Open positions, general

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  (New) PhD position in Formal Methods for Concurrent Cryptographic Protocols at VU Amsterdam [NL]

  Deadline: Friday 30 October 2026

  The goal of this project is to use formal methods to develop a systematic way to describe concurrent cryptographic protocols and to reason about their security. 

  You will carry out research towards developing formal reasoning principles for concurrent cryptographic protocols and participate in the dissemination of results (conferences, research visits, etc.). In addition, you will perform light supervision duties for bachelor and/or master students and support our courses as teaching assistants (maximum two periods a year).

  For more information, see https://workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/phd-position-in-formal-methods-for-concurrent-cryptographic-protocols-amsterdam-1288339 or contact Kristina Sojakova at k.sojakova at vu.nl.
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  Postdoc in Philosophical Logic and the Philosophy of Logic at the Czech Academy of Science in Prague [CZ]

  Location: Prague, Czech Republic
  Deadline: Friday 31 July 2026

  A two-year postdoc position is opened on the SIMILE (Substitution in Material Inference and Logical Environments) project, which seeks to develop conceptual and mathematical-symbolic frameworks for understanding material inferences, which have emerged as a central topic inferentialist projects as in the work of Sellars, Brandom, and Peregrin, among others. One special focus of the project's work is substitution (and especially the failure of substitution invariance), which has long been known to play a central role in materiality. 

  Candidates should hold or expect a PhD and have a strong background in logic. The ideal candidate will have expertise in both philosophical logic and the philosophy of logic, with particular competency in one or more of the following areas: Metainference, Inferentialism,  Algebraic methods in philosophical logic, Relevant logic, or Metalogical properties of non-classical logics. The call will remain open until the position is filled, but preferrably by 31 July 2026 to guarantee full consideration. 

  For more information, see http://wesleyfussner.com/team.html or contact Wesley Fussner at fussner at cs.cas.cz.
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  PhD Position in Coalgebra / Algebra / Semantics / Formal Methods / Probabilistic Systems in Salzburg [AT]

  Deadline: Wednesday 15 July 2026

  We have a PhD position to fill in the newly formed group CALM (Coalgebra, Algebra, and Logical Methods) at the Department of Computer Science, University of Salzburg. The position is for 4 years, with all benefits (and a small teaching obligation in year 2 and year 3). The topic of research will be fixed based on the joint interests of the candidate and the supervisor, within the mentioned areas. 

  Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, until the position is filled -- ideally before August 2026. Please send your (for now informal) application with a CV and your research interests directly to

  For more information, contact Ana Sokolova at anas.sokolova at cs.uni-salzburg.at.
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  PhD position in Privacy-Preserving AI and Knowledge Graphs for Energy Digital Twins at VU Amsterdam [NL]

  Deadline: Sunday 5 July 2026

  Applications are invited for a PhD Candidate position at at the Knowledge in Artificial Intelligence (KAI) group and the User-Centric Data Science (UCDS) group of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in close collaboration with TU Delft and societal partners including the Municipality of Alkmaar and Arnhem Electricity Campus, as part of the NWO-funded KIC project FEDERATE: Fair Energy Data Environments for Renewable Autonomous Twin Empowerment.

  As a PhD candidate, you will develop novel AI and semantic technologies for privacy-preserving knowledge sharing in federated energy-data environments. Your research will focus on combining knowledge graphs, ontologies, knowledge representation and reasoning, machine unlearning, and formal reasoning to enable the selective removal of sensitive information while preserving the usefulness of shared knowledge.

  For more information, see https://workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/privacy-preserving-ai-and-knowledge-graphs-for-energy-digital-twins-amsterdam-1308311 or contact Jieying Chen at j.y.chen at vu.nl.
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  PhD position in Formal methods in Natural Language Processing (NLP) at Leiden University [NL]

  Deadline: Friday 26 June 2026

  Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD candidature on the use of formal methods to enhance the efficiency, transparency and the understanding of Large Language Models (LLMs).  While LLMs have proven successful in many areas of NLP, they suffer from high data and resource usage and display limited generalization capacity in tasks that humans excel at. You will have the opportunity to investigate how formal methods can help in developing more efficient and more transparent models for Natural Language Understanding.

  In this position you are expected to develop your own research line; as such we ask for a brief research proposal (max. 1 page) which outlines a project you would like to work on.You will be embedded in the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) at Leiden University, supervised by dr. Gijs Wijnholds and prof. dr. Suzan Verberne.

  For more information, see https://careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-Candidate,-Formal-methods-in-Natural-Language-Processing/16571-en_US or contact dr. Gijs Wijnholds at g.j.wijnholds at liacs.leidenuniv.nl.
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  Postdoctoral Researcher in Safe AI (AI4KIDS Project) at University of Luxembourg [LU]

  AI4KIDS addresses the critical need for child-centric safe AI by developing a norm-first Belief–Desire–Intention (BDI) architecture where generative models (LLMs) are constrained by machine-readable child-protection policies to ensure purposeful, legally compliant, explainable and auditable AI behaviour. 

  The role focuses on designing safe, norm-constrained AI architectures for child-centric applications, combining multi-agent systems, LLMs, and social robotics within an international team. The project also includes industrial validation with social robotics platforms (e.g., QTrobot) for deployment in educational and special-needs contexts, marrying computational law, symbolic AI, and large-scale evaluation into a blueprint for safe child-facing AI.

  For more information, see https://recruitment.uni.lu/en/details.html?id=QMUFK026203F3VBQB7V7VV4S8&nPostingID=115076&nPostingTargetID=161784&mask=karriereseiten&lg=UK>:.