Are you interested in interdisciplinary research and would you like to work in an interdisciplinary research institute?  The ILLC is looking for an excellent PhD candidate who is interested in conducting research in an area within the ILLC that fits naturally in the Faculty of Science.

What are you going to do

You are expected:

• to complete and defend a PhD thesis within the official appointment duration of four years;
• to give regular presentations of intermediate research results at international workshops and conferences, and publish them in proceedings and journals;
• to collaborate with researchers in other relevant sections of ILLC;
• to participate in the organization of research activities and events at ILLC, such as conferences, workshops and joint publications.

Furthermore, all PhD candidates at ILLC are expected to make a small contribution to the institute’s educational mission, e.g. by working as teaching assistants for courses in their area of expertise, and by assisting with the supervision of student research projects.

What do we require

• A Master’s degree with excellent grades in a relevant field, such as logic, computer science, mathematics, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, musicology or cognitive science; you must have obtained your degree by the starting date of the position;
• good academic writing and presentation skills;
• good social and organizational skills;
• a strong interest in a scientific career;
• fluency in English both written and spoken.

Fixed-term contract: 18 months.

Our offer

A temporary contract for 38 hours per week for the duration of four years (the initial contract will be for a period of 18 months and after satisfactory evaluation it will be extended for a total duration of four years). This should lead to a dissertation (PhD thesis). We will draft an educational plan that includes attendance of courses and (international) meetings. We also expect you to assist in teaching undergraduates and Master students.  Preferred starting date 1 September 2021, and no later than 1 November 2021.

Are you curious about our extensive package of secondary employment benefits like our excellent opportunities for study and development? Take a look here.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

Faculty of Science – Institute for Logic, Language and Computation

The Faculty of Science has a student body of around 7,000, as well as 1,600 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 Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) is a research institute at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in which researchers from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Humanities collaborate. Its central research area is the study of fundamental principles of encoding, transmission and comprehension of information. Research at ILLC is interdisciplinary, and aims at bringing together insights from various disciplines concerned with information and information processing, such as logic, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, natural language processing, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, music cognition, and philosophy.