PhD position Rathenau Instituut

About
We invite you to apply for a PhD position 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 program Working Democratically Toward Sustainability at the Rathenau Instituut and the Technology, Innovation and Society-group at the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands) with an employment contract for 4 years and a gross salary departing from € 2.901,-- per month up to € 3.707,- per month for a fulltime appointment (=38 hours, scale P of the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities /KNAW).

Basic Information
PhD Topic: Multi-level governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the electricity sector

Supervisors: Rinie van Est, Frank Veraart and Romy Dekker

Introduction:

Are you passionate about the twin – digital and green – transition? Are you eager to contribute to the responsible use and governance of AI in the European electricity sector? We are offering a fully funded four-year PhD position on the multi-level governance of AI in the electricity sector as part of the HARNESS program.

Modernizing the electricity grid to integrate renewable energy sources and manage decentralized energy production and consumption is essential to achieving Europe’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050. AI can help optimize renewable energy integration and improve grid management. However, its use also presents challenges, such as the need for specialized yet scarce expertise, as well as risks related to autonomy, energy consumption, and cybersecurity.

This PhD project will assess the effectiveness of governance arrangements to address related social and ethical issues and explore ways to strengthen the multi-level governance of AI in the European electricity sector, with a particular focus on AI’s role in decentralized energy systems.

Research objectives:

The Doctoral Candidate will investigate how the multi-level governance of the ethical, ecological, legal, and social issues related to the use of AI in the European electricity sector takes place, by looking at how European regulations in the field of AI, data governance and electricity are implemented at national level. This multi-level governance process will be studied in at least two European countries, including the Netherlands.

Expected Results:

The Doctoral Candidate will deliver i) an overview of relevant EU regulations in the field of AI, data governance and electricity and which social and ethical issues they do and do not address, ii) provide insight of how these European regulations are implemented on the national level, by looking at two or three European countries, iii) come up with suggestions to improve the multi-level governance of AI in the European electricity sector.

Planned secondment(s):

University of Twente (3 months in Enschede, to use anticipatory methodologies for ethical analysis), Trinity College Dublin (3 months in Dublin, AI Certification and Risk Management).

What is HARNESS?
HARNESS is an international, interdisciplinary and cross academic-industry training network hosted across Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Italy and Belgium (MSCA Doctoral Network) formed to train a new generation of 13 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) as PhD graduates in the disciplines of law, ethics or computer science with the common goal of researching methods and tools to make Integrated Assessments of risks and impacts for current Data intensive and AI technologies.

HARNESS Doctoral Candidates will receive training to enable them to integrate and apply arguments, analyses and tools from across the fields of artificial intelligence, law and ethics, so that they can excel in research and data science careers within digital services industry and public policy sectors.

The HARNESS Training Network
The DCs will receive a strongly multidisciplinary training programme, bringing together world-class researchers in Artificial Intelligence, Law and Ethics to offer an excellent structured research programme operating at the critical boundaries between these three fields. The research supervision and training for DCs is delivered by a network composed of the following world-class research groups and industry practitioners:

• the Ontology Engineering Group at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Madrid, Spain).
• the School of Law and the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group at Trinity College Dublin (Dublin, Ireland);
• the Institute of Ethics at Dublin City University (Dublin, Ireland)
• the Dept of Philosophy and the 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology in University of Twente (Enschede, Netherlands);
• the Law, Science, Technology & Society at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium);
• the Rathenau Instituut (The Hague, Netherlands), which is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), specialized in parliamentary technology assessment.
• the Legaltech Center at Mykolo Romerio Universitetas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
• the Department of Legal Studies at Università di Bologna (Bolonia, Italiy)
• the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) at Gent Universiteit (Ghent, Belgium)

A further set of industry partners will offer DCs a rich range of relevant industry experience through training secondments.

Postdoctoral researcher MAKEBELIEF - Meertens

Wat ga je doen?

Je werkt als postdoctoraal onderzoeker in een interdisciplinair team van onderzoekers. Jouw onderzoek richt zich op het gebruik van immersieve media om religie en erfgoed in Nederland te ‘imagineeren’. In het bijzonder zal je onderzoeken hoe themaparken en musea proberen invloed uit te oefenen op hoe mensen denken en voelen, en hoe dit door het publiek wordt ervaren, omarmd of betwist. Je voert etnografisch veldwerk uit in Nederland en neemt deel aan gezamenlijke onderzoeksactiviteiten met andere teamleden.

SA Datamanager - DANS

Wat ga je doen?

• Je werkt mee aan het archiveren en beschikbaar stellen van onderzoeksdata.
• Je bent bezig met het verwerken van datasets. Je controleert of alle relevante informatie aanwezig is, herordent bestanden, migreert de bestanden naar voorkeursformaten en publiceert deze in het Data Station van DANS.
• Je onderhoudt het contact met datadeponeerders en datagebruikers.

Junior Linux Beheerder en Applicatietester - DANS

Wat ga je doen?
Als Junior Linux Beheerder en Applicatietester ben je verantwoordelijk voor het onderhouden en beheren van Linux-systemen en het uitvoeren van testen op applicaties. In deze rol zal je tijd worden verdeeld tussen het ondersteunen van de Linux-infrastructuur en het testen van applicaties om de stabiliteit en kwaliteit van de software te waarborgen. Je werkt nauw samen met ervaren beheerders en testers en krijgt de kans om jezelf verder te ontwikkelen in beide vakgebieden en certificaten te behalen (zoals Linux Essentials of LPI-certificering).

Jouw verantwoordelijkheden bestaan uit:

• Linux Beheer:
  
  • Beheren en monitoren van Linux-servers (installaties, updates, configuraties), zowel on-premise als Azure.
  • Incidentmanagement en troubleshooting van serverproblemen.
  • Uitvoeren van basis scripts en automatiseringstaken in bijvoorbeeld Bash of Python.
  • Ondersteuning bieden bij het configureren van nieuwe servers en netwerkomgevingen.
• Applicatietesten:
  
  • Uitvoeren van functionele en regressietests op nieuwe en bestaande applicaties.
  • Documenteren van testcases en resultaten.
  • Identificeren, reproduceren en rapporteren van bugs.
  • Samenwerken met ontwikkelaars om de gevonden issues op te lossen.
  • Het onderhouden en bijwerken van testplannen en -documentatie.

Junior Linux Administrator and Application Tester - DANS

What will you be doing?
As a Junior Linux Administrator and Application Tester, you will be responsible for maintaining and managing Linux systems and performing application testing. In this role, your time will be divided between supporting the Linux infrastructure and testing applications to ensure software stability and quality. You will work closely with experienced administrators and testers and have the opportunity to further develop yourself in both fields and obtain certifications (such as Linux Essentials or LPI certification).

Your responsibilties include:

• Linux Administration:
  
  • Manage and monitor Linux servers (installations, updates, configurations), both on-premise and Azure.
  • Incident management and troubleshooting of server issues.
  • Perform basic scripting and automation tasks, for example in Bash or Python.
  • Provide support in configuring new servers and network environments.
• Application Testing:
  
  • Perform functional and regression testing on new and existing applications.
  • Document test cases and results.
  • Identify, reproduce and report bugs.
  • Working with developers to resolve issues found.
  • Maintain and update test plans and documentation.