A Postdoctoral Research Fellowship is available at Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering (SimulaMet), within the Department of Signal and Information Processing for Intelligent Systems (SIGIPRO).

This position is part of the National Norwegian Center for Sustainable, Risk-averse and Ethical AI (SURE-AI), funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) (2025-2030), coordinated by Simula Research Laboratory (Simula). Simula is a leading Norwegian research institute known for its excellence in cutting-edge ICT with a strong track record of top evaluations, active international collaborations, and successful in significant funding initiatives, including European and National RCN grants. SimulaMet is a research centre jointly owned by Simula and Oslo Metropolitan University. It is the home of Simula’s research activities on networks and communications, artificial intelligence and IT management, and it is OsloMet’s strategic partner in digital engineering. SimulaMet supports talent development through PhD and postdoctoral programs and provides valuable research infrastructure, such as the national HPC facility, eX3, and network testbeds

About SURE-AI

The primary objective of SURE-AI is to create a new generation of algorithms for inference and decision-making by pushing the boundaries of the underlying computational techniques. SURE-AI researchers will drive a transformative leap in AI through a groundbreaking Centre initiative dedicated to making AI more efficient, transparent and safe, addressing the critical challenges of resource consumption, behavior unpredictability and ethical alignment with human and societal values. The centre involves senior researchers from well-renowned national and international research institutions, in close collaboration with industry and public sector. Overall, SURE-AI includes 19 national Norwegian partners, as well as researchers from 15 international institutions.

SURE-AI is firmly committed to excellence in both cutting-edge research and training of outstanding young researchers, as described here. The appointed candidate is expected to actively contribute to one or more of SURE-AI’s work packages and innovation clusters, engage in collaboration across the SURE-AI network, and participate in all relevant centre activities.

Research Statement: Applicants are required to prepare a (max) 2-page research statement providing a personal view about the main research questions they are interested in, their relevance to this position, as well as about the key theoretical and methodological approaches to be followed. Applicants are encouraged to propose research ideas that combine rigorous ML designs, underlying mathematical methods, with exploratory, or unconventional problem formulations.

Job Description

The postdoctoral researcher position will be part of an interdisciplinary research environment including international collaborators. The Postdoctoral researcher is expected to cover the three fronts of theoretical analysis (e.g. performance guarantees), algorithm design and implementation, carrying out research on the following topics: a) learning explainable representations capturing optimally the complex spatio-temporal dependencies and geometry in multivariate data, as well as exploiting those learned representations for robust inference, reasoning, decision-making and control tasks, while allowing to incorporate knowledge and tracking uncertainties, b) constrained machine learning algorithms that embed safety, ethics, and regulatory requirements directly into training and decision-making processes, such as aligning Foundation Models with human values and designing risk-aware reinforcement learning frameworks, c) continual and online learning methods that adapt to time-varying distributions and non-IID data while providing formal generalization guarantees. By leveraging structural dependence representation learning, counterfactual reasoning and automated hyperparameter optimization, it will provide robust out-of-distribution performance and stability across non-stationary environments

All these projects/topics will incorporate real data in the context of impactful applications within the verticals of energy, finance and societal systems, in cooperation with some of the public or private partners involved and postdoctoral/senior researchers in the SURE-AI Center.

More information about the position is available in the full announcement.

Selection criteria

We will consider candidates who have a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics or other related relevant discipline. The applicant is required to demonstrate how the degree corresponds to the profile of the post. Other required qualifications include:

• A strong background in optimization, data science, machine learning and signal processing, proven by a high-quality publication record.
• Previous experience in both designing novel data-driven learning and control methods and applying them to real data, as proved by publicly released code and publications.
• Excellent software development skills demonstrated by previously released software packages, fluency in Python and/or Matlab.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English and a record of previous talks at international conferences.
• Ambition to carry out interdisciplinary research and willingness to work as part of an internation al team.
• Interest in and ability to collaborate across disciplines and institutions.
• Relevance of profile to SURE-AI’s aims and objectives.
• Sharing Simula’s core values: excellence, impact, curiosity, ambition and respect.

The doctoral dissertation must be (at least) submitted for evaluation by the application deadline. Appointment is dependent on the public defense of the doctoral thesis being approved.

In addition, we will also evaluate the following personal skills:

• Personal suitability and motivation for the position.
• Strong ability to work purposefully, systematically, and inde pendently.
• Time management and ability to carry out tasks within the allotted time frame.
• Very good collaboration skills and an ability to join interdisciplinary academic communities.

The research statement will also be an important selection criterion based on: a) the candidate’s engagement with SURE-AI, in particular, the areas in SURE-AI associated to this position, b) the awareness of the state-of-the-art in the areas mentioned above in the selection criteria, c) the suitability of their proposed methods for SURE-AI, and the innovativeness and scientific merit of their research ideas.

Simula offers

• Excellent opportunities for performing high-quality research, as part of a highly competent and motivated team of international researchers and engineers.
• An informal and inclusive international working environment.
• Generous support for travel and opportunities to build international networks, through established collaboration with industry, exchange programs and research visits with other universities, and funding to attend conferences.
• Modern office facilities located in downtown Oslo
• A competitive salary. Starting salary from NOK 595 000.
• Numerous benefits: access to a company cabin, sponsored social events, generous equipment budgets (e.g., computer, phone and subscription), subsidized canteen meals, comprehensive travel/group life insurance policy, etc.
• Relocation assistance: accommodation, visas, complimentary Norwegian language courses, etc.
• Administrative research support: e.g., quality assurance process for grant proposals (including RCN and EU programs).
• Wellness and work-life balance. Our employees’ health and well-being are a priority, and we encourage them to make use of our flexible work arrangements to help balance their work and home lives efficiently

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Application

Interested applicants are requested to submit the following:

• Curriculum vitae showing your educational background, working experience (in particular, any relevant academic or industrial work), a list of scientific publications and talks.
• Cover letter: outline your motivation for applying, relevant experience and qualifications, research interests and how/why you are qualified for the position.
• Transcripts from Bachelor, MS and PhD degrees.
• Contact information of three references including the main PhD supervisor.
• Research statement (max two pages).

Please note that all documents must be in English language. Application with the requested attachments must be submitted via our recruitment system. Applications submitted by email will not be considered.

Deadline: April 1st, 2026

Contact person: Baltasar Beferull-Lozano ([email protected])

Short-listed candidates will be invited for an interview. Applications will be screened continuously and a decision will be made as soon as we find the right candidate.

General Information

Six national research centers for Artificial Intelligence (AI) launched in the Fall of 2025. Each of these centers will foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers to address both scientific and societal challenges, develop new technologies, understand the impact of AI, and drive innovation across both the business and public sectors. This initiative is established and financed through the government's significant investment in artificial intelligence over the next five years. SURE-AI is one of these six centres.

For information about SimulaMet, Simula Research Laboratory and Norway, please check out the full announcement.