Master Student in Computational Social Sciences and Humanities (R0)

Job Reference

123_25_CSSH_R0

Position

Master Student in Computational Social Sciences and Humanities (R0)

Data de tancament

Dimecres, 26 Febrer, 2025
Reference: 123_25_CSSH_R0
Job title: Master Student in Computational Social Sciences and Humanities (R0)

About BSC

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.

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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.

We promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, fostering an environment where each and every one of us is appreciated for who we are, regardless of our differences.

If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.

Context And Mission

The Computational Social Science and Humanities program envisions preparing the social sciences and humanities for the era of data, artificial intelligence (AI), and Exascale supercomputing. Our mission is to foster collaboration between social scientists and computer scientists, making high-performance computing (HPC) accessible to all researchers in the field. Through innovative approaches, we aim to apply social science and humanities research to contribute valuable insights for informed policymaking. In our pursuit, we focus on a wide range of key societal research areas such as Population and Household changes, Democratic Quality, Social Media, Public Opinion and Political Communication, Equity and Welfare in Education and Labor Market, legal systems and Legislation, Social-Ecology, Science of Science, and History, Archeology and Cultural Heritage. Employing a mixed of advanced statistical models, AI/Machine Learning, Large Language Models (LLMs), Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), Social Network Analysis (SNA), high-performance computational methods are applied to a wide range of large datasets from official statistics, surveys, social media, news, laws, historical archives, current data archives, archaeology data, citizens & volunteered and web-scraping data, and public administration and industry data.

We are seeking for a motivated, hard-working Master’s Students with strong skills in problem solving and data analysis to join the Computational Social Sciences group and work together with Dr. Ana Sofia Cardenal and Dr. Max Pellert to evaluate whether LLMs show the same distribution of behavioral phenotypes across contexts as humans.

Key Duties

  • perform psychometric tests of a collection of LLMs
  • correlate psychometric tests with strategies adopted when playing games such as Prisoner’s Dilemma
  • verify whether they exhibit similar correlations as humans between psychological traits and strategies, and across strategies when playing different games.

Requirements

  • Education
    • Currently enrolled in a Master’s Degree involving Complex Systems
  • Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
    • Good coding skills in Python
    • Strong interest in Data Science
    • Good knowledge in Statistics
  • Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
    • Experience working in a research team
    • Interest in Social Sciences
  • Competences
    • Fluency in English
    • Good written and verbal communication skills
    • Good problem solving skills
    • Ability to take initiatives, prioritize tasks and work under set deadlines

Conditions

  • The position will be located at BSC within the Directors Department
  • We offer a full-time contract (37.5h/week), a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures
  • Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration
  • Holidays: 23 paid vacation days plus 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement
  • Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
  • Starting date: asap

Applications procedure and process

All applications must be submitted via the BSC website and contain:

  • A full CV in English including contact details
  • A cover/motivation letter with a statement of interest in English, clearly specifying for which specific area and topics the applicant wishes to be considered. Additionally, two references for further contacts must be included. Applications without this document will not be considered.


Development of the recruitment process



The selection will be carried out through a competitive examination system ("Concurso-Oposición"). The recruitment process consists of two phases:

  • Curriculum Analysis: Evaluation of previous experience and/or scientific history, degree, training, and other professional information relevant to the position. - 40 points
  • Interview phase: The highest-rated candidates at the curriculum level will be invited to the interview phase, conducted by the corresponding department and Human Resources. In this phase, technical competencies, knowledge, skills, and professional experience related to the position, as well as the required personal competencies, will be evaluated. - 60 points. A minimum of 30 points out of 60 must be obtained to be eligible for the position.



The recruitment panel will be composed of at least three people, ensuring at least 25% representation of women.



In accordance with OTM-R principles, a gender-balanced recruitment panel is formed for each vacancy at the beginning of the process. After reviewing the content of the applications, the panel will begin the interviews, with at least one technical and one administrative interview. At a minimum, a personality questionnaire as well as a technical exercise will be conducted during the process.



The panel will make a final decision, and all individuals who participated in the interview phase will receive feedback with details on the acceptance or rejection of their profile.




At BSC, we seek continuous improvement in our recruitment processes. For any suggestions or comments/complaints about our recruitment processes, please contact recruitment [at] bsc [dot] es.
For more information, please follow this link.




Deadline

The vacancy will remain open until a suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.

OTM-R principles for selection processes

BSC-CNS is committed to the principles of the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers of the European Commission and the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment principles (OTM-R). This is applied for any potential candidate in all our processes, for example by creating gender-balanced recruitment panels and recognizing career breaks etc.
BSC-CNS is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or any other basis protected by applicable state or local law.
For more information follow this link

Application Form

please choose one of this and if needed describe the option : - BSC Website - Euraxess - Spotify - HiPeac - LinkedIn - Networking/Referral: include who and how - Events (Forum, career fairs): include who and how - Through University: include the university name - Specialized website (Metjobs, BIB, other): include which one - Other social Networks: (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube): include which one - Other (Glassdoor, ResearchGate, job search website and other cases): include which one
Please, upload your CV document using the following name structure: Name_Surname_CV
Els fitxers han de ser de menys de 3 MB.
Tipus de fitxers permesos: txt rtf pdf doc docx.
Please, upload your CV document using the following name structure: Name_Surname_CoverLetter
Els fitxers han de ser de menys de 3 MB.
Tipus de fitxers permesos: txt rtf pdf doc docx zip.
Please, upload your CV document using the following name structure: Name_Surname_OtherDocument
Els fitxers han de ser de menys de 10 MB.
Tipus de fitxers permesos: txt rtf pdf doc docx rar tar zip.
** Consider that the information provided in relation to gender and nationality will be used solely for statistical purposes.