postdoctoral researchers – Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Lancaster U: Postdoc on Biases in AI (UK)

Post-doctoral Research Associate, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. Deadline: 20 August 2020.

BIAS is an interdisciplinary research project funded as part of the Canada-UK Artificial Intelligence Initiative (UKRI and multiple Canadian Funding Agencies) to improve scientific understanding of gender and ethnic biases in the increasingly digitalised and AI-driven labour market processes of job advertising, hiring and professional networking; and developing insights into how such biases and attendant inequalities may be mitigated. Through collaboration with academics from the disciplines of Organisational Management, Sociology, Computer Science and Data Science, and with industry partners in the area of AI protocol development, these insights will drive the development of a new Responsible AI Development Protocol. The post is advertised for 24 months. The academic partners in the project are Lancaster University (lead institution), Essex University (UK), and Alberta University (Canada). You should have a PhD in a topic related to information systems management, the development of socio-technical systems, labour relations, and/or human resources management.

U Oxford Postdocs: ‘Emptiness’ Project (UK and Eastern Europe)

2 Postdoctoral Researchers on the ‘Emptiness’ Project, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Deadline: 23 September 2020.

University of Oxford is seeking up to two postdoctoral researchers for the European Research Council project “Emptiness: Living Capitalism and Democracy After (Post)Socialism.” The project will study the emptying cities, towns, and villages in Eastern Europe and Russia through the lens of “emptiness” as a concrete historical formation that has emerged in conditions when socialist modernity is gone and promises of capitalist modernity have failed. More specifically, it will: (1) study the experiences and narratives of emptiness and emptying; (2) examine the politics and governance of emptying and emptiness; and (3) use postsocialist “emptying” and “emptiness” as lenses for analysing global reconfigurations of relations between capital, the state, people, and place at a time when capital flows and statecraft are increasingly concentrated in “global cities,” with the rest of urban and non-urban spaces becoming radically disconnected.

If appointed, you will join a research team led by Dr Dace Dzenovska and hosted by the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society, Oxford. You will be responsible for developing and carrying out your own original project in Ukraine, Belarus, or Russia (other locations in the former socialist world may be considered) within the analytical frame of the project. You will undertake collaborative work with other team members, contribute to the refinement of the analytical frame, develop methodology, participate in cross-field visits, and produce outputs in the form of conference presentations, web material, journal articles, and a chapter for an edited volume. You may have the opportunity to teach in the field and/or in Oxford.

You are expected to spend the first 6 months preparing your research component in collaboration with other team members, based in Oxford at the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society, Banbury Road Oxford (or remotely, if travel is not possible). Fieldwork in whichever country is relevant to your project is set to begin in the summer of 2021. The duration of the fellowship is 3.5 years, starting in January 2021 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy: Postdocs

Two Postdoctoral Researchers, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, UK. Deadline: 26 July 2020.

Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at CRASSH. The post will run for five years and applicants are expected to be in post as soon as possible.The successful candidate will undertake a research project with support and mentoring from the MCTD team. Applicants will need to demonstrate how their work intersects with:

The understanding and countering of public ignorance about the societal and personal impact of the technology. Building journalistic capacity in conjunction with major UK media organisations to foster informed coverage of tech issues, data-savvy investigative journalism and critical examination of tech narratives on AI, machine-learning, determinism and policy.
The significance and future of work in a digitally dominated world.
Understanding and mitigating the environmental impact of digital technology.
Trust and accountability in the tech industry.
Identifying, mapping and fostering creative uses of digital technology for energising and revitalising constitutional democracy that have emerged in Europe over the past decade; become a convening point for dissemination and innovation in this space.
We take this to include empirical work, critical theorisation, and research focusing on key issues in digital transformation as it affects cultural forms and practices, societies, archival issues, and knowledge production and dissemination.