PhD Position: Putting Explainable AI to Work to Support Cultural Heritage

1. Introduction

Are you curious about what happens behind the scenes at large libraries? Do you want to explore how advancements in AI can support librarians and ensure these innovations make a meaningful societal impact? If so, we invite you to apply for this PhD position.

2. Job description

Metadata is data about data. It plays a key role in allowing people to access and use the information in libraries and archive catalogues. Despite recent technical advances of AI for interpreting text and images, the generation of metadata for large collections of historical books, images, and texts remains an unsolved problem. In this project, we work together with the KB National Library of the Netherlands in order to put explainable AI to use in libraries. For example, the KB National Library is seeking ways to enrich metadata for illustrations contained in important portions of its historical book collection and the library is also in need of technology that can establish new links between books in their million-scale collection that explain how the books are related. 

In this multidisciplinary PhD project supervised by Dr Iris Hendrickx and Prof. Martha Larson, you will combine insights from explainable AI, data science, information retrieval, natural language processing and library science to address the practical challenges faced by large libraries. The project is part of the larger HAICu project, a Netherlands-wide initiative on AI and cultural heritage. You will carry out your research in collaboration with the KB National Library of the Netherlands, and you will have the opportunity to work with experts on the library premises in The Hague. There are many directions in which your research can contribute to the library and the direction of research will be determined in collaboration with experts from the library. The library will also provide rich data sets for use in the research and criteria for evaluating the success of the approaches you develop. You will be expected to conduct high-quality research, proposing creative solutions, working diligently, interacting with peers throughout the Netherlands, and publishing papers at top venues. Your teaching load will be up to 10% of your working time.

3. Profile

• You hold a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Information Science, or a similar discipline.
• You have a background in AI, empirical research, evaluating AI systems, or socio-technical factors.
• You have a demonstrable interest in cultural heritage, library systems, digital humanities, and practice-oriented AI.
• You have solid programming and software engineering skills.
• You have an excellent command of written and spoken English and a reliable command of Dutch.
• You have a healthy dose of creativity and work well in interdisciplinary teams. 

4. We are

As a PhD candidate, you will be affiliated with the Data Science Group at the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS) whose home is the Faculty of Science at Radboud University. The Data Science Group comprises around 50 researchers with expertise in machine learning, information retrieval and other specialisations that are important for working with data. The group is involved with a large number of projects from medical to industrial, including projects that are developing new techniques in machine learning and work with large language models. You will collaborate closely with researchers at the Centre for Language Studies at the Faculty of Arts, who have expertise in the area of cultural heritage data and language technology.

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1,5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).     
• You will receive a starting salary of €2,901 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,707 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus. 
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Support Service. The Dual Career Programme assists your partner via support, tools, and resources to improve their chances of independently finding employment in the Netherlands. Our Family Support Service helps you and your partner feel welcome and at home by providing customised assistance in navigating local facilities, schools, and amenities. Also take a look at our support for international staff page to discover all our services for international employees.
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20. 

6. Practical information and applying

You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to Prof. Martha Larson. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application.

The first interviews will take place on Monday 20 and/or Wednesday 22 January. Any second interview will take place on Monday 27 January. You will preferably start your employment as soon as possible.

We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates.