Organisation/Company Trinity College Dublin Department School of Law Research Field Juridical sciences Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions PhD Positions Country Ireland Application Deadline 17 Aug 2025 - 23:59 (Europe/Dublin) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 35 Offer Starting Date 1 Oct 2025 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Horizon Europe - MSCA Reference Number HARNESS-DC1 Marie Curie Grant Agreement Number 101169409 Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No
Offer Description
We invite you to apply for a PhD position supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network ‘HARNESS - Harnessing AI and Data-Intensive Technologies’, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme. Read more: https://harness-network.eu/
As a student, you would be enrolled in the Law PhD programme of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. The position with a work contract for 3 years and a gross annual salary of €45,235.17 (including mobility allowance) or €52,360.68 for those with family. The position covers academic fees and funding for research training and travel.
Deadline for the application: August 17th 2025, 23:59 CET
Role Information PhD Topic (Law): Charting the Course for Trustworthy AI (Reference HARNESS-DC1)
Secondary supervisor: Professor Dave Lewis (TCD Computer Science)
Objectives: The Doctoral Candidate will investigate the regulatory approaches adopted by the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and germane legislation to address the decades-old conundrum relating to (personal) data processing and technology development activities of creating an environment that is both business-friendly and responsive to duties of care and diligence, including rights, towards individuals and society at large. The DC will chart the legal tools disciplining trustworthy AI and germane data technologies, with an eye to the incentives introduced to engender technology uptake, deterrence against non-compliance in the form of risk management and liability and punishment in the form of penalties, as they would apply to concrete technologies falling within the remit of the AI Act and related legislation. The DC will critique the ability of data processing and AI regulatory approaches to fulfil the “twin objective” of promoting the uptake of innovative technologies (impact to be studied at MRU) and of addressing the risks to humans and their rights and freedoms associated with the use of AI systems.
Expected Results: A cartography (atlas) of regulatory approaches applicable to trustworthy AI and data intensive technologies and tools for compliance with existing and new legal obligations. Development of use cases for the development and deployment of concrete AI and related technologies in which regulatory approaches play out. Recommendations for supplementary legislation to address potential mismatch across instruments.
The role involves planned secondment at Mykolo Romerio Universitetas (3 months in Vilnius, Prof Pakutinskas, to study impact on competition) and Shine Analytics Ltd (4 months in Dublin to test GDPR compliance tools)
What is HARNESS? HARNESS is an international, interdisciplinary and cross academic-industry training network hosted across Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Italy and Belgium (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network) formed to train a new generation of 13 Doctoral Candidates (DCs) as PhD graduates in the disciplines of law, ethics or computer science with the common goal of researching methods and tools to make Integrated Assessments of risks and impacts for current Data intensive and AI technologies. HARNESS Doctoral Candidates will receive training to enable them to integrate and apply arguments, analyses and tools from across the fields of artificial intelligence, law and ethics, so that they can excel in research and data science careers within digital services industry and public policy sectors. The DCs will receive a strongly multidisciplinary training programme, bringing together world-class researchers in Artificial Intelligence, Law and Ethics to offer an excellent structured research programme operating at the critical boundaries between these three fields.
The research supervision and training for DCs is delivered by a network composed of the following world-class research groups and industry practitioners:
* the Schools of Law and of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland);
* the Institute of Ethics at Dublin City University (Ireland)
* the Philosophy Section at the University of Twente (Enschede, Netherlands) and the 4TU Centre for Ethics and Technology;
* the Law, Science, Technology & Society at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium);
* the Legaltech Center at Mykolo Romerio Universitetas (Vilnius, Lithuania)
* the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) at Gent Universiteit (Ghent, Belgium)
A further set of industry and other non-academic research partners will offer DCs a rich range of relevant industry experience through training secondments.
Information on Trinity College Dublin: Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin is Ireland’s leading university, one of the top ranked universities in Europe and a member of the League of European Research Universities. It is currently ranked 87th in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Founded in 1592, the University is steeped in history with a reputation for excellence in education, research, and innovation. Located on an iconic campus in the heart of Dublin’s city centre, Trinity has 18,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students across our three faculties – Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; and Health Sciences. The pursuit of excellence through research and scholarship is at the heart of a Trinity education, and our researchers have an outstanding publication record and strong record of grant success. Our research charter outlines the principles that are central to our research vision: https://www.tcd.ie/research/about/charter/
Information on the ADAPT centre: ADAPT is the world-leading SFI research centre for AI Driven Digital Content Technology hosted by Trinity College Dublin, in partnership with seven other universities across Ireland. ADAPT's research vision is to pioneer new forms of proactive, scalable, and integrated AIdriven Digital Content Technology that empower individuals and society to engage in digital experiences with control, inclusion, and accountability with the long term goal of a balanced digital society. ADAPT is pioneering new Human Centric AI techniques and technologies including personalisation, natural language processing, data analytics, intelligent machine translation human-computer interaction, as well as setting the standards for data governance, privacy and ethics for digital content. ADAPT offers a rich, vibrant and multidisciplinary environment for research collaboration and a range of training events and opportunities for early stage researchers. https://www.adaptcentre.ie
For informal enquiries on this role please contact Prof Dave Lewis delewis@tcd.ie
Applicants must have an excellent primary degree in law or cognate discipline, from a reputable institution and should normally have an excellent Masters degree, in law or cognate discipline, from a reputable institution.
In addition HARNESS PhD students must demonstrate:
* An ability to collaborate with international research teams in the English language.
* An enthusiasm for working on multidisciplinary research problems, including research collaboration and publication across disciplinary boundaries.
The objective of Doctoral Networks is to implement doctoral programmes by partnerships of organisations from different sectors across Europe and beyond to train highly skilled doctoral candidates, stimulate their creativity, enhance their innovation capacities and boost their employability in the long-term. All of the PhD positions are paid a highly competitive salary according to the Marie-Curie programme regulations. It is composed of the following allowances:
* Living allowance: (multiplied by a country coefficient) – corresponds to the Monthly Gross salary
* Mobility allowance (private mobility related costs)
* Other allowances – only if applicable at the beginning or during the action related to Family allowance, Long term leave allowance, and Special needs allowance
The net salary calculation depends on the employment rules and conditions in each country. The total allowances received for DC’s salary are subject to tax and social contributions (employer’s and employee’s). For more information, please look at specific vacancies at the host institutions.
Eligibility criteria
All researchers recruited must be Doctoral Candidates.
* must not have a doctoral degree at the date of their recruitment
* can be of any nationality
* should be enrolled in a doctoral programme during the project
* should comply with the mobility rules: in general, they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting organisation for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date. Compulsory national service, short stays such as holidays, and time spent as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention are not taken into account.
Researchers are required to undertake physical, transnational mobility (i.e. move from one country to another) when taking up their appointment.
Selection process
Apply via the following Please ensure to include the following: link:
* A covering letter explaining why the candidate wants the position and what qualifies them for it.
* A CV
* Two academic letters of reference
* Attached document or links to documents providing a max of 3 examples of work demonstrating prior achievement in research, enquiry or debate, e.g. publish paper or other work; policy contribution; dissertation or masters thesis.
HARNESS pursues a policy of equal opportunities on matters of gender and disability and will seek to recruit an equal proportion of male and female applicants and will provide employment opportunities for candidates with disabilities. Employment procedures and contracts will conform to the European Charter for Researchers / Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers.
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