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Postdoctoral scholarship (2 years) within Understandable and Co-Constructive Explainable Artificial Intelligence

The Department of Computing Science is offering a postdoctoral scholarship within the project Understandable and Co-Constructive Explainable Artificial Intelligence. The scholarship is full-time for two years with access 1 September 2026 or by agreement. Last day to apply is 31 may 2026.

The Department of Computing Science at Umeå University is an international environment for research and education covering a broad spectrum of computer science. The department is internationally renowned for its excellent research and education. We are affiliated with WASP – Sweden’s largest individual research program of all time, coordinate its sister program WASP-HS, which focuses on the consequences of emerging technologies, and are a strong partner in the national strategic research program eSSENCE. We value diversity and actively work to promote an inclusive work environment with a high level of engagement. Read more at: Department of Computing Science

The postdoctoral researcher will be a member of the Explainable AI (XAI) team. ÌýThe XAI team’s research is focused on developing methods that allow AI systems to justify and explain their recommendations and actions in similar ways as humans explain to each other. This signifies giving the possibility to have a dialogue where the AI system takes into account the humans’ background knowledge, what is the amount of information that they can deal with at each iteration, and consider the humans’ reactions during the interaction. See: /en/research/groups/xai--explainable-ai/

Project description
This postdoctoral scholarship is financed by Kempestiftelserna, Stiftelserna J.C. Kempes och Seth M. Kempes minne.ÌýThe scholarship is tax-free and amounts to 750 000 SEK for two years, i.e. 375 000 SEK per year.

The goal of the project is to develop new XAI functionality based on the Contextual Importance and Utility (CIU) method, create co-constructive dialogs with users where the AI system also learns to adapt the explanations according to the user’s background, level of knowledge, preferred kind of explanations (text, graphs, figure, …), and be able to follow how the user’s understanding evolves over time. The research will be done in collaboration with the leading researcher in the domain called"Social Explainable AI", where the AI system and the users perform a "co-constructive" process, where the AI system and the user mutually learn from each other.

Qualifications
To qualify as a postdoctoral scholarship holder, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirement must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the decision about scholarship recipient.

Priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree before that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organisations, military service or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area.

The candidate’s Doctoral degree should be within data science, artificial intelligence or machine learning.

Additional requirements are very good skills in English (oral and written). Programming skills are necessary, where experience of the programming languages R and Python is of value. Ìý

Meritorious is earlier experience about the creation of machine learning models, as well as Explainable AI methods. Earlier research about Explainable AI is considered particularly meritorious.

We are looking for you who enjoys working in a multi-cultural environment and with a research environment that encourages own ideas and initiatives.

Application
The application should be written in English or Swedish, and attached documents should be in Word or PDF format. The application should be registered via Umeå University’s e-recruitment system Varbi and submitted by the deadline 31 May 2026.

A full application should include:

- Cover letter in which you describe how you would address the research topic and how your earlier research experience is beneficial for the project. The letter should not exceed two pages,

- Curriculum vitae (CV) with publication list,

- Verified copy of doctoral degree certificate or documentation that clarifies when the degree of doctor is expected to be obtained,

- Verified copies of other diplomas, list of completed academic courses and grades,

- Copy of doctoral thesis and possibly 5 relevant articles,

- Other documents that the applicant wishes to claim,

- Contact information to two persons willing to act as references.

Further information
For further information, please contact Professor Kary Främling, kary.framling@cs.91´«Ã½ÔÚÏß

ÌýWe look forward to receiving your application!

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