Technician – Stakeholder Engagement Expert in COMPASS-AI

Universitat de Barcelona; España; On-site; EUR 21,000 - 25,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working hours

Telework possibilities

Job summary

Universitat de Barcelona invites applications for a Technician – Stakeholder Engagement Expert to contribute to ELSI work within COMPASS-AI. The role focuses on qualitative research, stakeholder engagement, and science communication to translate social and ethical insights into practical guidelines for AI in healthcare.

The successful candidate will work in an international, multidisciplinary environment, with flexible hours and potential telework.

Qualifications

• MSc or equivalent in a relevant field (social sciences, humanities, bioethics, public health, or related).
• Experience conducting research with or about people using qualitative methods (interviews, focus groups, participatory approaches).
• Familiarity with ELSI questions in digital health/AI or strong interest in these topics.
• Ability to synthesize literature and translate evidence into accessible outputs.
• Strong science communication skills, written and oral, for specialist and non-specialist audiences.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; able to work in international, multicultural teams.

Responsibilities

• Organise and analyse online focus groups with clinicians, developers, patients, and ethicists; support Delphi surveys.
• Explore socio-ethical implications of AI in healthcare and related topics.
• Contribute to ethics-by-design toolkits (codes of conduct, templates, disclosures).
• Support dissemination activities; translate findings for policymakers, clinicians, and the public.
• Collaborate with COMPASS-AI partners and present insights to diverse stakeholders.

Skills

Qualitative research

Stakeholder engagement

Science communication

Interdisciplinary collaboration

English proficiency

Education

MSc or equivalent in a relevant field

Job description

Organisation/Company Universitat de Barcelona Department OPIR Research Field Anthropology Ethics in health sciences Sociology Medical sciences Other Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions Master Positions Application Deadline 18 Nov 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/Madrid) Country Spain Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Part-time Hours Per Week 20 Offer Starting Date 9 Dec 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Horizon Europe (other) Reference Number Nº GA 101233553 - EU4Health Programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

We offer an exciting Technician – Stakeholder Engagement Expert position at the Universitat de Barcelona within the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Lab (BCN-AIM). We are looking for someone to contribute to the ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Social Implications) work within COMPASS-AI, a EU4Health initiative in to develop guidance for the safe and trustworthy deployment of AI in clinical practice.

This role sits at the intersection of evidence synthesis, stakeholder engagement, and science communication and focus on exploring the social, ethical, and implementation dimensions of AI in healthcare through qualitative and mixed-methods research, participatory work with diverse stakeholders (clinicians, patients, developers, regulators), and translation of findings into practical materials and policy recommendations.

Key responsibilities:

• Stakeholder Engagement and Qualitative Research: Organise, conduct, and analyse four online focus groups with clinicians, developers, patients, and ethicists, and support the design, running, and analysis of a Delphi survey to prioritise requirements and identify consensus on safeguards.
• ELSI Research: Assist in exploring the socio-ethical implications of multi-agent generative AI, including inequality of access, social trust, power dynamics, the patient–clinician relationship, informed consent, overreliance, and deskilling, alongside fairness, transparency, accountability, human oversight, and patient safety.
• Ethics-by-Design Toolkits: Contribute to the development of ethics-by-design toolkits (codes of conduct, consent templates, disclosurepractices, unsafe-use warnings) that help technical and clinical teams embed socio-ethical safeguards in agent design, testing, and evaluation.
• Science Communication and Dissemination: Participate in consortium meetings and contribute to dissemination activities, making complex findings accessible to a wide range of audiences including policymakers, clinicians, and the general public.
• Consortium Collaboration: Work closely with multidisciplinary partners across the COMPASS-AI consortium and present the insights of our work to partners and the wider network of collaborators.

We offer:

• A dynamic position in beautiful Barcelona and its Mediterranean climate.
• Research experience within a prestigious university (1st position in Spain).
• Cutting-edge research in AI for healthcare in one of the most dynamic research groups in Europe (10 active projects including an ERC grant).
• An international research environment with a multi-cultural team representing all continents.
• Opportunities to collaborate with international and interdisciplinary collaborators as part of the European projects.
• Flexible working hours, with possibility to telework.

The requirements for the position are:

• MSc or equivalent in a relevant field (social sciences, humanities, philosophy, anthropology, science and technology studies, health communication, bioethics, public health, or related fields)
• Experience conducting research with or about people (qualitative methods, interviews, participatory research, focus groups, or equivalent)
• Familiarity with ELSI questions in the context of digital health/AI or a strong demonstrated interest in these topics
• Ability to synthesize literature and translate evidence into accessible, actionable outputs
• Strong science communication skills: written and oral, for both specialist and non-specialist audiences
• Critical, interdisciplinary mindset and genuine curiosity about the social dimensions of technology
• Excellent English (oral and written)
• Team player, able to work independently and collaboratively in an international, multicultural environment

The research project:

COMPASS-AI is a four-year EU4Health initiative to make clinical AI safe, fair, and genuinely usable in real healthcare. Building on FUTURE-AI, the project develops FUTURE-AI 2.0: a practical, step-by-step set of deployment guidelines that translate ethical and regulatory requirements into hospital-ready processes and tools. The consortium, bringing together clinicians, data scientists, ethicists, regulators, social scientists, patient representatives, and industry, co-creates these guidelines through iterative cycles and validates them in clinical pilots across oncology, surgery, and healthcare delivery in remote or resource-limited settings. Each pilot examines workflow fit, human oversight, safety monitoring, bias and equity checks, and post-deployment governance, feeding evidence back into the next guideline iteration. The main outputs are a tested implementation toolkit (e.g., governance templates, risk/monitoring plans, change-control logs, oversight checklists), policy and governance recommendations aligned with EU frameworks, training materials for hospitals and developers, and open, evidence-based exemplars that enable trustworthy AI adoption across European health systems.

The Group:

The successful candidate will join the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Lab, which is an integral part of the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. It is a young and dynamic research lab, highly active in international projects, and composed of >30 enthusiastic academics, researchers, students and research managers, with expertise in data science, machine/deep learning, biomedical informatics, trustworthy AI, and health-related applications. The research group has an established track record in coordination and participation in European and international projects (18 projects, > 12 million Euros over the last 5 years) in biomedical data science and medical AI (e.g. EuCanImage, euCanSHare, EarlyCause, LongITools, HealthyCloud, RadioVal, DataTools4Heart, Youth-GEMs, HappyMums, AIMIX, AI4HF, YOUTHreach, DVPS, AIXPERT, AFRICAI-RI, AIFIX, STAGE).

The Institution:

The University of Barcelona (UB), founded in 1450, is one of the oldest universities in Spain. It comprises a student body of 84,370 and 4,548 research staff members. With 73 undergraduate programs, 273 graduate programs and 48 doctorate programs, UB is the largest university in Barcelona and Catalonia. The UB is ranked the first Spanish university according to several rankings (QS World University Rankings 2018, ARWU/Shanghai Ranking 2018). It is particularly interested in fostering international relations and, for many years, has managed an average of 150 European projects per year. Since January 2010, Universitat de Barcelona is part of the prestigious League of European Universities Research (LERU).

Gross salary per year: 22.779,26 €.

The application period is from 5 to 18 November 2026, both inclusive.

• Master's degree or equivalent in social sciences, humanities, STS, bioethics, health communication, public health, or a related field
• Ability to manage a varied workload and meet deadlines with minimal supervision
• People skills to communicate and engage with diverse collaborators and audiences
• Strong science communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage and build relationships with diverse stakeholder groups
• Ability to work in international, multicultural, and interdisciplinary environments
• Good team spirit and active participation in the life of the lab

Specific Requirements

• Experience conducting empirical research with or about people (qualitative methods, focus groups, interviews, participatory approaches, or consensus methods)
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize information and produce clear, accessible outputs
• Experience or strong interest in socio-ethical questions related to digital health, AI, or emerging technologies, and in translating outputs into practical design requirements
• Critical, questioning mindset with comfort with ambiguity, ability to challenge assumptions and bridge disciplinary perspectives
• Genuine curiosity about the social and ethical impacts of AI in healthcare

Languages ENGLISH Level Excellent

Research Field AnthropologyEthics in health sciencesSociologyMedical sciencesOther Years of Research Experience 1 - 4

Additional Information

Eligibility criteria

The selection is made through the evaluation of the curriculum, with an overall score of zero (0) to ten (10) points. The minimum score is five (5) points. The evaluation criteria are the following:

- Suitability of the candidate to the main function to be carried out

- Curricular experience

- Professional knowledge and skills

The tribunal, in its constitutive session, assesses the CVs of the candidates presented.

Selection process

A resolution of adjudication is issued to the person who, having passed the selection procedure, obtains the highest score and publishes the prioritised list of applicants who have passed the selection process, indicating the scores obtained, for subsequent recruitment, if necessary.

Additional comments

The candidate proposed for hiring must accept the job offer within 5 working days from the date of notification of the selection.

Priority will be given to people with disabilities (Law 89/2015 of June 2, reserve of quota 2% in favour of people with disabilities in companies of 50 or more people).

Be aware that the starting date sets in this offer is an estimate date. The official starting date will depend on the bureaucratic time that will take the preparation of the labour contract and presentation of the necessary documents to be hired by the selected candidate.