Research Appointments in
Advanced Knowledge Technologies (AKT)

These posts have now been filled.

Applications are invited for 3-year Research staff appointments within the Division of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. The successful candidates will join the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute and the Institute of Representation and Reasoning to work on fundamental and applied problems associated with the acquisition, modelling, reuse, retrieval, publishing and maintenance of knowledge. The work is being funded by a prestigious 6-year Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration award, granted by EPSRC to Edinburgh and four other UK universities, and backed by over 20 industrial, commercial and governmental organisations. The research programme is named AKT: Advanced Knowledge Technologies.

The appointments will be made on the Research staff salary scale, £16,286 - £24,479 pa depending on qualifications and experience.Successful applicants will join a world leading Institute which is at the forefront of research and development in knowledge engineering, knowledge based planning and scheduling, and enterprise modelling, and is developing and applying a variety of technologies in the commercial world; we currently have a wide range of externally funded industrial and research projects to extend and/or apply knowledge technologies in realistic situations. Successful applicants will have excellent written and verbal communication skills, and the ability and desire to work as part of a highly skilled collaborative research team. Experience with one or more of the following technologies will be particularly advantageous: intelligent systems; knowledge modelling technologies (ontologies, problem solving methods); formal logics; organisational modelling techniques; programming languages (Java, rule-based languages such as CLIPS, Lisp or Prolog); semantic markup languages (XML, RDF). Knowledge of interoperability standards (CORBA, OKBC), of HTML, and application development skills (requirements engineering, knowledge acquisition, and system implementation) will also be assets for these positions. 

The AKT research will be based in the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI) and the Institute for Representation and Reasoning within the Division of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Formed in August 1998, the Division brought together the former Departments of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Computer Science with their associated institutes, including AIAI. The Division possesses a combination of breadth and strength unparalleled elsewhere in the UK and competitive world-wide.

AIAI was formed in 1984, and has a strong international reputation for technology transfer and applied research, because it has been at the forefront of researching and developing commercially viable applications of AI technology.AIAI has worked, and continues to work, in the areas of Knowledge Engineering, Knowledge Based Planning and Scheduling, Enterprise Modelling, and Intelligent Documents.

The Institute for Representation and Reasoning performs fundamental research in Software Systems and Processes; Approximate and Qualitative Reasoning; and Mathematical Reasoning. This Institute continues much of the highly-regarded research that was carried out by the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh.

Closing date for applications: July 31st, 2000. Interviews will be held in mid-August, 2000.

This post is open to internal and external applicants.

Further particulars for this post, including a description of the AKT programme, can be found on the Web at http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/akt/.Informal enquiries can be sent to Austin Tate <a.tate@ed.ac.uk>, David Robertson <d.robertson@ed.ac.uk> or John Kingston <j.kingston@ed.ac.uk>.By telephone, ring +44 (0)131 650 2732 

Further particulars and application packs should be obtained from PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT, 9-16 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1HT. Tel: +44 131 650 2511 (24 hour answering service) or email: personnel@ed.ac.uk quoting reference number 306555.Information regarding this appointment can also be found at www.personnel.ed.ac.uk/recruit.htm.

AIAI has had a number of recent grant successes in its primary work areas, and will be recruiting further staff over the next few months to work on projects applying knowledge based technology to multimedia databases, coalition planning & process management, divorce law, criminal law and forensic statistics. We are particularly interested to hear from applicants whose skills or interests include one of these areas as well as knowledge technologies and programming techniques.