What the Challenge is funding:
Research that moves beyond today's deep learning/RL paradigms toward genuinely trustworthy cognitive AI; causal reasoning, abstraction, and planning under uncertainty. Funded projects don't just publish a paper, they build and demonstrate a working system (TRL3/4), help define new industry benchmarks for reasoning and trustworthiness, and join a wider EU-funded portfolio shaping how cognitive AI gets built and regulated across Europe.
The opportunity:
Visibility at the frontier: this is exactly the kind of work that gets cited, gets you invited to speak, and gets you noticed by labs and industry doing serious reasoning/planning research
A funded system, not a thought experiment: you're not writing a proposal that sits in a drawer; a successful award means building and demonstrating the actual architecture
Named contributor on a flagship EU AI initiative: tied to benchmark development and portfolio activities the EIC is running across all funded DeepRAP projects
A credential that compounds: EIC Pathfinder co-authorship is a strong signal on any postdoc, faculty, or industry research application going forward
What you'd do:
Co-develop the scientific narrative and technical approach for a 30-page Pathfinder proposal
Bring rigor on reasoning/abstraction/planning methodology, related work, and evaluation design
Work directly with our founding team through submission
Who we're looking for:
Research background in neuro-symbolic AI, causal inference, cognitive architectures, or deep RL/planning
Track record: publications at NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR/AAAI or equivalent, PhD in progress or completed
Based at or affiliated with a top research institution (ETH Zurich, Imperial College, EPFL, Oxford, TU Munich, etc.) EU/associated-country affiliation strongly preferred
Comfortable working fast, iteratively, with a startup team, not academic-committee pace
Skills Required
- Research background in neuro-symbolic AI, causal inference, cognitive architectures, or deep reinforcement learning and planning
- Publications at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, or equivalent venues
- PhD in progress or completed
- Based at or affiliated with a top research institution
- EU or associated-country affiliation
- Ability to work quickly and iteratively with a startup team
What We Do
VendueTech is an AI-powered B2B platform that centralizes Europe's public real estate auction data. The company simplifies and standardizes access to distressed real estate by structuring fragmented legal and court data into actionable insights. Through its product Bidsale, it provides investors with comprehensive auction timelines, real-time updates, and legal guidance to support informed investment decisions in undervalued public auction properties.
