1 (one) Scientific initiation fellowship for student enrolled in a cycle of studies leading to a Bachelor (BII), area Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (ref.ª HORUSNEXTGEN_USc2)

University of Beira Interior; Portugal; On-site; EUR 7,800 - 8,900; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Monthly maintenance allowance

Personal accident insurance

Job summary

The University of Beira Interior invites applications for a one-year Scientific Initiation Fellowship for a student enrolled in a Bachelor degree in Computer Science. The project HORUS NEXTGEN aims to generate realistic synthetic data for the offender management system, ensuring data protection compliance.

The fellowship starts January 2027 and runs through 30 June 2027, with potential renewal. It offers a monthly maintenance allowance and insurance coverage.

Qualifications

• Be enrolled in a study program leading to a Bachelor degree in Computer Science.
• English language proficiency sufficient for academic work.
• Ability to conduct independent literature review and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Develop and validate methods for generating synthetic data for the offender management system.
• Document, version and deliver datasets with quality and privacy considerations.
• Collaborate with project teams and contribute to API-based data delivery.

Skills

English proficiency

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

Organisation/Company University of Beira Interior Department Informatics Research Field Other Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions Undergraduate Positions Application Deadline 23 Nov 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/London) Country Portugal Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 35 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Reference Number HORUSNEXTGEN_USc2 Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

A call is open for the allocation of 1 (one)Scientific initiation fellowship for student enrolled in a cycle of studies leading to a Bachelor (BII), within the Research Project entitled HORUS 360IOMS NEXTGEN -Next Generation Intelligent Offender Management System , operation code COMPETE2030-FEDER-01316200 (n.º 17739), funded by COMPETE 2030 Programme through the Portugal 2030 and the European Union, taking place at the Computer Science Department of the University of Beira Interior, under the following conditions:

Research Field: Artificial Intelligence and Data Science

Objectives:

The goal of this activity is to develop and validate methods for generating realistic synthetic data for the offender management system (OMS) of the HORUS AI platform. Since real prison system data are highly sensitive and subject to restricted access, synthetic datasets will be created that reproduce the structure, business rules and statistical distributions of OMS records without containing any real personal information. These datasets will support the development, training and evaluation of the platform’s AI components, namely the large language model, the AI agents and the vehicle mobility interface, ensuring their quality and usefulness and compliance with data protection requirements.

Work plan:

• Activity T1 focuses on Domain Modelling and Synthetic Data Generation. The main focus is to faithfully represent the entities and processes of the offender management system. This step consists of modelling the main OMS entities, such as fictitious individual case files, measures and sentences, incidents, internal movements, transports and rehabilitation programmes, as well as the relationships and consistency rules between them. Actions include developing rule-based and statistical data generators capable of producing event sequences that are coherent over time, and using language models to generate free-text documents, such as reports and incident records, in a controlled way and without using any real personal data.
• Activity T2 addresses the Quality, Privacy and Delivery of Synthetic Data, focusing on the reliability and reusability of the generated data. The goal is to ensure that the datasets are useful for developing and evaluating the platform’s AI components. The work involves defining statistical fidelity and utility metrics, comparing the performance of models trained on synthetic data on reference tasks, and verifying the absence of personal information and the risk of re-identification. It also includes documenting, versioning and delivering the datasets through a catalogue and application programming interfaces (APIs) for the other project teams.

Applicable legislation and regulations:

Research Fellowship Holder Statute, approved by Law No. 40/2004, of 18 August, in its current wording (amended by Decree-Law No. 123/2019, of 28 August); Regulation for Research Studentships and Fellowships of the Foundation for Science and Technology (Regulation No. 950/2019) published in the Diário da República, 2nd series, No. 241, 16 December 2019; Regulation for Research Fellowships of the University of Beira Interior - RBIUBI (Regulation No. 100/2020) published in the Diário da República, 2nd series, n.º 27, 7 February 2020.

Work location:

The work will be developed at the HULTIG, Computer Science Departmentunder the scientific supervision of Doctor Sebastião Pais ( [e-mail] ).

Fellowship duration and conditions:

The fellowship expected to start in January 2027 will run until 30 June 2027 (the project’s end date) and may, if necessary, be renewed, subject to approval of an extension to the project’s end date. The activity is in the regime of exclusive dedication in accordance with the RBIUBI.

Selection Committee: Applications will be assessed by a panel as follows:

Documents for application: The candidates should present:

. Detailed Curriculum Vitae;

. Certificate of completion of the previous degree;

.Other documents considered relevant;

. Declaration of honor from the candidate stating that he/she meets the conditions for being awarded the scholarship BII according to Article 5 of the RBIUBI.

Publication/notification of results:

The final results of the evaluation process will be published in a sorted list, by the final classification obtained, and posted in a visible and public place of the Faculty of Engineeringof the University of Beira Interior. The candidate(s) will be notified of the decision by e‑mail.

Requirements

Research Field Other Education Level Undergraduate

Skills/Qualifications

- Be enrolled in a study program leading to a Bachelor degree in the scientific field of Computer Science

BIIs can only be awarded to those who do not exceed, with the conclusion of the fellowship contract in question, including any renewals, an accumulated period of one year in this type of fellowship, followed or interpolated.

The proof of registration in the 1st cycle is required for the fellowship contractualization.

Languages ENGLISH Level Good

Internal Application form(s) needed

A monthly maintenance allowance will be granted in accordance with the Annex I of the RBIUBI, with the amount of 701,12€ according to the updated values that can be consulted at https://www.fct.pt/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Tabela-de-Valores-SMM-2026.pdf . The fellowship holder will have a personal accident insurance and can choose to be covered by the voluntary social insurance. These values will be added to the amount of monthly maintenance allowance.

Eligibility criteria

- Be enrolled in a study program leading to a Bachelor degree in the scientific field of Computer Science

BIIs can only be awarded to those who do not exceed, with the conclusion of the fellowship contract in question, including any renewals, an accumulated period of one year in this type of fellowship, followed or interpolated.

The proof of registration in the 1st cycle is required for the fellowship contractualization.

Selection process

The selection process will comprise two assessment stages:

• 1ststage – Curriculum evaluation;
• 2nd stage – Interview, which may be conducted by videoconference

The 1st-stage assessment uses the following criteria: Curriculum Vitae/Academic record (45%); alignment of the candidate’s profile with the project based on relevant experience in the tasks described in the work plan (45%); fluency in spoken and written English (10%).

The three candidates with the highest scores after the 1st stage will advance to the 2nd stage.

In the final ranking, each stage will carry equal weight (50%).

Additional comments

Applicable legislation and regulations:

Research Fellowship Holder Statute, approved by Law No. 40/2004, of 18 August, in its current wording (amended by Decree‑Law No. 123/2019, of 28 August); Regulation for Research Studentships and Fellowships of the Foundation for Science and Technology (Regulation No. 950/2019) published in the Diário da República, 2nd series, No. 241, 16 December 2019; Regulation for Research Fellowships of the University of Beira Interior - RBIUBI (Regulation No. 100/2020) published in the Diário da República, 2nd series, n.º 27, 7 February 2020.

Complaint and Appeal Procedures:

After communication of the provisional lists of the results in the different phases of the selection process (Admission and Exclusion, Curricular Evaluation and Interview), the candidates have 10 working days topronounce their disagreement, under the terms of article 121 and the Código do Procedimento Administrativo . If any allegations are presented, the final decision will be issued after the analysis of the statements presented during the prior hearing of interested parties. After the statutory deadline of 10 working days, the proposal for the final classification and ranking of the candidates becomes definitive.