The LINAS Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) seeks to develop a cohort of Doctoral Scholars who can address the implications of massive-scale data processing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for both the actual operation of algorithmically driven public decision-making in wider society, and within science and engineering.

Together the rapidly evolving approaches to data make up what have been termed ‘enigmatic technologies’, where authority is concealed behind algorithms. Within the social science domain, algorithmically driven public decision-making, challenges the role of human agency and politics, human rights law and principles of transparency and accountability. For science and engineering, there is a challenge to the traditional scientific governing principles of transparent working and reproducibility. 

LINAS brings together legal scholars, social scientists, physical scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers to develop a distinctive cohort of doctoral students working across the boundaries of their own disciplines. Our ambition is to support the development of integrated, effective, scientifically rigorous and socially responsible algorithmic solutions.

It is hosted by The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice in collaboration with the Schools of Law, Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics, History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics and Social Sciences, Education and Social Work.

The Scholarship includes:

• Full-time postgraduate research tuition fees at Standard UK Rates (not yet set for 2021/22). The standard tuition fee for 2020/21 was £4,407 for one year of study
• A maintenance award at the Research Councils UK national rate
• Research Training and Expenses
• Three or four year studentships are available 

Eligibility

Scholarships covering full tuition fees and stipend are available to UK and Republic of Ireland students.

EU and other international students (excluding Republic of Ireland nationals living in GB, NI or ROI) are very welcome to apply. Such students will be required to fund their own fees at the Queen's University Belfast international fee rate (£17.k or £21.4k per annum), but LINAS can provide both the maintenance award (approximately £15.3k per year) and a contribution to the fee of £4.5k per year.

Project priority themes are:

Artificial Intelligence, Social Justice and Public Decision-Making

• Algorithmic accountability: Public control of AI decision-making
• Legal and social-legal challenges around new technology
• AI and Humans: Reckoning and Judgement
• Fairness in Exploratory Data Analytics: The agency shift from humans to AI

Science, Governability and Society

• Robotic eyes on the sky and on earth
• ML-enhanced quantum information processing
• Numerically Robust and Reproducible Deep Learning
• Algorithmic security: Distributed Agency, Responsibility, and Governability