3-year Postdoc in Natural Language Processing and Law

3-year Postdoc(s) in Natural Language Processing and Law 

Joint position between the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen and the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

We are looking for 1-2 highly motivated postdocs for a 3-year position from 15 June 2025 or as soon as possible hereafter.

About the Project and Research Environment

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are transforming legal research and practice. The Automating Legal Information and Knowledge Extraction (ALIKE) project investigates how AI can be used to extract, represent, and generate valid legal statements from sources of law, such as legislation and court decisions. The project aims to develop AI-driven legal text generation models, ensuring their outputs are both legally valid and explainable. Key research areas include legal NLP, knowledge representation, computational legal reasoning, and network analysis of legal sources. The project is highly interdisciplinary, integrating insights from computer science, law, and artificial intelligence.

Further information:

• Department of Computer Science: https://www.science.ku.dk/english/about-the-faculty/organisation/
• Faculty of Law: https://jura.ku.dk/english/about/

Your Job
You will conduct independent and collaborative research within NLP and law, contributing to one or more of the project’s work packages. The position also includes limited teaching responsibilities. You are expected to actively participate in research activities across both departments and engage with international collaborators.

Profile
We are looking for a highly motivated researcher with the following qualifications:

Required qualifications:

• PhD in computer science, computational linguistics, AI, legal informatics, or a related field (or expected to obtain one before the start date)
• Documented experience with natural language processing and/or machine learning (e.g., through first/co-authored publications)
• Demonstrated interest in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI and law
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work collaboratively in a team
• Proficiency in written and spoken English

Desirable qualifications:

• Experience working with legal or other domain-specific text corpora
• Knowledge of transformer models (e.g., BERT, GPT) or representation learning
• Familiarity with network analysis or graph neural networks

Place of employment

The position is jointly hosted by the Department of Computer Science and the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen. The Department of Computer Science is located at Øster Voldgade 3 (Observatory), 1350 Copenhagen K and the Faculty of Law is located at Karen Blixens Plads 16, 2300 København S.

We offer a creative and stimulating working environment in two leading research institutions, with access to modern facilities, including a GPU cluster, and strong international networks.

Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.

The position is a fixed-term position limited to a period of three years. The start date is from 15 June 2025 or as soon as possible hereafter.

Salary, pension and other conditions of employment are set in accordance with the Agreement between the Ministry of Taxation and AC (Danish Confederation of Professional Associations) or other relevant organisation. Currently, the monthly salary starts at 38,700 DKK/approx. 5,100 EUR (April 2025 level). Depending on qualifications, a supplement may be negotiated. The employer will pay an additional 17.1 % to your pension fund.

Foreign and Danish applicants may be eligible for tax reductions, if they hold a PhD degree and have not lived in Denmark the last 10 years.

The position is covered by the Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities 2020.

Questions
For further information please contact Henrik Palmer Olsen (henrik@jur.ku.dk) or Daniel Hershcovich (dh@di.ku.dk).

Foreign applicants may find this link useful: www.ism.ku.dk (International Staff Mobility).

Application procedure
Your online application must be submitted in English by clicking ‘Apply now’ below. Furthermore, your application must include the following documents/attachments – all in PDF format:

1. Motivated letter of application (max. one page).
2. CV incl. education, work/research experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position.
3. A certified/signed copy of a) PhD certificate and b) Master of Science certificate. If the PhD is not completed, a written statement from the supervisor will do.
4. List of publications.
5. Research plan – description of current and future research plans
6. Copies of up to three peer-reviewed publications that are particularly relevant to the position (as separate files)

Deadline for applications: 7 April 2025, 23.59pm CET

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor. Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.

You can read about the recruitment process at https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/

The applicant will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

The University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.