The KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus announces one (1) Special Scientist for Research (Research Engineer or Research Associate) position, for full-time employment. The successful candidate will undertake research, development, and implementation tasks related to AI-powered and cybersecurity-aware tools for content creation, moderation, analytics, and reporting. The role will combine artificial intelligence, data analytics, and cybersecurity to support trustworthy, secure, and resilient digital systems.

Who we are:
The KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence is the largest research center of its kind in Cyprus and one of Europe’s leading Centers of Excellence. It combines world-class academic research with real-world application through its innovation-driven environment. Currently, the Center employs more than 200 people who are supported by externally funded research and innovation projects and has strong international collaborations, translating advanced research into impactful solutions. The KIOS CoE operates in a diverse environment as an equal opportunity employer.
The Center is internationally recognized, receiving significant national and international awards and distinctions such as ERC Grants from the European Council, an IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Technical Field Award, Digital Water Award 2024 by Water Europe, multiple National New Researcher of the Year Awards, National Innovation & Entrepreneurship Awards, and several Best Paper Awards in top-tier international conferences and journals.

What we do:
KIOS provides an inspiring environment for carrying out top level research and innovation in the area of Information and Communication Technologies, with emphasis on the Monitoring, Control and Security of Critical Infrastructures. Such infrastructures include power and energy systems, water networks, transportation networks, telecommunication networks and emergency management and response. The Center instigates interdisciplinary interaction and promotes collaboration between industry, academia, and research organizations in high-tech areas of global importance.

Why work at KIOS:
You will contribute to high-profile projects, both locally and globally, with opportunities to publish in top-tier journals and conferences, grow professionally, and take ownership in a dynamic, intellectually rigorous environment. You will collaborate closely with leading academics and multidisciplinary teams, advancing cutting-edge research and translating it into real-world deployments across critical infrastructure systems, while seeing your work delivering tangible impact on today’s most important challenges. We offer a flexible and supportive environment, along with opportunities for continuous training and professional development.

Job Details
The successful candidate is expected to:
• Design, develop, and evaluate AI-based tools for digital content generation, summarization, personalization, and automated editing, while incorporating cybersecurity considerations to ensure secure, trustworthy, and resilient content workflows.
• Develop AI-driven analytics and reporting tools to extract insights from content, user activity, platform data, system logs, and security-related events.
• Investigate and develop AI-based approaches for cybersecurity-related functions, including anomaly detection, risk identification, malicious content detection, misinformation detection, abuse detection, threat monitoring, and the identification of suspicious patterns in digital platforms or data streams.
• Design, train, fine-tune, test, and validate machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and generative AI models.
• Collect, clean, annotate, structure, and analyze datasets required for AI model development and evaluation, including text data, metadata, user interaction data, moderation logs, security logs, cyber incident data, and other structured or unstructured data sources.
• Support the integration of AI models and tools into operational platforms and research demonstrators, including APIs, databases, cloud services, dashboards, and secure deployment environments.
• Contribute to technical reports, project deliverables, publications, and proposals.
• Participate in project meetings, collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, and travel as required.

Profile of the ideal candidate:
• Attention to detail
• Problem solving skills
• Analytical skills
• Team-player
• Reliable and trustworthy
• Flexible and eager to learn
• Able to adapt in a fast-paced dynamic environment
• Have good communication, organizational and self-management skills
• Excellent knowledge of the English language

The required skills and expertise for the announced position include the following:
• Strong knowledge of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and data-driven modelling techniques, with the ability to apply them to content generation, analytics, moderation, and cybersecurity-related challenges such as anomaly detection, risk identification, and threat monitoring.
• Strong programming skills and software development skills, preferably in Python.
• Knowledge of model evaluation techniques and metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, robustness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety, reliability, security, and responsible AI principles.
• Ability to develop and evaluate AI-based software prototypes, including content creation tools, moderation tools, analytics dashboards, reporting systems, cybersecurity-aware applications, or integrated research demonstrators.
• Ability to contribute to scientific publications, technical reports, project deliverables, documentation, presentations, and proposals, and to work effectively with multidisciplinary teams, stakeholders, and external partners.

The desired skills and expertise for the announced position include one or more of the following:
• Ability to develop and evaluate AI-based moderation tools for detecting harmful, inappropriate, misleading, biased, offensive, malicious, or policy-violating content, including phishing, scams, misinformation, abuse, cyber-related threats, and suspicious digital behaviour.
• Experience in data analytics and reporting, including data processing, visualization, dashboards, automated reporting, trend analysis, anomaly detection, or insight generation from structured and unstructured data.
• Experience with responsible, trustworthy, and secure AI, including fairness, transparency, explainability, privacy, safety, robustness, risk assessment, and ethical AI deployment.
• Experience with AI/ML frameworks and deployment tools, such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, Hugging Face, LangChain, cloud platforms, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, APIs, databases, or MLOps pipelines.
• Experience with analytics, visualization, or monitoring platforms, such as Power BI, Tableau, Plotly Dash, Streamlit, Grafana, or similar tools.
• Experience in multilingual AI applications, especially for Greek and English language content, or in user-facing AI systems such as dashboards, web applications, decision-support tools, or content management systems.
• Experience with European or national research projects, including technical reporting, project deliverables, stakeholder engagement, proposal preparation, or scientific publications.

Qualifications and Experience:
• Bachelor’s or/and Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Doctorate degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Data Science, Cybersecurity or a related field from an accredited institution (necessary for the Research Associate position while in the case of the Research Engineer position will be considered as an advantage).
• Postdoctoral or equivalent research experience in AI, generative AI, data analytics, cybersecurity, content moderation, responsible AI, or trustworthy digital systems (applicable for the Research Associate position).
• Experience with generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), including techniques such as text generation, summarization, semantic search, information extraction, sentiment analysis, topic modelling, prompt engineering, and multilingual content analysis.
• Experience in developing, training, testing, and evaluating AI models for real-world applications, including content generation, information retrieval, multilingual processing, and AI-driven security or risk detection tasks.
• Experience in developing AI prototypes, APIs, data pipelines, dashboards, and integrated software tools, while considering secure software development, cloud deployment, databases, containerization, MLOps, and system integration.

Employment Terms:
The position is on a contract basis. Initially, a one-year contract will be offered, with a 6-month probation period, which is renewable based on performance. The gross monthly salary depends on the candidate’s qualifications and experience and will be between €1900 – €2700 for Research Engineer, and between €2300 – €3500 for Research Associate. From this amount, employee contributions to the Cyprus government funds will be deducted. A 13th salary bonus is incorporated in the monthly salary. Maternity leave will be granted based on Maternity Protection Law 1997(Ν.100(Ι)/1997), and the existing amendment laws.

Application:
Interested candidates should submit the following items online through the link:
https://applications.ucy.ac.cy/recruitment
• Cover letter explaining the interest of the applicant in pursuing a career at the KIOS CoE, along with employment availability date, in English
• Short summary of prior work experiences, activities and accomplishments (can be combined with the cover letter), in English (2 pages maximum)
• A detailed curriculum vitae in English
• Copies of transcripts of BSc/MSc/PhD or other degree(s)
• Copy of an English language certificate (if any of your degrees were taught in English, this will be considered equivalent to an English language certificate)
• Contact details of at least two referees that can provide reference letters

The applications should be submitted as soon as possible, but not later than Friday, 24th of July 2026, at 5 pm. The evaluation of the applications will begin immediately. At least the best three candidates that satisfy the required qualifications will be interviewed by a 3-member Selection Committee. Candidates will be informed of the result of their application by the KIOS CoE.

Applicants need not be citizens of the Republic of Cyprus. Applicants should however ensure, before applying, that in case they are selected they will be residing in Cyprus on a full-time basis during the employment period and submission of application implies acceptance of this condition. The employment of persons who have reached the age of 65 years old, at the commencement date of employment, is prohibited.

The University of Cyprus shall collect and process your personal data according to the provisions of the General Regulation on Personal Data 2016/679 (EU).

The University of Cyprus (UCY) is committed to promoting inclusivity, diversity, and equality, as well as the elimination of all forms of discrimination in order to provide a fair, safe, and pleasant environment for the entire university community, where students and staff members will feel supported both in their professional and personal development, within and beyond their multiple identities. To this end, UCY seeks to create the necessary conditions that will encourage and respect diversity and ensure dignity both in the workplace and society at large. Moreover, UCY has adopted specific policies to promote equal opportunities, as well as respect and understanding of diversity, while it is committed to promoting and maintaining a working, teaching, and learning environment, free from any form of discrimination, whether direct or indirect.

For more information, please contact the KIOS Center of Excellence, by phone at +357 22893460 or via e-mail at [email protected].