Research Associate in Generative AI and Multimodal Interaction

Weekly Working Hours: 37

Fixed Term Contract: End Date: 30 November 2027 (post is 28 months in total)

Welsh Language: Not Applicable

Job Description: 

About the Role

The Research Assistant/Associate role is externally funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme (HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01) in the context of the MULTIPOD project on "Multilingual and multicultural spaces for political deliberation". The overall objective of this project is to develop new multilingual technologies for healthier multicultural political deliberation, that is to say inclusive participation of European citizens in political discussion processes across languages and cultures, which can effectively lead to informed policies. 

To this end, MULTIPOD will develop innovative, user-friendly and AI-powered methods for the extraction, transformation and visualisation of knowledge in order to increase hybrid (face-to-face and virtual) deliberative participation in policy debates. 

This will include real-time audience interaction technologies for on-site participation, as well as topic extraction, aggregation and visualization services for large scale participation in online discussion processes. The project will also develop new ML/NLP and generative AI solutions to enable a moderated human-IA exchange of usable multicultural and multilingual knowledge between online and offline interaction spaces.

The project will focus not only on the design and development of these technologies, but also on the development of lessons learned from the application of these anticipated innovations in real-world contexts at different scales.

About the Unit

KMi

The Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) is a multidisciplinary corporate R&D lab for the Open University, committed to world class research activity at the forefront of data science and new media technology. KMi has extensive experience in data and web science and has, for almost 25 years, deployed research results to address real world scenarios that have led to innovation in education and commercial settings. KMi currently consists of around 80 researchers, has published more than 1000 scientific papers since its creation, and has been involved in over 100 EU and national projects, including ONR Project Bcause, FP7 CATALYST, EPSRC EDV - Election Debate Visualisation Project, Horizon Europe ORBIS, MK:Smart, and many others. The research conducted under these projects covers a wide range of issues related to the use of technology to democratize our society by improving citizen engagement in political and decision-making processes. Our focus is on the development of large-scale ideation and deliberation systems, enabling many voices to contribute to effective, impartial and democratic conversations that lead to intelligent group behaviour and social change. 

STEM

The Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) comprises:

• School of Computing & Communications
• School of Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences
• School of Engineering & Innovation
• School of Life, Health & Chemical Sciences
• School of Mathematics & Statistics
• School of Physical Sciences
• Knowledge Media Institute

The STEM Faculty consists of 2500 staff including 1,800 Associate Lecturers. It delivers over 185 modules across undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum, supporting nearly 19,000 students (full time equivalents) which is 29% of the OU total.

The Faculty generates more research income (circa £17M) than any other Faculty in the University, supported by a comprehensive laboratory infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities 

• To familiarise and extend the data and codebases of technologies that are already in place in the MULTIPOD consortium and the IDEA research group (e.g democraticreflection.cloud, decidim.org, www.weblyzard.com, and bcause.app.
• To consider different approaches for large scale aggregation, structuring and analysis of online discussion data
• To develop and implement gen-AI solutions for argument mining and discourse analysis.
• To develop and implement new online deliberation technologies (front and back-end), and integrate them with other MULTIPOD tools.
• To write papers for publications in high quality journals and conferences
• To manage a smooth collaboration with our European partners and stakeholders in the MULTIPOD consortium (which include, industry partners, NGOs, local government and Academic organisations across Europe)

Skills and Experience

Essential

• PhD in a relevant area
• Evidence of high-quality research and development in a relevant area
• A strong record of research and/or knowledge exchange that is commensurate to the position.
• Experience in applying and developing Large language Models applications.
• Working knowledge of Web Development stack (e.g NoSql, Typescript, NodeJS, HTML5/CSS3/JS, Python, Firebase, Angular 2+)
• Able to draft technical reports and contributing to teamwork.
• Familiarity with handling deliverables and shortly paced deadlines.

Desirable

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Able to draft and contribute to conference/journal papers.
• Development skills applied to a variety of research domains and technologies.

Essential Requirements

To apply for this role please submit the following;

• CV that includes details of academic qualifications, teaching and research experience, grants received and publications.
• Supporting Statement that outlines how you meet the essential / desirable criteria listed above.

You will need to have your CV and Supporting Statement ready ahead of submitting the electronic application.

Next Steps

Interview date: Likely to be 6 - 8th August via MS Teams. 

Candidates will be notified as soon as possible after the closing date whether they have been shortlisted for interview.

Work location 

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where you can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that attendance on our Milton Keynes campus will be required when necessary and in response to business needs, for example for laboratory-based research and/or supervision of research students or occasional team meetings. This is likely to be once per fortnight. 

Flexible working 

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what may work for you and the role.

For informal enquiries about this position, please contact Prof Anna DeLiddo at anna.deliddo@open.ac.uk

The Open University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion which is reflected in our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment so that all in our OU community can reach their potential. We recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. We strive to recruit, retain and develop the careers of a diverse pool of students and staff, and particularly encourage applications from all underrepresented groups. We also aspire to make The Open University a supportive workplace for all through our policies, services and staff networks.