job description
apply here:
We sincerely invite applications for a 3-year, fully funded PhD position. The research topic is “usable decentralization”, that is, making distributed and federated cloud services easy to access and use for ordinary everyday users.
Given that currently Google, Microsoft, Apple and other companies dominate centralized cloud services, our digital resilience and sovereignty are built on quite fragile foundations. By enabling non-technical users to easily set up and use decentralized clouds on so-called “nanoservers” (micro servers), our goal is to strengthen personal digital autonomy.
The main tasks of this PhD project include:
– Conducting needs analysis through online questionnaire surveys and interviews;
– Developing accessible nanoserver setup and operation prototypes (supporting both Web and mobile platforms);
– Performing longitudinal evaluation of the prototypes through long-term real-world deployments in users’ homes and offices.
offer requirements
Required qualifications:
– Experience in front-end development (preferably with capabilities in both Web and mobile development);
– Ability to conduct and analyze user research, such as online questionnaire surveys and face-to-face experiments.
Ideal / Advantageous qualifications:
– Back-end development experience (Python, Ruby, etc.);
– Linux system administration experience (deployment, network configuration, etc.);
– Experience using decentralization/self-hosted services, such as Mastodon, Nextcloud, Matrix, etc.;
– Experience with peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, such as Tor, BitTorrent, WebRTC, etc.
Eligibility requirements:
The PhD fellowship is awarded to persons who have obtained a Master’s degree. The prerequisite for receiving funding is that the candidate must register as a PhD student at the Doctoral School of Information and Communication Technology in accordance with the requirements of Ministerial Order No. 1124 of 19 September 2025 (on PhD training at universities and certain higher artistic educational institutions).
offer benefits/salary
This is a 3-year, fully funded PhD position. Employment terms comply with the Ministerial Order on Appointment of Academic Staff and the Ministerial Order on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities. Salary and employment conditions are in accordance with the collective agreement (AC agreement) between the Danish Association of Professional Employees and the Danish State.