PhD in Sovereign Norm-Compliant Cloud Services for the Digital Government

at  Universiteit van Amsterdam

PhD in Sovereign Norm-Compliant Cloud Services for the Digital Government
Faculteit/Dienst: Faculteit der Natuurw., Wiskunde & Informatica
Opleidingsniveau: Master
Functie type: Promotieplaats
Sluitingsdatum: 31 juli 2024
Vacaturenummer: 13110
Do you enjoy working in an interdisciplinary research setting working on cutting edge technologies and do you want to expand your knowledge on state-of-the-art AI, Normative Systems and data-sharing and data-processing infrastructures? The Informatics Institute is looking for an ambitious PhD candidate to work on Sovereign Norm-Compliant Cloud Services for the Digital Government. Your research is part of the Complex Cyber Infrastructures (CCI) research group.

YOUR EXPERIENCE AND PROFILE:

• a master degree in Informatics with a strong affinity with Artificial Intelligence and Social Sciences (Sociology, Economics, Political 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 generative AI;
• 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:

• software engineering skills

• 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.

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 Faculty of Science (FNWI) has a student body of around 8,000, as well as 1,800 members of staff working in education, research or support services. Researchers and students at the Faculty of Science are fascinated by every aspect of how the world works, be it elementary particles, the birth of the universe or the functioning of the brain.
The mission of the Informatics Institute (IvI) is to perform curiosity-driven and use-inspired fundamental research in Computer Science. The main research themes are Artificial Intelligence, Computational Science and Systems and Network Engineering. Our research involves complex information systems at large, with a focus on collaborative, data driven, computational and intelligent systems, all with a strong interactive component.
More information about the Complex Cyber Infrastructure (CCI) that is focused on the complexity of man-made systems on all scales, can be found here.

Research Objectives: The primary objective of this research is to explore the generation of digital sovereign and norm-compliant cloud services that enable accountability in the context of a digital government, both from a technical and from a socio-technical perspectives. The specific objectives are to:

• investigate the concept of digital sovereignty in the context of a digital government and to identify the factors that enable or hinder the achievement of digital sovereignty. This includes design enabling the exploitation and adaptation of such digital infrastructures;
• by means of experiments, explore the potential of generative AI in generating digital infrastructure that is normatively compliant, scalable, and cost-effective;
• identify the technical and organizational factors that contribute to accountability in cloud service provisioning and management;
• develop a computational framework for ensuring accountability in the context of a digital government