Institute for Data, Process and Knowledge Management
Part-time, 30 hours/week
Starting September 01, 2025, and ending after 4 years Do you want to dive into a state-of-the-art research on large language modeling and information retrieval? We are seeking two highly motivated prospective PhD students to join the newly established Vienna Research Group funded by WWTF and led by Dr. Svitlana Vakulenko. The objective of the group is to develop novel approaches to modeling knowledge specifically designed for use by an LLM. The group is positioned within the Institute for Data, Process and Knowledge Management, which boasts world-class excellence in reasoning, data management and knowledge representation research. We offer an environment where you can accelerate your learning outcomes, receive guidance and support to realize your full potential. The ability of Large Language Models (LLMs) to generate contextually relevant natural language responses is truly impressive and a growing number of people are using them on a regular basis to address their information needs. However, since LLMs are parametric models unlike databases they were not designed to reliably store data. While they are trained on massive amounts of textual data from the Web and are likely to pick up factual knowledge from it, their responses are, while usually fluent and grammatically correct, often not factually correct, which makes them to appear plausible and effectively deceive their users. Alternative RAG approaches that condition LLM generation on a set of retrieved search results also fail in many cases, when information needs are more complex and search results are not optimal.
What to expect
- Exciting research projects: You will be investigating and understanding the limitation of the current LLM-based approaches in the context of information retrieval applications as well as designing and evaluating novel LLM-based approaches for storing and retrieving large volumes of textual data
- Support Activities: You will be encouraged to get involved in preparing grant applications, workshop/conference organization, Bachelor and Master student supervision as well as teaching
- Teamwork: You will be collaborating with legal researchers and practitioners by testing the research prototypes within a real-world setting
- Learning from top researchers: The program will provide career development guidelines, advice and support for students with innovative business ideas, and workshops for developing presentation and other soft skills
What you have to offer
- Academic degree: You have completed a master's degree that qualifies you for enrolling in a PhD program at WU in one of the following subject areas:
- Language skills: You are fluent and able to express yourself very well in both spoken and written English
- Data skills: You have knowledge of programming languages such as Python
- Additional skills: Experience with software/research projects leveraging LLMs or other machine learning models
- Motivation: Strong motivation to conduct research in the field of knowledge representation and information retrieval, an interest in diving into the cutting-edge research and experimenting with large language models
- a CV listing all education and work experience, awards/grants, stays abroad, link to your GitHub account, workshops, hackathons, publications (if applicable);
- a letter of motivation;
- Master thesis (or pre-final draft: if your thesis is not yet finished, please, submit a statement by the thesis main supervisor confirming feasibility of finishing your degree by 1st September 2025)
- the names and email addresses of two references who can provide letters of recommendation.
What we offer you
- Inspiring campus life with over 2,400 employees in research, teaching, and administration and approximately 21,500 students
- A modern campus with spectacular architecture in the heart of Vienna
- Excellent accessibility by public transportation
- Meaningful work in an open-minded, inclusive, and family-friendly environment
- Flexible working hours
- A wide range of benefits, from an in-house medical officer to athletic activities and a meal allowance to a variety of employee discounts
The minimum monthly gross salary amounts to €2.786,10 (14 times per year). This salary may be adjusted based on job-related prior work experience. In addition, we offer a wide range of attractive social benefits.
Do you want to join the WU team?
Then please submit your application by July 09, 2025 (ID 2481).
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
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