you multiple fringe benefits:

• 232 holiday hours per year (based on fulltime) and extra holidays between Christmas and 1 January;
• Multiple courses to follow from our Teaching and Learning Centre;
• A complete educational program for PhD students;
• Multiple courses on topics such as leadership for academic staff;
• Multiple courses on topics such as time management, handling stress and an online learning platform with 100+ different courses;
• 7 weeks birth leave (partner leave) with 100% salary;
• Partly paid parental leave;
• The possibility to set up a workplace at home;
• A pension at ABP for which UvA pays two third part of the contribution;
• The possibility to follow courses to learn Dutch;
• Help with housing for a studio or small apartment when you’re moving from abroad.

Are you curious to read more about our extensive package of secondary employment benefits, take a look here.

About us

The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is the Netherlands' largest university, offering the widest range of academic programmes. At the UvA, 42,000 students, 6,000 staff members and 3,000 PhD candidates study and work in a diverse range of fields, connected by a culture of curiosity.

The mission of the Informatics Institute (IvI) is to perform curiosity-driven and use-inspired fundamental research in Computer Science. The main research themes are Artificial Intelligence, Computational Science and Systems and Network Engineering. Our research involves complex information systems at large, with a focus on collaborative, data driven, computational and intelligent systems, all with a strong interactive component.

Want to know more about our organisation? Read more about working at the University of Amsterdam.

Any questions?

Do you have any questions or do you require additional information? Please contact:

• dr. Lise Stork