Three-year assistant professorship in Natural Language Processing and Computational Law at the Centre for Language Technology, Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, UCPH

The Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark, invites applications for a three-year assistant professorship in natural language processing to be filled by the 1 November 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics provides the setting for international research and education from BA- to PhD studies within language, language technology, literature, media, culture, and gender studies. Read more here.

The successful candidate will be attached to the Centre for Language Technology (CST), which is one of the research centres of the department. CST conducts research in different areas of interest for language technology, such as Natural Language Processing, construction of NLP resources, Computational Cognitive Modeling and Multimodality, NLP infrastructure and policy, Representation Learning for NLP and Digital Humanities, among others.  It has a strong international profile, at the same time as pursuing the development of language technology methods and resources for the Danish language. The Centre has considerable experience managing international research projects, frequently attracts visiting researchers and has organised major conferences in the field. Together with the Department of Computer Science of the University of Copenhagen, it offers an international MSc programme in IT and Cognition. The programme, which currently admits about 30 students a year, consists of a range of courses in the areas of Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Science. In addition, we teach at several BA programs and electives, such as the BA ‘Kognitions- og Datavidenskab’ hosted at the Department of Psychology.

Job content
The successful candidate will contribute to the project in computational law:  XHAILe: Explainable Hybrid-AI for Computational Law and Accurate Legal Chatbots (see https://di.ku.dk/english/research/research-projects/xhaile/) granted by Innovationsfonden and with participation of several universities and companies in Denmark. Specifically, the candidate will contribute to the work package 3: Translation of Law to Computational Law. The main goal of this package is to develop methods that will allow efficient parsing of raw text in Danish to a computational representation. We expect the candidates to have a research profile with a strong publication record in current Computational Linguistics conferences (ACL, EMNLP, COLING, LREC, and so on). Besides, experience working with legal texts and specifically texts in Danish is a plus, but not a requirement.

The candidate will also contribute with a limited amount of teaching, preferably to the aforementioned BA ‘Kognitions- og Datavidenskab’. More detail on the programme as a whole and the individual study units are provided at https://www.ku.dk/studies/bachelor/cognitive-data-science.

An assistant professorship is a three-year, fixed-term academic position involving both research and teaching. The successful candidate will be obliged to complete a teacher-training course designed especially for assistant professors and will be expected to be able to take part in all the activities of the department, including examinations and administration.

Qualification requirements
Applicants must have a PhD degree or its equivalent within the area advertised. Furthermore, it will be considered an advantage if applicants can demonstrate teaching experience at university level.

The duties of the position are evenly distributed between tasks related to teaching and tasks related to research (including relevant administration and knowledge-sharing). Documented competences in both of these main fields of activity, as well as the ability to reflect on them, will be weighted in the assessment process (see further below).

Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the following academic and personal qualifications

• Research qualifications, which will be assessed in relation to the period of active research, the degree of originality, and academic output, e.g. number of publications published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals or in comparable high-ranking series published with internationally recognized publishing houses.
• The applicant’s scientific record, academic breadth and depth, rigour, thoroughness, and accuracy.
• Teaching qualifications. See also our Educational Charter at https://humanities.ku.dk/about/strategic-landmarks/educational_charter/.
• Experience and qualifications with regards to dissemination of research, knowledge-sharing and engagement with the wider public, the media and the world of politics.
• Documentation of possible administrative qualifications.

Assistant professors must hold an academic record demonstrating internationally competitive research, and/or have internationally recognized potential to make a future impact.

Assessment of applicants will primarily consider their level of documented, internationally competitive research. Teaching qualifications are not mandatory, but documented teaching qualifications and teaching experience will be taken into account. Applicants’ outreach qualifications, including the ability to attract external funding, will also be considered.

Within a reasonable period of time (max. 2 years), non-Danish-speaking appointees are expected to acquire proficiency in Danish sufficient to teach in Danish as well as interact with colleagues and students.

For further details about the qualification requirements for assistant professorships, please refer to the job structure for academic staff https://ufm.dk/lovstof/gaeldende-love-og-regler/uddannelsesinstitutioner/job-structure-for-academic-staff-at-universities-2013.pdf.

For further information about the position, please contact Manex Aguirrezabal (manex.aguirrezabal@hum.ku.dk) or Bolette Sandford Pedersen (bspedersen@hum.ku.dk), or the Head of Department, Anne Jensen (annejensen@hum.ku.dk).

Application
Applications must be submitted online in Adobe PDF or Word format. ZIP-files cannot be uploaded.

Please note that each field in the application form must contain a single file of max. 20Mb.

Please click on the “Apply online” icon at the bottom of the page.

The application must be written in English and must include the following enclosures:

• Application letter/cover letter
• Curriculum vitae (with the applicant’s e-mail address and telephone number).
• Documentation of qualifications (examination certificates/PhD diploma, etc.).
• List of referees/reference letters
• Complete and numbered list of publications. The enclosed publications must be marked with *.
• Research plan, including a short description of previous research and a plan for the coming years that includes an account of involvement in organising research, establishment of research seminars, symposia and congresses, etc.
• Documentation of teaching qualifications and research dissemination (organisation of classes, materials, courses and other forms of teaching).
• Publications. Applicants may choose a maximum of five publications for assessment, of which at least two must have been published within the five years immediately preceding the deadline for applications. At least two of these publications must have been published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals or in comparable high-ranking series published with internationally recognized publishing houses. Publication dates must be clearly marked on the publication list. The publications selected must be uploaded as attachments and listed from 1 to 5.

Should any material submitted consist of work with named co-authors, or work that is otherwise the result of collective academic endeavours, the extent of the applicant’s contribution to the work must be clearly stipulated. The Faculty may ask for a signed statement from the co-authors stipulating the extent and nature of each individual’s contribution.

Only material in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish will be assessed.

All material will be shredded at the end of the appointment procedure.

Appointment procedure
After the application deadline, the Dean will set up an expert assessment committee to evaluate applicants in relation to the advertised position. The applicants will be informed about the composition of the committee, and will have the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment relating to themselves before the appointment is finalised.

Applicants will be continuously informed about the progress of the procedure by e-mail.

Further information about the application procedure is available from HR, e-mail: HR-Soendre@adm.ku.dk.

Salary and conditions of employment
The post will be filled according to the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations. Additional bonuses may be negotiated on an individual basis.  Compensation packages comprising a relocation bonus for international scholars and a special tax scheme are offered to researchers recruited abroad. As for the latter, see www.movingtodenmark.ku.dk

If you consider applying from abroad, you may find useful information on what it is like working in Denmark before you apply for a position at the UCPH. See: https://ism.ku.dk/, https://workingconditions.ku.dk/ and https://www.workindenmark.dk/.

The UCPH wishes to encourage everyone interested in this post to apply, regardless of personal background.

The closing date for applications is 11 July 2025 23:59 CEST.

Applications or supplementary material received thereafter will not be considered.

Please quote reference number 211-0508/25-2A in your application.