Doctoral Candidate in Taxonomy of Actors, Rights and Obligations across AI and Data Regulations

We invite you to apply for one of two PhD positions supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network ‘HARNESS – Harnessing AI and Data-Intensive Technologies’, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme. Read more : https : / / harness-network.eu / jobs.html. As a student, you would be enrolled in the AI Accountability Lab and the ADAPT Centre in the School of Computer Science & Statistics in Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)

Research objectives : The Doctoral Candidate will first create a taxonomy for each of the Data and AI regulations (accepted and proposed) in terms of actors, rights, and compliance obligations; and utilize these to harmonize and align concepts to provide a unified taxonomy of European Data and AI regulatory spaces. This work will be done together with legal scholars. Secondly, the DC will formalize developed taxonomies as legal ontologies that will enable representing use-cases and requirements as knowledge graphs and aid development of methods and tools (DC3, DC4, DC5). The development and formalization of research will utilize existing best practices and guidelines for knowledge engineering and publication, with the intention of contributing to standardization efforts at international venues (ISO, W3C, EU ISA2). Finally, the developed taxonomies will be used in real-world use-cases to perform legal and data governance through Solid Pods (secondment at UGent, SIGNATU), in an implementation meant to reach TRL3 and in cooperation with DC3 and DC4. Further use of developed taxonomies will be undertaken to express and assess legality of language models as a specific use- case related to both AI and Data (DC6) and their ethical and societal dimensions will be made in cooperation with DC6.

Expected Results : (i) Individual and harmonised taxonomies representing actors, rights, and obligations for each of and across Data and AI regulations; (ii) Formal publication of develop knowledge using best practice and contribution to standardisation efforts; and (iii) Guidelines on assisting actors and use-cases to utilise and benefit from developed work through secondments (e.g. Solid Pods) and practical applications (e.g. AI language models).

Planned secondment(s) : Ghent University (3 months to apply developed research to Solid), SIGNATU (up to 6 months to apply and refine research in an industrial setting), and potentially at the Joint Research Centre (3 months to work on regulatory and policy priorities).

Requirements

Skills and Qualifications :

Applicants must normally have an excellent primary degree, and / or professional qualification, in a relevant discipline, from a reputable institution. In addition, PhD applicants should normally have an excellent Masters degree from a reputable institution. Must meet TCD University requirements at : https : / / www.tcd.ie / study / apply / admissionrequirements / postgraduate

Specific Requirements :

In addition HARNESS PhD students must demonstrate :

An enthusiasm for working on multidisciplinary research problems, including research collaboration and publication across disciplinary boundaries.

Awareness and a keen interest on working with regulations and policies such as GDPR, AI Act, and others, as well as an understanding of their application to technologies (required)

Knowledge of information modelling or semantic web (preferred)

Knowledge of rights and harms from a multi-disciplinary perspective (ideal)

Required Languages : Doctoral studies in TCD require ‘Band C (Higher entry)’ as detailed at :

https : / / www.tcd.ie / study / english-language-requirements /

Additional Info

Eligibility Criteria :

• All researchers recruited must be Doctoral Candidates.
• Must not have a doctoral degree at the date of their recruitment
• Can be of any nationality
• Should be enrolled in a doctoral programme during the project
• Should comply with the mobility rules : in general, they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting organisation for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date. Compulsory national service, short stays such as holidays, and time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention are not taken into account.
• Researchers are required to undertake physical, transnational mobility (i.e. move from one country to another) when taking up their appointment.

Selection Process :

Apply via the provided link, including the following :

HARNESS pursues a policy of equal opportunities on matters of gender and disability and will seek to recruit an equal proportion of male and female applicants and will provide employment opportunities for candidates with disabilities. Employment procedures and contracts will conform to the European Charter for Researchers / Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers.

Additional Comments :

For informal enquires on this role contact Harshvardhan Pandit at harshvardhan.pandit@adaptcentre.ie . More details about the HARNESS project and other roles available can be found at https : / / harness-network.eu / jobs.html