Pristupačnost
The University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER; www.fer.unizg.hr/en) is looking for three (3) highly talented PhD students / first stage researchers (equivalent to R1 ERA researchers) in Artificial Intelligence for Robotics for the newly established AI for Robotics Research Group (AIFORS Research Group), in the framework of the H2020 EU funded project AIFORS - ERA Chair in Artificial Intelligence for Robotics (http://aifors.fer.hr). The AIFORS project has received 2.5 million EUR funding from the EU Horizon 2020 ERA Chair programme, H2020-WIDESPREAD-2018-2020 Call (please see here for more information about the Call).
Job description:
The AIFORS Research Group will be part of the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems and Mobile Robotics (LAMOR; http://lamor.fer.hr) at UNIZG-FER. It is a new ambitious research group established to conduct world-class research in robot learning, reasoning, and optimization and planning for addressing highly dynamic, complex environments to achieve a further quantum leap in what intelligent robots can do.
The research focus of the AIFORS Research Group will be on Intelligent Soft Robotics, the frontier of Physical AI. Despite the dramatic progress in AI, and in particular Machine Learning and Deep Learning, the application of the new methods to physical systems still poses significant research challenges as robots continually interact with their environment, humans, and other robots. Moreover, they work in real-time on rich time series, provide data sets that are small in comparison to big data, and the physical dynamics of robot bodies play a decisive role in the shaping of intelligent robot behaviors, which is most evident in soft robots and robots with hard and soft parts. Our aim will be to advance the science and technology of intelligent soft robots enabling new disruptive applications. We will chase reproducible and objectively measurable research results.
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Required candidate’s qualifications and experience:
- Master degree (or close to finishing) in computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics and automation, control engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, mechanical engineering, data science, mathematics, physics or closely related domains.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.
- Capability to work autonomously, entrepreneurial attitude, lifetime learner
- Bold and creative research attitude, team worker.
Desired candidate’s qualifications, experience and skills:
- Control Theory, in particular Stochastic Control
- Information Theory, in particular models of embodiment
- Mechanics of continuous bodies and Design
- Applied and Theoretical Mathematics, in particular computation, complex systems and geometry of manifolds
- Python, C++, Linux
- Gazebo, Blender, Mujoco, ROS, and/or similar
- Dockers, Containerization methods, Jupyter, Anaconda, Conda and/or similar
- Scikit, Tensorflow, PyTorch, Keras and/or similar
- OpenCV and/or similar
- Kaggle and/or similar
Our offer to the ERA AIFORS Fellows:
The selected candidate will be offered the following:
- A full-time employment contract for the duration of up to the project end (December 31, 2026).
- An internationally competitive salary commensurate with qualifications and experience, an attractive remuneration package, pension scheme, health insurance, and a minimum of 24 working days of an annual vacation.
- Substantial travel budget for conference attendance and networking.
- Support for relocation and settling in the City of Zagreb.
Application process:
Applicants are invited to submit the following documents:
- A signed cover letter.
- Motivation letter (max 1 page).
- Curriculum Vitae.
- Contact details of 2 referees who can be contacted for an opinion on the candidate.
- Any additional information the candidate finds useful for the evaluation process.
All the above documents in the electronic form compiled to a single file should be sent to aifors@fer.hr mentioning “AIFORS – PhD Student” in the subject until June 3, 2022 (11:59 PM Central European Time). The candidate will get a confirmation email of the application submission and feedback on the outcome of the evaluation or the result of the eligibility check. All applications submitted until the deadline will be considered for evaluation and treated in full confidentiality. The application language is English.
Recruitment process:
The PhD Students will be recruited through an open, transparent and merit-based selection process fully in compliance with the European Charter for Researchers and the EU Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The process will be carried out by the Recruitment Panel of the ERA Chair holder, the AIFORS project coordinator and an additional professor from UNIZG-FER. Selection of the best applicants will be accomplished in two rounds.
In the first round, the selection process will be based on the assessment if each applicant’s profile fit with the job description through a set of measurable screening criteria. The application documents screening will aim at ranking applicants according to a composite index with the following two weighted components: scientific excellence and leadership experience. All applicants will be provided with the screening results of their application documents.
In the second round, up to five best ranked applicants will be invited for a face-to-face or remote interview (in case they cannot come to Croatia) to assess their research, technical, presentation, project management, interpersonal and self-management skills. Each applicant’s interview will receive a total assessment score out of 100 by summing all the items of the scoreboard and calculating the average over all the Recruitment Panel members’ scores. All interviewed applicants will be provided with their assessment and a contract will be offered to the candidates with the highest final score.
Recruitment process timeline:
• Deadline for applications: June 3, 2022
• The results of the applications screening sent to applicants: June 20, 2022
• Interviews with the shortlisted applicants: June 27 ‒ July 8, 2022
• Notification on selection sent to the chosen applicants: July 12, 2022
• The expected start date of the employment: September 1, 2022 (negotiable)
Eligibility criteria:
Any candidate fulfilling these Job Announcement requirements is eligible for application, regardless of gender, age, nationality, race or ethnicity.
Work location:
University of Zagreb
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER)
Department of Control and Computer Engineering
Laboratory for Autonomous Systems and Mobile Robotics (LAMOR)
Unska 3, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Further information:
For any further information or request, please do not hesitate to contact us at aifors@fer.hr with the email subject “AIFORS – YOUR LAST NAME”.
Note:
Please include in your cover letter the following statement:
„I agree to the processing of personal data provided in this document for realizing the recruitment process pursuant to the Personal Data Protection Act of 10 May 2018 (Journal of Laws 2018, item 1000 and in agreement with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).”
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