PhD Position in Explainable AI for High-Stake Decision Making

Join our research team as PhD candidate on the DECIDE project, which tackles one of the most urgent challenges in artificial intelligence: ensuring that AI systems are transparent, interpretable and aligned with human needs and values. You will focus on developing, testing and reviewing a methodology to make AI systems transparent and explainable. The goal is to empower citizens and professional decision-makers to make better informed decisions using AI.

Your job
AI is increasingly used in domains where decisions carry profound consequences for human lives. By focusing on transparency and explainability, this PhD project gives you the opportunity to shape how humans and AI interact in high-stakes contexts. You will help define how AI can support—not replace—human judgment, ensuring that technology empowers rather than undermines trust and autonomy.

You will be part of the DECIDE project: a large-scale, NWO-funded research initiative under the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). It brings together 10 Dutch universities, over 50 academic researchers, and 30 societal partners to co-develop a new generation of transparent, citizen-empowering AI systems. The project spans domains such as healthcare, mobility, education, law, ethics, and public governance.

This position is a collaboration between Utrecht University and the University of Twente. You will also have the opportunity for a secondment at “The Hyve”, a company enabling Open Science. You will be based in Utrecht, working in the AI Technology for Life group. Additionally, you will collaborate closely with researchers at the Utrecht UMC on oncology, radiology and/or psychiatry use cases, involving studies and settings where high-stake decisions are made.

As a PhD candidate, you will be part of a vibrant inter- and transdisciplinary research community, collaborating across disciplines and with societal stakeholders to achieve real-world impact. You will also participate in joint training programmes on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methods, citizen engagement, and ethical AI.

In this project, you will:

1. Review existing Explainable and Transparent AI frameworks and methodology.
2. Develop a framework that takes the needs of all stakeholders into account when high-stake decisions are made. Four different scenarios are used throughout the consortium, to help you develop this.
3. Implement and test such a framework, in a clinical setting.
4. Help teach explainable AI to bachelor’s students and master's students and/or decision makers. For example, by developing workshops and training materials.

We are looking for a collaborative and aspirational new group member who meets the following criteria:

• A Master’s degree in AI, Computing Science, Data Science or a related discipline.
• Strong communication and organizational skills.
• Experience with using machine learning packages (e.g.PyTorch).
• Completed academic courses in AI or machine learning.
• Interest in societal, ethical and philosophical questions.

We consider it an advantage if you bring one or more of the following:

• Experience with Explainable AI.
• Experience with Deep Learning.
• An interdisciplinary background / interdisciplinary training.
• Have followed courses in Psychology or Philosophy.
• Understand spoken and written Dutch (as you may need to analyse decisions that involve Dutch stakeholders).

• a position for 18 months, with an extension to a total of four years upon successful assessment in the first 18 months;
• a gross monthly salary between € 3.059 and €3.881 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University also offers a range of its own schemes for employees. This includes arrangements for professional development, various types of leave, and options for sports and cultural activities. You can also tailor your employment conditions through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage you to keep investing in your personal and professional development. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

Working at the Faculty of Science means bringing together inspiring people across disciplines and with a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. The Faculty has six departments: Biology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Information & Computing Sciences, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Together, we work on excellent research and inspiring education. We do so, driven by curiosity and supported by outstanding infrastructure. Visit us on LinkedIn and discover how you can become part of our community.

The Department of Information and Computing Sciences is nationally and internationally known for its research in computer science and information science. The Department provides and contributes to the undergraduate programs in Computer Science, Information Science, and Artificial Intelligence and a number of research Master's programmes in these fields. It employs over 200 people in four divisions: Interaction, Algorithms, Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, and Software Systems. The atmosphere is collegial and informal.

In the AI Technology for Life group, we focus on explainable AI. We work with many different types of data in the health and life science, from genomic data, to radiology images to clinical data. The group includes four PI’s , and about 15 researchers in total.

Twente University:
The Philosophy section, within the Technology, Policy, and Science (TPS) Department is strongly committed to interdisciplinary work and has close ties to many other University of Twente programmes and research fields, both in social science and engineering. Three research strands in Philosophy are covered by the section: ethics of technology (chair: prof. dr. Philip Brey), philosophy of human-technology relations (chair: prof. dr. Ciano Aydin) and philosophy of science in practice (chair: prof. dr. Mieke Boon).

The Hyve:
The Hyve is one of Europe’s leading technology IT services providers who have established an international reputation within the biomedical informatics domain. The Hyve helps life science organisations align their data infrastructure and research needs, including global pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and research institutions. They are a young, fast-growing company employing an international and multidisciplinary team of data and IT specialists who share the same mission: to enable open science.

For more information, please contact Prof. dr. S. (Sanne) Abeln at s.abeln@uu.nl.

Do you have a question about the application procedure? Please send an email to science.recruitment@uu.nl.