PhD Fellowship in Applied Information Technology: Kristiania University of Applied Sciences is offering a fully funded PhD Fellowship in Applied Information Technology at its School of Economics, Innovation, and Technology in Oslo, Norway.
This prestigious 3-year PhD position focuses on establishing software engineering foundations for LLM-enabled agentic systems, covering architecture, assurance, testing, performance trade-offs, and open-source benchmarking. The fellowship offers competitive salary and strong employment benefits under Norwegian labor regulations.
PhD Fellowship in Applied Information Technology: Software Engineering Foundations for LLM-Enabled Agentic Systems
🎓 Designation
PhD Research Fellow (Fully Funded)
PhD Programme in Applied Information Technology
🔬 Research Area
- Applied Information Technology
- Software Engineering
- Large Language Models (LLMs)
- Agentic AI Systems
- AI Architecture & Guardrails
- AI Testing & Evaluation
- MLOps & Responsible AI
📍 Location
School of Economics, Innovation, and Technology
Kristiania University of Applied Sciences
Oslo, Norway
✅ Eligibility / Qualification
Mandatory Requirements:
- Master’s degree (120 ECTS or equivalent) in a relevant discipline
- Minimum grade B or better overall and on thesis
- Thesis must be at least 30 ECTS
- Relevant Bachelor’s degree (180 ECTS)
- Strong software engineering skills (architecture, testing, CI/CD, version control)
- Advanced programming in Python (TypeScript/Java is a plus)
- Experience with ML/LLM stacks (PyTorch/Transformers)
- Experience with at least one agent framework (LangGraph, AutoGen, LangChain)
- Basic knowledge of statistics and experimental design
- Strong analytical and interdisciplinary research interest
- Proficiency in written and spoken English
Preferred Qualifications:
- Empirical research and benchmarking experience
- Familiarity with MLOps, containers, orchestration, GPUs
- Knowledge of AI compliance (GDPR/AI Act), energy/latency measurement, IoT/digital twins
Personal Qualities:
- Curiosity and independent research motivation
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
- Structured and goal-oriented work approach
🧠 Job Description
The PhD project aims to develop robust software engineering foundations for LLM-enabled agentic systems, including:
- Designing architecture and design patterns (planner–executor–critic, retrieval-first/tool-first, escalation trees)
- Developing specification and guardrail mechanisms to prevent unsafe tool use
- Creating testing methods for non-deterministic AI workflows
- Engineering policies balancing accuracy, latency, and energy efficiency
- Conducting quantitative evaluation on real-world software engineering tasks
Expected Outputs:
- Validated architectural pattern catalog
- Specification and guardrail toolkit
- Agent testing harness with coverage metrics
- Open telemetry schema and replay tool
- Public benchmark with multi-objective metrics (accuracy, robustness, safety, latency, energy/CO₂)
- Open-source artifacts and at least one industry-grade case study
💰 Benefits
- Annual salary: NOK 550,800
- NOK 50,000 per year for conferences and research expenses
- High-end laptop and equipment
- Free health insurance, travel insurance & pension plan
- 25 paid vacation days
- Fully paid parental and sick leave
- Strong Norwegian labor protections
📄 Required Documents
Applicants must submit:
- Motivation letter
- Approved diplomas and transcripts (English or Scandinavian language)
- CV
- At least two references
- Master’s thesis
- PhD project proposal (max. 4 pages / 2,000 words, excluding references)
Admission to the PhD programme is mandatory within three months of starting.
🗓 Fellowship Duration
3 years
Earliest start date: 01 September 2026
📌 How to Apply
Applications must be submitted through the official Kristiania application portal.
For more information:
- University website: https://www.kristiania.no
- PhD programme details: https://www.kristiania.no/en/research/phd
- Official vacancy link: https://www.kristiania.no/om-kristiania/ledige-stillinger/?rmpage=job&rmjob=932&rmlang=NO
Contact Persons:
- Ahmet Soylu – Dean, School of Doctoral Studies
- Asle Fagerstrøm – Head of Programme / Professor
⏳ Last Date to Apply
13 April 2026
