The Informatics Institute at the Faculty of Science (FNWI), and the University Research Priority Area on Trust in the Digital Society (TRUST RPA) is looking for a postdoctoral researcher to study trust towards technology, i.e. the conditions and limits, safeguards, legal, technological, economic conditions of trusted and trustworthy technology. The TRUST RPA is a five year long interdisciplinary research initiative to study how we trust is changing due to the emergence of new trust production technologies, and the disruption of existing trust relations.
The digital society relies on an ever-expanding network of digital infrastructures. While researchers have been working on various (computational) trust models, the relationships with interpersonal, social and economic trust perspectives is still underexplored. Despite their widespread use, we know little about the trustworthiness of our digital infrastructures. At best it is difficult to establish their trustworthiness (such as with AI), at worst they are proven to be untrustworthy (as is the case with social media). Some of these digital infrastructures play key roles in interpersonal and societal trust dynamics. They disrupt existing trust relations and offer new ways to trust each other. Our scientific methods and theories face serious limits when it comes to the study of change of social structures, institutions, and processes under the conditions of rapid technological transformation. Research on trust in technology and trust by technology is siloed, and focuses on narrowly defined technologies (AI), or problems (system security), and lacks a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, long-term-view.
The Postdoctoral researcher will be hired by the Faculty of Science, Informatics Institute of the UvA, and will be sharing their time between the Faculty of Science, and the Faculty of Law, closely collaborating with two other postdoctoral researchers in the Trust RPA. The team will be supervised by the principal investigators of the TRUST RPA: Balázs Bodó, Associate Professor at the Institute of Information Law (IViR) at the Faculty of Law, Jan B. Engelmann, Professor of Neuroeconomics at the Amsterdam School of Economics, Theo Araujo, Associate Professor Communication in the Digital Society at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), Tom van Engers, Professor in Legal Knowledge Management at the University of Amsterdam, and Marc Tuters, Assistant Professor in the New Media and Digital Culture Division of Media Studies at the Faculty of Humanities.
What are you going to do?
You will be using research methods from engineering as well as empirical research to study the trustworthiness safeguards and guarantees of various digital technology infrastructures, especially how engineering understandings and safeguards of trustworthiness can/need to be complemented by legal, economic, institutional approaches. In addition, the research will study how various new trustworthy and untrustworthy technological trust infrastructures establish new forms of trust relations in society, and, in the process, disrupt and/or enhance existing societal (impersonal, institutional) trust relations.
Tasks and responsibilities
The successful candidate will:
- conduct research using and combining various research methods (engineering, and empirical research methods) on emerging digital technologies, such as digital infrastructures and platforms, web3 technologies, Machine Learning, and AI-based automated systems;
- contribute to the development and analysis of trust frameworks that can bridge between the other multi-disciplinary researchers working in the Trust RPA project;
- conduct work on the technical basis for the emerging European technology regulation framework (Digital Services Act, AI Act, Digital Markets Act);
- organize events, conferences;
- participate in grant proposal development, international network building;
- acquire funding.
What do you have to offer?
Your experience and profile
The successful candidate has:
- a PhD degree in Informatics, Artificial Intelligence and has affinity with social sciences (sociology, economics, political science, communication science or related fields);
- strong engineering and empirical research skills;
- familiarity with quantitative and qualitative research methods;
- good knowledge of current developments in information technology including XAI;
- academic excellence, as shown in the grade transcripts and curriculum vitae;
- a creative mind and analytical intelligence;
- an interest in working in a multidisciplinary team;
- willingness to learn new knowledge, and acquire new skills required by the project;
- excellent written and spoken command of English, and ideally knowledge of Dutch;
- interest in working on interdisciplinary topics, in interdisciplinary teams.
Candidates, who have:
- quantitative skills, including survey development, statistical analysis; and/or
- familiarity with R, python or any other programming language; and/or
- (big) data collection and analysis skills; and/or
- previous experience in the private or public sector;
will be given extra consideration in the application process.
We strongly encourage members of broadly understood minority socio-cultural groups to apply. We believe that there are several traditionally underrepresented, but incredibly forceful perspectives, that have transformed our respective disciplines. Recent scholarship by persons of colour, feminist, intersectionalist scholars, scholars from the Global South have highlighted fundamental issues with the design, operation, and impact of techno-social systems that remained in the blind spots of mainstream scholarship. Without such contributions, serious problems, such as racial bias in AI systems, would have gone unnoticed and left unaddressed by more careful technical design and better regulation.
Our offer
We offer a temporary employment contract for 30,4 hours (0.8 FTE) per week for a period of 12 months. The preferred starting date is as soon possible. If we assess your performance positive, your contract will be extended with 12 months.
The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant workexperience, ranges between € 2,960 to € 4,670 (scale 10). UvA additionally offers an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UFO profile Researcher 4 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 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;
- 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.
What else do we offer:
- The possibility to start up and grow a New Research priority Area at the UvA;
- Close working relations with five faculties of the UvA; and with TU Delft, and Erasmus University, Rotterdam;
- Freedom to develop your own research agenda;
- Welcoming, international, dynamic teams;
- An inspiring academic and professional environment in the heart of Amsterdam;
- Excellent possibilities for further professional development and education.
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 Informatics Institute (IvI) of the Faculty of Science (FNWI) performs curiosity-driven and use-inspired fundamental research in informatics, We train talent by high-quality academic education in diverse areas of informatics. Our research involves complex information systems focusing on collaborative, data driven, computational and intelligent systems in four research themes: Artificial Intelligence, Computational Science, Data Science, and Systems and Networking.
The Institute for Information Law (IViR), officially established in 1989, is one of the largest research centres in the field of information law in the world. The Institute employs over 35 researchers who are active in an entire spectrum of information society related legal areas: intellectual property law, patents, telecommunications and broadcasting regulation, media law, Internet regulation, advertising law, domain names, freedom of expression, privacy, digital consumer issues, commercial speech, AI, blockchain, et cetera. The Institute engages in cutting-edge research into fundamental and topical aspects of information law, and provides a forum for critical debate about the social, cultural and political aspects of regulating information markets.
Prof. dr. Tom M. van Engers, has a background in AI and works on normative systems and normative reasoning, both at the faculty of Law as well as within the faculty of Sciences at the IvI. Van Engers is full professor in Legal Knowledge Management and managing director of the Leibniz Institute, founded by the University of Amsterdam and TNO. He has been involved as strategic advisor in several governmental change programmes, including INDiGO, with the Dutch Immigration Service (IND) [2007-2015]. He has coordinated several international research projects such as E-POWER, Trias Telematica, Estrella and SEAL. He is PC member of international conferences such as ICAIL and DEXA/E-Government, former chair of the EU-Forum working group on Change Management and Cross-Institutional Issues, President of the JURIX Foundation, member of the E-Government working group of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), board member of Juriconnect, chair of CEN/ISSS Metalex workshop on standards for legal sources. His research is focused on normative systems, normative reasoning and normative control, the latter being essential to trust in socio-technical systems.
Dr. Balázs Bodó (Associate professor, Institute for Information Law (IViR, FdR) is a social scientist trained in economics and media studies. He has been a Fulbright fellow at Stanford Law School (2006/7) and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (2012/13). He is currently leading the Blockchain and Society Policy Research Lab, an ERC Starting Grant-funded research group focusing on the legal and policy issues around decentralised techno-social infrastructures. Dr. Bodó regularly conducts big data-based qualitative studies, and is among the few socio-legal researchers at FdR who publish data sets and software code he develops in his empirical research.
Please read more about the Trust Research Priority Area here.
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:
- E: Dr. Balázs Bodó.
Job application
If you feel the profile fits you, and you are interested in the job, we look forward to receiving your application. You can apply online via the button below. We accept applications until and including 19 May 2023.
Applications should include the following information (all files apart from your CV should be submitted in one single pdf file):
- A curriculum vitae including the months (not just years) when referring to your education and work experience;
- A letter of motivation;
- An academic writing sample in English (e.g., published book, journal article, PhD dissertation);
- A Draft research plan (2 pages maximum) on the topic of the call, including possible research questions, relevant literature, methods;
- The names, affiliations, and email addresses of two academic referees who can provide details about your academic profile in relation to this position (please do not include any reference letters in your application).
Please make sure to provide ALL requested documents mentioned above.
You can use the CV field to upload your resume as a separate pdf document. Use the Cover Letter field to upload the other requested documents, including the motivation letter, as one single pdf file.
Only complete applications received within the response period via the link below will be considered. Please don’t send any applications by email.
We will invite potential candidates for interviews within four weeks after the closing date.
The UvA is an equal-opportunity employer. We prioritize diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for everyone. We value a spirit of enquiry and perseverance, provide the space to keep asking questions, and promote a culture of curiosity and creativity.
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