In this role, you will investigate research questions related to agentic conversational systems, including benchmarking LLM-based conversational agents, studying multi-agent collaboration and coordination, designing metrics for long-horizon reasoning and planning, and studying tool-augmented conversational systems.

Given the 12-month duration of the position, your focus will be on delivering high-impact research outputs and helping establish reusable research infrastructure for the consortium. You will have the opportunity to develop new ideas, work across disciplines, and contribute to both methodological advances and practical applications in real-world settings.

Tasks and responsibilities

• You will develop benchmarks and datasets for conversational AI.
• You will design metrics and methodologies for studying agentic AI systems.
• You will collaborate with the PhD researchers in the consortium.
• You will conduct research and publish results at leading AI, NLP, and IR conferences.
• You will contribute to the development of shared resources and experimental frameworks for the LESSEN consortium.

You are excited by recent developments in agentic AI and want to help shape this emerging area through strong scientific research. You see careful evaluation not as a side activity, but as a way to push the field forward and generate insights that matter. You enjoy working with real-world data and settings, and you appreciate both the richness and the messiness that come with them. You like turning complex, dynamic behaviour into research questions, experimental setups, and findings that others can build on. You work well independently, but you also value collaboration with colleagues and external partners.

Your experience and profile 

• A PhD in computer science, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, information retrieval, natural language processing, or a closely related field.
• Research experience in one or more of the following areas: conversational AI, large language models, NLP, IR, multi-agent systems, or AI evaluation.
• Experience with conducting and publishing academic research.
• Professional command of English, both spoken and written.

We offer a temporary employment contract for 38 hours per week for a period of 12 months. The preferred starting date is as soon as possible.

The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant experience, ranges between € 3,546 to € 5,538 (scale 10). This does not include 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% year-end allowance. The UFO profile Researcher 4 is applicable. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable.

Curious about our extensive secondary benefits package? You can read more about it here.