Geospatial Artificial Intelligence – or GeoAI – is becoming increasingly applied in fields such as urban planning, sustainable land use, disaster risk management, ecosystem monitoring, and understanding and predicting climate change. GeoAI can be a powerful and accessible tool to address environmental and societal problems. Yet applications of GeoAI are often criticised for being complex “black boxes” and augmenting social inequalities. Responsible GeoAI addresses this challenge by integrating principles such as privacy, accountability, safety & security, explainability, inclusivity, human control, and professional responsibility. The latter includes open and reproducible research and methods as well as critical evaluations of technological systems.

Responsible AI is still underrepresented in GeoAI. This vacancy strives to address this gap by integrating Responsible AI practices into geosciences. Research themes may include: helping establish Responsible AI guidelines for GeoAI; developing Responsible AI methods for GeoAI; developing hybrid models that combine AI models and physical models; reflecting when AI is needed and how to efficiently communicate modelled results to end-users. This vacancy will also strive to integrate responsible AI thinking in and for geo-education. The above principles and themes should be used as a guiding framework, though the position is not encouraged to address all of them.

ITC is already working on GeoAI practices for a wide range of applications. All these applications can benefit from integrating Responsible AI practices in their data processing methods. The successful applicant will select the theme(s) of Responsible GeoAI which resonate most with their experience and collaborate closely with colleagues in various departments of the faculty to develop them further.

You will develop a research direction and educational profile aligned with the ambitions of ITC, the University of Twente, and the Dutch Earth and Environmental Sciences sector. You will contribute to our MSc programmes, co-supervise graduate students (MSc and PhD) and work with our E-Learning specialists to develop innovative online educational materials.

You will take ownership of coordination and management tasks as well as take an active approach towards strengthening our national and international network, in particular in the wider Earth and Environmental Sciences domain in the Netherlands.

• A PhD degree in Geographic Information Science, Remote Sensing, Data Science, or a related field
• Passion for education, supervising graduate students, and the ability to develop high-quality education materials; demonstrated experience in these components is an advantage, but not required
• Embrace Open Science and FAIR data principles
• Curiosity about translating your research into practical applications and collaborating with partners
• Curiosity about contributing to the capacity development mission of ITC and willingness to undertake international travel to low- and middle-income countries
• A team-work mentality; you enjoy collaborating to develop high-quality research outputs
• Excellent command of English. Knowledge of, and/or willingness to learn Dutch is an advantage

• An inspiring multidisciplinary, international and academic environment. The university offers a dynamic ecosystem with enthusiastic colleagues in which internationalization is an important part of the strategic agenda
• Position for initially one year (full-time), after which your position can become permanent, subject to a successful evaluation
• Gross monthly salary between € 4,332.- and € 4,786.- (depending on experience and qualifications, job profile Assistant Professor, level 2). This is the maximum start salary with growth opportunities
• A holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3%
• Excellent support for professional and personal development
• A solid pension scheme
• A total of 41 holiday days in case of full-time employment
• Costs for moving to Enschede may be reimbursed

The mission of the department of Earth Observation Science (EOS) is to gain and disseminate scientific knowledge in earth observation. This knowledge is applied in the development of tools to help good governance and wise and sustainable use of natural resources in developing countries and emerging economies.

The department of Earth Observation Science deals with earth observation technology for problem-solving. Problem solving means primarily identification of solutions for large-volume producers of geo-information and identification of solutions for application domains.