Student Casual - IDAI Research Assistant (Creative & Cultural Digital Futures) - EPS - Grade 6 - 906653

Position Details

School or Department: Institute for Data & AI

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Grade: 6

Positions available: 1

Hourly rate: £16.69 + holiday entitlement

Casual contract from: asap

Closing date: 30/5/25

This vacancy is only open for University of Birmingham students. Please be aware that the vacancy may be taken down early dependent on the number of applications received.

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university.  We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate.  We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site.  On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham 

Background

The Institute for Data and AI (IDAI) promotes excellence in Data Engineering, Data Science and AI theory and practice, ensuring their co-evolution and competent adoption across disciplines to enable transformative, interdisciplinary, impactful data-intensive research. The Institute brings together researchers and educators from across the University around a shared ambition to address grand societal challenges through open collaboration across disciplinary boundaries.

This Research Assistant role will be working alongside researchers or research groups, to enable transformative, interdisciplinary, impactful data-intensive research, associated with the Institute’s Creative and Cultural Digital Futures research themeatic network; 

This Research Assistant role will support the launch a new Thematic Collaborative Network (TCN) called ‘Creative and Cultural Digital Futures’. 
The members of the TCN have noticed that the University has a particular strength in the fundamental linguistic and scientific research that underpins Large Language Models (LLMs). The University is also home to thought leaders in the fields of the ethics, philosophy, and culture of AI, as represented by (for example) the Centre for Digital Cultures in the Department of English Literature. We hope that the ‘Creative and Cultural Digital Futures’ TCN will enable the University to combine these two areas of strength, and take the opportunity to improve LLMs by addressing issues such as bias and monolingualism. 
We are looking for a Research Assistant who can support a project to demystify LLMs for arts and humanities researchers, identify training needs and opportunities in the College of Arts and Law (and beyond), and potentially contribute to either the coding or the conceptual design (depending on skillset) of a “NanoGPT” that would be used for engagement and with the TCN across the university, and help to build the Creative and Cultural Digital Futures TCN’s public-facing identity. 

Other duties would include conducting a review of University activity in relevant areas to the TCN; horizon scanning for opportunities relevant to our strengths; and assisting in convening an internal workshop.

Role Summary

This Research Assistant position supports the development of interdisciplinary, data-intensive research, aligned with the Creative and Cultural Digital Futures research thematic collaborative network. The role will contribute to shaping the network direction through literature review, community engagement, and exploratory technical work, including the planning of a GPT-like model (depending on skillset). The post involves convening academic collaborators, organising workshops, and identifying training needs to build capacity in digital creativity and generative AI research across the University.

Main Duties

• Undertake literature searches and review literature
• Contribute to the planning and/or coding of a GPT-like model
• Support the convening of a University-wide group to contribute to the project 
• Assist in the organization of a workshop
• Build on survey data to identify training needs an opportunities for University researchers
• Work closely with other RA and meet regularly with project leads
• Carry out administrative tasks related directly to the delivery of the research
• Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture

This role may also include the following duties;

• Collect research data; this may be through a variety of research methods, such as scientific experimentation, literature reviews, and research interviews
• Analyse research data as directed
• Present research outputs, including drafting academic publications or parts thereof, for example at seminars and as posters
• Develop or adapt techniques, models and methods
• Provide guidance as required to support staff and any students who may be assisting with research
• Deal with problems that may affect the achievement of research objectives and deadlines

Person Specification 

• Degree or equivalent in relevant subject area, e.g. Linguistics, data science, English literature, modern language, philosophy, sociology
• Basic coding experience (not essential)
• Experience of literature search and review
• Experience in organising and supporting workshops and webinars
• Ability to analyse information and communicate effectively
• Ability to access and organise resources successfully
• Capacity to work independently and as part of a small team
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day-to-day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly