Grade UE07: £41,064 - £ 48,822 per annum
College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science / School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
Full-time: 35 hours per week
Fixed-term: for 24 months
The Philosophy Department in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences is seeking a full time, fixed term Postdoctoral Research Associate. This post is available from May 2026.
The Opportunity:
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The University of Edinburgh is a world-class organisation. We look for the best in the field across all disciplines and provide a working environment where academics can develop their careers and passion for their chosen subject area. We offer the full range of academic roles and have a genuine focus on our student’s performance and wellbeing.
The role:
The successful candidate will work alongside Dr Emily Sullivan as part of the ERC funded grant project Machine Learning in Science and Society: A Dangerous Toy? (TOY). The PDRA will conduct original research in philosophy of science and the philosophy of machine learning. TOY aims to conceptualize and evaluate machine learning models across science and society as a type of toy model, bridging epistemic and ethical issues in simple computational models with contemporary complex machine learning models.
This post is full-time (35 hours per week), fixed-term post for 24 months, available from 1st of May 2026.
If you are interested in this role, you may also be interested in our 36-month PDRA role working on the same project.
Application information:
Applicants should upload a cover letter into the online application portal along with a CV. These documents must be uploaded in all cases. If you are currently in the process of completing your studies/PhD programme please note any relevant timescales in your cover letter and/or CV.
In addition we ask you to submit the names of three referees who may be contacted at a later date (please note if you do not wish for anyone to be contacted until after an offer has been made).
As a School we acknowledge that people’s career paths are rarely linear and welcome applicants to expand on their professional and personal journeys where appropriate.
More information on how to submit your application can be found here.
Championing equality, diversity and inclusion:
The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.
We particularly welcome applications from eligible candidates from under-represented groups, including racially minoritised individuals and all gender identities.
The University may be able to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. This will depend on a number of factors specific to the successful applicant.
Key dates to note:
The closing date for applications is 20th April 2026.
Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone.
We aim to give successful candidates 2 weeks’ notice ahead of interviews.