About the position

Up to two positions as Researcher available at Department of Informatics. The position is for a period of two (2) years.Preferred start date by the end of April 2025.

Project description

The Language Technology Group (LTG) in the Department of Informatics (IFI) at the University of Oslo (UiO) participates in two EU-funded collaborative initiatives, viz. the Horizon Europe project High-Performance Language Technologies (HPLT) and the Digital Europe project OpenEuroLLM. In both projects, LTG co-ordinates data acquisition and preparation for pre-training of large language models (LLMs), as well as contributes to LLM pre-training and evaluation. This work is carried out at high TRL levels and utilizes national and European High-Performance Computing (HPC) facilities. The HPLT and OpenEuroLLM consortia overlap, with Charles University in Prague as the coordinator, Helsinki and Turku Universities in Finland, and Prompsit Language Engineering in Spain as core collaborators.

OpenEuroLLM further involves research centers in Germany and The Netherlands, companies in Finland, France, and Germany, and four major EuroHPC centers. We are looking for researchers with strong engineering, HPC, and team skills, who will interact with project members both locally and across the two consortia. The focus of this work will be the acquisition and creation of very large volumes of high-quality textual pre-training data for European languages, including experimental investigations of the interplay of data properties and “quality” with LLM training efficacy and observable model performance. In-depth evaluation in HPLT is focused on a selection of languages, currently Czech, Finnish, Norwegian, Ukrainian, and some “smaller” Ibero-Romance languages.

Qualification requirements

The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition to be among Europe's leading communities for research, education and innovation. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.

• Applicants must hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Only applicants with an approved doc-toral thesis and public defence are eligible for appointment.
• Fluent oral and written communication skills in English
• Documented experience in very large-scale experimental NLP and HPC
• Strong programming and software integration skills
• Comprehensive knowledge of neural language modeling techniques
• Documented prior involvement in large, distributed collaborations

The following qualifications will count in the assessment of the applicants:

• Familiarity with one or more of the focus languages in HPLT

Personal skills

• Highly motivated, open-minded, and scientifically curious
• Able to work in large and diverse teams, as well as independently
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills

We offer

• Salary NOK minimum 620 000 – 700 000 per year depending on qualifications in position as Researcher (position code 1109)
• Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement
• Professionally stimulating working environment
• Vibrant international academic environment
• Oslo’s family-friendly surroundings with their rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

The application must include

• Cover letter (statement of motivation, summarizing scientific work and research interest)
• CV (summarizing education, positions, pedagogical experience, administrative experience and other qualifying activity)
• Copies of educational certificates, academic transcript of records and letters of recommendation
• A complete list of publications and up to 5 academic works that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
• Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)

The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system, please follow the link “Apply for this job”. Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English (or a Scandinavian language).

In assessing the applications, special emphasis will be placed on the documented, academic qualifications, as well as the candidates motivation and personal suitability. Interviews with the best qualified candidates will be arranged.

It is expected that the successful candidate will be able to complete the project in the course of the period of employment.

Formal regulations

According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

The University of Oslo has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results a.o.

The University of Oslo aims to achieve a balanced gender composition in the workforce and to recruit people with ethnic minority backgrounds.

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Questions about the position

• Stephan Oepen (Professor), +4745466632, oe@ifi.uio.no
• For questions regarding the recruitment system Jobbnorge, contact Therese Ringvold (HR Adviser), therese.ringvold@mn.uio.no