5 PhD positions on Question Answering in 4 EU countries; info event 21 Jan @ Bonn; apply by Feb

WDAqua (Answering Questions using Web Data), a Marie SkÅ,odowska-Curie International Training Network (ITN), is seeking 15 highly skilled PhD candidates.


http://www.iai.uni-bonn.de/~langec/wdaqua/


== Essential Facts ==


PhD students in WDAqua will spend 3 years working at one of 6 research institutions in Europe (France, Germany, Greece, UK), will participate in an outstanding web science and data science training programme, and will have the chance to visit other of these organisations plus further application partners. The gross monthly salary (including social security, before taxes) is 3,110 â,¬ (adjusted depending on the country of employment) plus a mobility allowance of 600 â,¬/month and, if applicable, a family allowance of 500 â,¬/month.


== Timeline ==


21 January 2015: information event in Bonn, Germany (exact schedule to be announced)
February 2015: application deadline (for exact dates, see the partnersâ?T specific job postings)
March 2015: first job offers made to successful applicants
July 2015â?"June 2018: typical duration of a PhD in WDAqua


== Background ==


Smart infrastructures and citizensâ?T participation in the digital society are increasingly data-driven. Sharing, connecting, managing, analysing and understanding data on the Web will enable better services for citizens, communities and industry. However, turning web data into successful services for the public and private sector requires skilled web and data scientists, and it still requires further research. WDAqua aims at advancing the state of the art by intertwining training, research and innovation efforts, centred around data-driven question answering. Question answering is immediately useful to a wide audience of end users, and we will demonstrate this in settings including e-commerce, public sector information, publishing and smart cities. Steps to answering a question are (1) understanding a spoken question, (2) analysing the questionâ?Ts text, (3) finding data to answer the question, and (4) presenting the answer(s). Every individual research project in WDAqua co!
 nnects at least two of these steps.


== Partners and Projects ==


Further details to be found on the homepage: http://www.iai.uni-bonn.de/~langec/wdaqua/


University of Bonn, Germany
3 positions (one of them with a dual degree with Saint-Ã?tienne)
Topics: linked data publishing, data quality assessment, data cleaning, federated queries


University of Athens, Greece
2 positions
Topics: dataset alignment and merging, user interaction, interactive disambiguation


Université Jean Monnet Saint-�tienne, France
3 positions (two of them with dual degrees with Bonn)

Topics: provenance, trust, link discovery, data dynamicity and evolution, named entity recognition, disambiguation, reasoning


Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS), Germany
2 positions (PhD awarded by the University of Bonn, one position with a dual degree with Saint-Ã?tienne)
Topics: cloud computing, plugin architecture, voice input, natural language processing


University of Southampton, UK
3 positions
Topics: visualisation, verbalisation, natural language synthesis, interaction flows, information discovery


Open Data Institute, UK
2 positions (PhD awarded by the University of Southampton)
Topics: visualisation, verbalisation, data licensing, pricing of services, privacy


Partner organisations (where PhD students may spend secondments):
* Antidot, France
* ATC Innovation Lab, Greece
* Data Publica, France
* Fundacio Barcelona Media/Yahoo Labs, Spain
* Unister Research & Development, Germany
* Wolters Kluwer Strategy and Innovation, Germany


== How to apply ==


The individual project partners make individual, specific job postings (accessible from http://www.iai.uni-bonn.de/~langec/wdaqua/). Candidates apply for individual jobs, with individual organisations, as listed above.


The ideal candidate must not have resided for more than 12 months in the country of their employment in the 3 years before starting to work. He or she holds a degree in computer science or a related field and is able to combine theory and practice in her/his work. Fluent English communication and a passion for developing modern software solutions (e.g. in Java/Scala, JavaScript) are fundamental requirements. Command of  the language of the country of employment is a plus but not required. The candidate should have experience and commitment to work in teams and on the forefront of research in one of the following fields:


* semantic web technologies and linked data
* knowledge representations and ontology engineering
* software engineering and modern application development
* database technologies and data integration
* HCI and user interface design for Web content
* data analytics


Application deadlines will be in February; each organisation will define a specific date. You will need to submit a CV, university transcripts, a motivation letter including a short research plan targeted to one of the above projects, two letters of recommendation and English writing sample (e.g. prior publication or master thesis excerpt). The individual organisations will announce specific requirements and guidelines.


== Questions? ==


The information event on 21 January is a good opportunity to ask questions. You may also, at any time, email or phone
Christoph Lange
WDAqua assistant coordinator
langec@cs.uni-bonn.de
Phone +49 2241 14-2428