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Open positions at ILLC

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    Funded PhD in Argumentation and Explainable AI

    Deadline: Friday 30 May 2025

    Computational argumentation theory provides essential tools for analyzing structured debates, with applications in AI-assisted decision-making systems, online discussion platforms, and human-AI interaction. In this context, explainability is critical: systems must not only determine which arguments are accepted based on abstract semantics, but also make this reasoning transparent and cognitively accessible to human users. Yet, existing semantics—typically grounded in logic-based frameworks and Dung's abstract argumentation—might fail to align with human intuitions, limiting both their usability and trustworthiness in practice. This fully funded PhD thesis will focus on improving the alignment between formal acceptability semantics and human reasoning.

    Keywords: Argumentative AI, Explainable Reasoning, Human-Centered AI, Argument Influence
    Starting Date: October 2025
    Location: Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens (CRIL UMR 8188 - CNRS & Université d'Artois), France
    Supervisors: Dr Srdjan Vesic (CNRS CRIL Université d'Artois) and Dr Mathieu Hainselin (CRP-CPO Université de Picardie Jules Verne)

    For more information, see here or contact Srdjan Vesic at .

Open positions, general

  • (New) PhD position in Programming Languages and Logic, Leiden University (The Netherlands)

    Deadline: Monday 30 June 2025

    We invite applications to a fully funded 4-year PhD position at the intersection between logic and programming languages, on the topic "Expressivity of Imperative Programs", to be hosted at Leiden University. The application deadline is June 30, 2025.

    The semantics of programming languages are often modeled as abstract machines that evolve through interaction with their environment, raising the question of whether every machine behavior can be captured by a program in a given language. This question has practical implications, such as in compiler optimizations and decompilation for tasks like malware analysis. However, theoretical limits exist: languages lacking non-local control flow constructs like goto or break cannot express all machine behaviors. This issue, rooted in debates dating back to the 1980s, continues to inspire research, especially into the expressiveness of structurally constrained control flows. This PhD project explores these questions through the lenses of programming languages, automata theory, and process algebra.

  • PhD Position in Graph-based Machine Learning and Semantic Modeling, Bozen-Bolzano (Italy)

    Deadline: Wednesday 11 June 2025

    In partnership with Sony CSL Barcelona, we invite applications for a fully funded 3 year PhD Position, starting in November 2025, on the topic of "Predicting the evolution of scientific knowledge: exploiting knowledge graphs and ontology embeddings". The PhD project is coordinated by Prof. Oliver Kutz and Prof. Diego Calvanese at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy), and by Dr. Tarek Besold at Sony CSL (Barcelona, Spain). The successful applicant is expected to spend two extended 6 months periods in the Sony Lab Barcelona, with main PhD studies pursued in Bolzano within the world-renowned KRDB Research Centre for Knowledge Based Artificial Intelligence.

  • PhD student positions (9 funded, 2 non-funded) in Research Methods in Science & Technology, Urbino (Italy)

    Deadline: Tuesday 10 June 2025

    The University of Urbino is pleased to announce that applications are now open for the Ph.D. program in “Research Methods in Science and Technology.” We offer 9 fully funded positions (including 2 reserved for candidates with foreign qualifications) and 1 position without scholarship. We particularly welcome research proposals in Logic, Philosophy of Science, and History of Science.

    For more information, see here or at https://www.uniurb.it/concorsi/9084 or contact Prof. Vincenzo Fano at .
  • (New) 11 PhD positions in philosophy (including logic), Pavia/Milan/Pisa (Italy)

    Deadline: Monday 9 June 2025

    11 PhD positions in philosophy are currently open within the HuME PhD program, which is shared across three Italian institutions: IUSS Pavia, the University of Milan and Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Possible topics include philosophy of mathematics, logic and philosophy of logic, epistemology, foundations of probability, logic for practical reasoning and Artificial Intelligence, and formal semantics. The positions come with a 3-year grant and additional funding to cover research trips and academic visits abroad. The deadline for applications is June 9th at 13:00, and the starting date for the positions is October 1st, 2025. The official language of the program is English.

  • PhD position in Computational Social Choice, TU Eindhoven (The Netherlands)

    Deadline: Friday 30 May 2025

    Are you excited about theoretical research with societal impact? The Algorithms cluster at TU Eindhoven is looking for a PhD student in Computational Social Choice, to be advised by Ulrike Schmidt-Kraepelin. Candidates should have a strong background in discrete mathematics and algorithms, and ideally some familiarity with game theory or social choice theory.

  • 4 Tenure-Track Professorships (female applicants only), Linz (Austria)

    Deadline: Wednesday 28 May 2025

    We are proud to announce four tenure-track professorships at Johannes Kepler University Linz *only for female applicants* on the topics: - Knowledge and Data Processing - Natural Language Processing and Interaction - Neuro-Symbolic Artificial Intelligence - Reinforcement Learning.

    In accordance with the concept to support the advancement of women, the positions will be open solely to female applicants. Deadline will most likely be May 28.

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    PhD/Postdoc positions in Cluster of Excellence "Bilateral AI", Austria

    In Austria, leading scientists in the field of AI have joined forces and created the Cluster of Excellence (CoE) “Bilateral Artificial Intelligence: Discovering the Next Dimension of AI”, funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. The vision is to educate a new generation of top-quality AI scientists with a holistic understanding of symbolic and sub-symbolic AI methods. The CoE “Bilateral AI” is currently looking for the brightest minds in this field, offering PhD and Postdoc positions, with several exciting opportunities still available.

    The participating research centers are Johannes Kepler Universität Linz (JKU Linz), Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien), Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt (AAU), Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Technische Universität Graz (TU Graz), and Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU Wien).

    For more information, see https://www.bilateral-ai.net/career or contact BILAI at .