The ESSENCE Marie Curie Initial Training Network (www.essence-network.com) is offering two Early-Stage Researcher (pre-doctoral) positions (36 months), to start in September 2014.

The application deadline for these posts is *** 15th July 2014 ***

This is a rare opportunity to be involved in a highly prestigious European training network for outstanding applicants in an emergent and important research area, led by internationally leading groups in their fields!

ESSENCE (Evolution of Shared SEmaNtics in Computational Environments) conducts research and provides research training in various aspects of translating human capabilities for negotiating meaning to open computational environments such as the web, multi-robot systems, and sensor networks. The network will support 15 pre- and post-doctoral fellows who will work toward a set of different research projects within this overall theme, ranging from symbol grounding and ontological reasoning to game-theoretic models of communication and crowdsourcing.

ESSENCE involves a top-quality consortium of internationally leading research institutions. Two of them are acting as hosts for the following projects in the current recruitment round:

– Advanced interaction-situated semantic alignment (IIIA-CSIC, Barcelona – PhD at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) – Robust communication and alignment of concept extensions (playence, Madrid – PhD at University of Edinburgh)

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS:

Early-Stage Researchers must, at the time of recruitment by the host organisation be in the first 4 years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers, and not yet have a doctoral degree. Research experience is measured from the date when they obtained the degree which formally entitled them to embark on a doctorate.

MOBILITY CONDITIONS:

Researchers can be of any nationality, though at the time of recruitment by the host organisation, researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in the country of their host organisation for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the reference date. (Short stays such as holidays and/or compulsory national service are not taken into account.)

Note that for the two positions in question, this would relate to Spain as the host country, i.e. a student who has been in the UK for more than 12 months in the past 3 years _would_ be eligible for the position that involves PhD study at the University of Edinburgh.

PROJECT SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS:

Both positions are very competitively remunerated (significantly above the respective average national salaries/studentships) and aimed at outstanding candidates. Please consult the individual descriptions of projects at http://www.essence-network.eu/hiring for additional requirements and detailed salary information.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES POLICY:

The ESSENCE network aims to attract 40% females among the recruited researchers. Female applicants are explicitly encouraged to apply and treated preferentially whenever they are equally qualified as other male candidates. ESSENCE will provide specific support for female researchers in terms of targeted training events and dedicated mentoring.

All applicants are asked to pre-apply at http://www.essence-network.eu/hiring. Please contact Dr. Michael Rovatsos (mrovatso@inf.ed.ac.uk) for informal enquiries.

To see the recruitment poster: click here.