Endowed Professor 'Data Science and AI in the domain of Organized & Subversive Crime'

The Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS) is looking to fill a part-time, endowed professor position (sponsored chair) in the emerging discipline of better understanding, predicting and preventing organized and subversive crime by exploiting data science and AI. JADS is a collaboration between Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and Tilburg University (TiU) in the domain of Data Science and AI, with a vibrant campus in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (JADS/db). JADS/db focuses on data entrepreneurial education, research and impact, revolving around various themes, one of them being “Crime & Safety”. Exploiting data science and AI to combat organized and subversive crime is a newly emerging and very promising scientific discipline with high societal application potential. This chair is formally established at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital sciences, which houses several technical research groups focusing on the use of data science and AI for safety and security purposes. The activities of the chair will mainly be conducted from the JADS campus in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Description Chair
Organized and Subversive Crime
The impact of organized crime, especially that of subversive crime, in the southern part of the Netherlands has rapidly expanded into huge proportions over the past years, causing major  socio-economic-political disruptions for citizens, companies, governmental organizations, and society at large. Over the past years it has increased its sphere of control, perpetuating a vicious and inseparable cycle between illegal activities, the reinvestment of capital in the legal economy, and criminal-force training, both human and virtual. This makes revealing, fighting, and preventing organized crime an increasingly demanding and challenging endeavor. Since their inception, law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) have exploited any type of conventional data to unfold criminal networks, uncover criminal patterns, and predict crimes. However, by having easy and unprecedented levels of access to more (personal) digital data than ever before, big data technologies and AI techniques help to accumulate and cross-correlate open and closed data in order to (1) increase understanding, (2) predict and (3) prevent criminal phenomena and the involved human profiles.

Center for Organized and Subversive Crime
The Center for Organized and Subversive Crime initiates, conducts and promotes research on the discourse of organized and subversive crime enhancing understanding, and leveraging detection and predictability, whilst sharing knowledge and serving as a national think-tank for stakeholders involved, including, but not restricted to, municipalities, provinces, safety regions, law enforcement agencies and private partners (e.g., domestic security service companies). The center is organized as a national thinktank operating as an open and networked organization with a small kernel around which all research, education and dissemination activities will revolve. To foster independent and successful operations, since 2020 the center has been sponsored by several founding partners, notably, the province of North-Brabant, the municipality of Tilburg, the Taskforce Brabant-Zeeland and the National Booster Team Undermining. As such it is located amidst of the middle of North-Brabant; a region that constitutes the epicenter of subversive crime in areas such as synthetic drugs, with intrinsic and long-lasting links at the national and international level.

Activities
The overarching research challenge of the chair is: 
‘How can we exploit the full potential of data science in conjunction with AI to reinforce and expand our knowledge about organized and subversive criminal phenomena, with the aims of better understanding and predicting criminal activities and to make policy making more pro-active and efficacious, and ready for 21st century crime tracing and trial’.

Given the above, the candidate will operationally lead the Center of Organized and Subversive Crime, attract and (co) supervise (PhD) students and postdocs, and, further shape and guide the implementation of its research-, education and impact agenda. 

The candidate will perform high quality research aiming at publishable and relevant output, aiming at top publications in journals, proceedings and books of international allure with a large national impact not only at the level of research, but also, and at least equally importantly, at the level of society at large. The activities of the chair will be relevant to, among other things, the practice of subversive crime in the Netherlands in general and the Province of North Brabant in particular. Next to performing research and outreach, the candidate will also be active in education in the field of the chair.

Furthermore, the candidate will:

• lead and further develop the Centre of Organized and Subversive Crime that promotes and leverages data science and AI for better crime fighting; 
• deliver scientific publications, popular volumes, white papers, and policy reports to influence and impact policy makers, law-enforcement agencies and society at large;
• lecture in teaching undergraduate and/or graduate students;
• initiate, perform and coordinate (interdisciplinary) projects at the cross-section of subversive crime and data science and AI;
• supervise Ph.D., PDEng, M.Sc. in their projects, possibly in the context of the running and new (applied) national and/or international research projects;
• develop demonstrators and impact with the potential to be further consolidated and exploited by social intrapreneurs, law-enforcement agencies, policy makers and other stakeholders;
• assume a leading role in acquiring external NWO and governmental research funding within this research scope;
• be active in venues where collaboration is formed and enhanced (e.g., organizing workshops and events at JADS/db and at the international level- e.g., at conferences);
• participate in management committees of JADS

• Ph.D. in relevant scientific area of the chair;
• Knowledge of machine learning, data mining, deep learning and AI;
• Knowledge of or strong affinity with the organized and subversive crime domain;
• A clear vision, as evidenced by publications, of the possibilities and importance of the application of data science and AI in the organized and subversive crime domain;
• Demonstrable track record in research visibility demonstrated in a publication list of high quality and quantity;
• Experienced in management of scientific departments, units, and/or projects;
• Conducts scientific work according to the principles of Open Science and encourages others to do the same;
• Rich (inter-)national and regional network in both academia and industry;
• Proven track record of research funds acquisition and research collaboration;
• Didactic qualities and experience in teaching and information transfer;
• A strong capacity for critical self-reflection;
• Excellent command of Dutch and English, both spoken and written.

What we offer
The candidate will be appointed as an endowed professor at Tilburg University at 0.2 FTE for an appointment period of approximately 3 years. The candidate will preferably start between October 1, 2024 and January 1, 2025. The appointment term will be until December 31, 2028. 

Tilburg University offers excellent employment conditions with attention to flexibility and (personal) development. We make clear agreements about career paths and offer all kinds of facilities and arrangements to maintain an optimal balance between work and private life. The university actively pursues a policy for inclusive and interdisciplinary teams in which diverse talents are recognized and valued. The regulations and employment conditions of Tilburg University apply to remuneration and other employment conditions, in accordance with the university job classification as Professor 2.

The gross salary varies between €6,648 and €9,680 per month (full-time) based on Professor scale 2 of the Collective Labor Agreement for Dutch Universities. University employees are entitled to a holiday allowance of 8%, an end-of-year bonus of 8.3% of the gross annual income, and 41 days of holiday per year (based on full-time employment). We reimburse the full costs for sustainable commuting: walking, cycling, public transport or transport with a fully electric car.

Research and education at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences (TSHD) has a unique focus on humans in the context of the globalizing digital society, on the development of artificial intelligence and interactive technologies, on their impact on communication, culture and society, and on moral and existential challenges that arise. The School of Humanities and Digital Sciences consists of four departments: Communication and Cognition, Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Culture Studies and Philosophy; several research institutes and a faculty office. Also the University College Tilburg is part of the School. Each year around 275 students commence a Bachelor or (Pre) Master Program. The School has approximately 2000 students and 250 employees.
Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences

Jheronimus Academy of Data Science
We do cool stuff that matters, with data. The Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS) is the joint Data Science Academy of Tilburg University and Eindhoven university of technology. JADS Mariënburg is located in Den Bosch and currently has 40 FTE scientific faculty and support staff, 35 EngD and 40 PhD students and has been growing substantially in its research portfolio. As a young institution we are looking for excellent researchers with a can-do mentality who are team players and are willing to connect to other fields. 

Applications are expected no later than May 26, 2024, online only, via the link: https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/about/working.

The selection interviews will be held in June, 2024.