Postdoctoral Researcher in Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for the Analysis of Legal Corporate Data

Erasmus University Rotterdam – Erasmus School of Law

LXplorer (Luxembourg)

Application Deadline: 12 April 2026

Are you interested in conducting academic research at the intersection of (corporate) law and data science while also contributing to cutting-edge legal tech applications and gaining insight into the R&D environment of a legal tech start-up? Then you should apply!

Erasmus School of Law (ESL), Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands, and the Luxembourg legal tech start-up LXplorer invite applications from outstanding candidates for a Postdoctoral Researcher position in Data Science, Machine Learning and AI for the Analytics of Legal Corporate Data that will allow the successful candidate to work at the intersection of academic research and legal-tech innovation in a public-private partnership. 

The position is intended to form part of the Cross-Border Corporate Mobility Project (CbCM), a unique large-scale empirical legal research infrastructure that monitors cross-border corporate transactions and related European company law forms across the EU/EEA since 2017. In cooperation with the Luxembourg-based legal-tech start-up LXplorer, Erasmus University Rotterdam aims to expand the project through (i) a post-doctoral position in advanced data science and machine learning modelling and to apply the methodology more broadly to the structuring of fragmented, unstructured and multi-lingual (corporate) legal data, and (ii) a post-doctoral position with a focus on law and computer science in relation to natural language processing, multilingual (legal) event extraction and artificial intelligence.[1]

This call is intended to identify a postdoctoral candidate with whom Erasmus University Rotterdam and LXplorer will jointly prepare and submit an application under the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) Industrial Fellowship programme. The position is therefore subject to successful grant funding[2]. The successful candidate will work closely with the academic and industrial supervisors to shape the final research design, methodology and application dossier. 

The postdoctoral researcher will be employed by LXplorer and based in Luxembourg, working in close collaboration with the academic team at Erasmus University Rotterdam including research stays in Rotterdam. This arrangement offers the candidate the opportunity to operate at the intersection of academic research and legal-tech innovation, gaining experience in both environments. The position provides access to LXplorer’s legal data infrastructure, industry expertise, and applied AI development environment, while remaining embedded in a leading European research project in empirical corporate law at a leading European university. The role therefore offers a unique combination of academic work, R&D development in a commercial setting, interdisciplinary collaboration, and exposure to the legal-tech sector.

Research context

The CbCM project lies at the intersection of empirical legal studies, data science and corporate law. Its objective is to apply advance statistical analysis and machine learning methods to process and analyse fragmented and largely unstructured legal corporate information and model corporate legal dynamics with a particular focus on EU cross-border transactions.

The post-doctoral position aims to design and develop a predictive model that analyzes the mechanisms and dynamics of corporate transactions using the CbCM's unique existing dataset of cross-border transactions, complemented by other publicly and privately available datasets, including macro- and microeconomic indicators, social indices, and regulatory data.

The processing, analysis, modelling, and predictive potential of this dataset will serve as a cornerstone for developing similar applications in the field of unstructured legal information.

Optionally (this is clearly not a must for the position but only applicable to the extent it aligns with the research interests and background of the candidate), the post-doctoral position can also include the design and deployment of a system for processing the primarily unstructured, multilingual legal documents of the CbCM project, with the goal of transforming a previously manual annotation stage into an automated workflow. The proposed system would then be benchmarked against a proprietary corpus of manually annotated legal documents collected over several years. Particular attention would be given to evaluating system reliability, including the detection and mitigation of hallucinations, and to comparing the performance of large language models with more traditional approaches.

The CbCM coordinators are flexible within the overall research objectives of the project and welcome discussions with potential candidates about their own ideas research ideas within the limits of the CbCM project. If candidates have a research idea related to the CbCM Project that could fit within the scope of this postdoctoral position, we encourage you to contact the coordinators for further information about the project and to discuss the feasibility of your proposal before the call deadline.

Candidate profile

We are looking for a candidate who has:

• a PhD degree in Data Science or Law, or Computer Science or a closely related discipline that covers the above research objectives (it is sufficient to have obtained the PhD before the actual start date of the project, not the deadline of the call);
• a strong background in statistical methods and machine learning is a must, as well as an interest in law; 
• a strong background in the following topics will be considered as an advantage but not a must: (corporate) law, natural language processing, large language models, multi-agent frameworks, information extraction, big data, economics
• a demonstrated ability to conduct independent research and publish at a high academic level;
• an interest in interdisciplinary work with legal scholars and legal-tech practitioners.

In accordance with FNR requirements, candidate are only eligible if they have obtained their PhD degree within the last eight years as of the FNR Call deadline, i.e. latest 28 April 2018.

Position and collaboration for the FNR Call

The position will be embedded in the Cross-Border Corporate Mobility Project at Erasmus University Rotterdam and carried out for a large part at the R&D department of LXplorer.

Because this role is linked to the FNR Industrial Fellowship programme, it is important to note that this is not a standard immediately funded vacancy. Instead, Erasmus University Rotterdam and LXplorer aim to identify the strongest possible candidate with whom they will jointly develop and submit the fellowship application. As mentioned above, the chances of obtaining a grant are very good in collaboration with a strong candidate. 

Before the FNR Call application deadline on 29 April 2026, the successful candidate should therefore be willing to collaborate actively on:

• refining the research question and project scope;
• designing the preliminary methodology and work plan;
• contributing to the preparation of the application dossier;
• aligning the project with the academic and industrial objectives of the fellowship.

What we offer

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to:

• contribute to a highly innovative research agenda at the intersection of law and data-science; 
• help build a next-generation infrastructure for analysing corporate transaction and unstructured legal information in general;
• work at the R&D department of a legal tech start-up; 
• work in a vibrant, interdisciplinary research environment at the Erasmus School of Law, including the Erasmus Centre of Empirical Legal Studies (ECELS) and the Erasmus Center of Law and Digitalization;
• contribute to future grant development, scientific publications and prototype tools with commercial relevance.

Full time 2 years doctoral fellowship position (upon FNR grant acceptance).

Remuneration: competitive salary package.

Candidates that have not lived and worked before in Luxembourg may under certain circumstances profit from a very attractive tax regime for foreign highly skilled workers. 

Application process

Interested candidates are invited to submit an expression of interest consisting of:

• a curriculum vitae;
• a short motivation letter explaining their interest in the project and their relevant expertise;
• a brief research statement (approximately 1–2 pages) outlining how they would approach the above outlined research topic;[3]
• contact details of references.

The selected candidate will be invited to work with Erasmus University Rotterdam and LXplorer on the preparation of the FNR Industrial Fellowship application.

Intended FNR submission deadline: 29 April 2026 – to avoid confusion, you must submit your application to EUR and LXplorer by 12 April 2026 so that we have sufficient time to select the candidate and prepare the FNR application.

Proposed start date: August-September 2026 subject to funding approval and administrative arrangements ; the decision-making process at the FNR takes a maximum of three month; there is certain flexibility as to the starting date.

For further information or to express interest, please contact:

Dr. Marcus Meyer, Coordinator of the CbCM Project: [email protected] 

Dr. Thomas Biermeyer, Founder, LXplorer: [email protected]

[1] This second postdoctoral position is a separate call with the same application deadline as the current one. For more information, please contact the CBCM coordinators listed at the end of this document.

[2] The chances of obtaining a grant are very good but guarantees cannot be given.

[3] For any questions or more details on the project, please do not hesitate to contact the project coordinators on the email addresses et out below.