PhD in Social support for the real-world introduction of AI in critical infrastructure (ILUSTRE)

Short Description 
The social impact of technology on its users has been vastly proved to be enormous since it might pose organizational and social obstacles. Acceptance of new technologies, especially in the energy field, has been recognized as one of the primary barriers to implementing technological innovations. In the context of the ILUSTRE project, we will investigate the impact of IT technology on the energy and water supply domains. The project will focus on two main aspects: 1) the impact on the partner industries’ managers and employees; 2) the impact on the broader society – since AI technology will affect the quality and the features of the services provided to the population. We model these social processes through social networks and predict possible social outcomes of interventions in the networks employing statistics, system dynamics modelling and ABMs.

Job Description
In this position, you will be collecting data using group model building (GMB) and survey methodology. Then you will employ social network analysis (SNA) to monitor the extent to which the employees and the larger public (together called the stakeholders) receive and respond to the implementation. These techniques will be used in conjunction with system dynamics and agent-based simulation models.

ILUSTRE project
This position is linked to ILUSTRE, a new Innovation Center for Artificial Intelligence (ICAI) to be established in Curaçao. ILUSTRE will be a living lab in the Caribbean with the objective to develop, implement and test AI innovations that will accelerate the use of clean energy and advanced solutions in water treatment and wastewater recycling/purification. The innovation lab is one of the new ICAI labs that are part of the ROBUST program on Trustworthy AI-based Systems for Sustainable Growth which is financed under the NWO LTP funding scheme. ILUSTRE offers opportunities for PhD candidates who wish to support to the acceleration of the energy transition and who have an affinity with the Dutch Caribbean islands.

Job Requirements

• A master’s degree in Computational Social Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Data Science, Sociology, Political Science, Organizational Studies with a strong quantitative background, or related disciplines.
• Provable affinity with the Caribbean region
• Preparedness to perform a significant part of the research in the Caribbean region
• Preferably experience with Social Network Analysis, Data collection techniques, System Dynamics Modelling, Agent Based Modelling.
• Strong programming skills, preferably in R.
• A research-oriented attitude and interest in collaborating with the industrial partners
• Experience in dealing with stakeholders.
• Fluent in spoken and written English (C1 level).

Job description

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Information and application

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