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Interested in a multi-disciplinary Ph.D. program oriented at cutting-edge fundamental and applied research in Human-centered Artificial Intelligence and its impacts on society?

At the National Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence for Society, we value the motivation and propensity to Human-centered AI research & innovation of candidates with diverse background. Be part of the wave of change!

The call for applications 2025-2028 (41th cycle) is out!

Italian version of the call      English version of the call

44 open positions* (selection DIN_AI_01) + 1 reserved position (selection DIN_AI_02)

Deadline: 18 July 2025 h. 13:00 (Italian time).

Summary of the call and PhD program:

  • 3 year PhD program starting on 1st November 2025
  • Candidates must have completed a Master’s degree program by 31st October 2025
  • Selection is based on curriculum, research project, and interview
  • Selected candidates will work on the topic and at the location of the scholarship assigned
  • Scholarships are about 1,200 euros net per month
  • PhD students have a research budget of about 11,000 euros over the three years
  • Training activities and Ph.D. timeline are planned for all Ph.D. students

Summary of the scholarships and scientific reference:

  • Financing institution: Università di Pisa  Location: Pisa
    • 1 scholarship with open topic, ref.: Salvatore Ruggieri
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Designing neural networks that learn in time through a dynamical systems perspective“, ref.: Davide Bacciu
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Design and Usage of Foundation Model-based Approaches and LLM-based Methods for Mining Interpretable Models“, ref.: Riccardo Guidotti
    • 2 scholarships on the topic “Human centered AI in online content moderation“, ref.: Anna Monreale and Stefano Cresci
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Trustworthy AI for Personalized Neurorehabilitation: Adaptive Models for Clinical and Home-based Scenarios“, ref.: Giuseppe Prencipe
    • 3 scholarships on the topic “Continual, Decentralized Compositionality and Orchestration of Foundation Models for Sustainable Artificial Intelligence“, ref.: Vincenzo Lomonaco
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Deep learning approaches for the design of photoenzymes“, ref.: Benedetta Mennucci
  • Financing institution: Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo” (ISTI) – CNR  Location: Pisa
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Refinement of dynamic large-scale Cultural Heritage and Scholarly Knowledge Graphs“, ref.: Alessia Bardi
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Neuro-symbolic Reasoning and Learning“, ref.: Umberto Straccia
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “AI for 3D data generation, processing, and design“, ref.: Paolo Cignoni
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “AI-Driven Biomechanical Analysis for Personalized Training“, ref.: Filippo Palumbo
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “AI-Powered IoT Technologies for User Localization and Environmental Monitoring“, ref.: Michele Girolami
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Artificial Intelligence and its ethical implications“, ref.: Roberto Trasarti
  • Financing institution: Scuola Normale Superiore  Location: Pisa
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Methods for trustworthy, human-centered, explainable AI and their application to understanding and predicting complex phenomena at the individual and social scales in domains characterized by human-machine collaboration“, ref.: Fosca Giannotti
  • Financing institution: Istituto di informatica e telematica (IIT) – CNR  Location: Pisa
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Decentralized Federated Continual Learning in Dynamic Systems“, ref.: Chiara Boldrini
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Generative AI for Mobile and Digital health“, ref.: Franca Delmastro
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Private Quantum Machine Learning“, ref.: Claudio Cicconetti
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Network Intelligence in 6G networks“, ref.: Raffaele Bruno
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Leveraging Large Language Models for Accurate and Efficient Information Extraction and Analysis“, ref.: Maurizio Tesconi
  • Financing institution: Gran Sasso Science Institute  Location: L’Aquila
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Individual ethics of users and interactions with digital systems’ ethics“, ref.: Paola Inverardi
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Adaptive autonomous systems with respect to individual user ethics“, ref.: Paola Inverardi
  • Financing institution: Scuola IMT “Alti Studi”   Location: Lucca
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Complex Networks: statistical physics meets machine learning”, ref.: Diego Garlaschelli
  • Financing institution: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna  Location: Pisa
    • 2 scholarships on the topic “AI, Statistics, Computer Science and Engineering for methodological research driven by big data with applications in Economics, Management and Law“, ref.: Francesca Chiaromonte, Andrea Vandin
    • 2 scholarships on the topic “Scientific Machine Learning for Urban Microclimate Surrogate Modelling“, ref.: Giovanni Stabile
  • Financing institution: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore  Location: Milano
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Artificial Intelligence as System 0: Understanding and Evaluating AI as Cognitive Extension“, ref.: Giuseppe Riva
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Personalized AI in Neurorehabilitation for Cognitive and Socio-Relational Recovery“, ref.: Cinzia Di Dio
  • Financing institution: Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia  Location: Modena
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Modular Deep Learning Approaches for Human Analysis in Smart Cities“, ref.: Simone Calderara
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Versatile and Trustworthy Systems for Next-Generation Multimodal AI“, ref.: Lorenzo Baraldi
  • Financing institution: Consorzio METIS  Location: Pisa
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Design and development of AI techniques, focusing on federated learning in edge computing infrastructures for Smart Building applications“, ref.: Patrizio Dazzi
  • Financing institution: Fondazione Pisana per la Scienza  Location: Pisa
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “L’intelligenza artificiale per integrare dati multi-omici e funzionali per sviluppare modelli predittivi sul glioblastoma e ottimizzare terapie personalizzate“, ref.: Francesco Raimondi
  • Financing institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”  Location: Napoli
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Evaluating the Multilingual Capabilities of Generative Language Models: An In-Depth Analysis of the Italian language“, ref.: Johanna Monti
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Regulating Generative AI models and systems: accountability, liability and data protection“, ref.: Roberta Montinaro
  • Financing institution: Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN)   Location: Pisa, Genova
  • Financing institution: Università di Bologna “Alma Mater Studiorum” and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK)   Location: Bologna, Trento
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “AI Compliance in NLP and LLM Systems: Ensuring Fairness and Robustness“, ref.: Sara Tonelli, Michele Lombardi
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Compliance of AI algorithms in Digital Twin: Addressing Fairness and Robustness“, ref.: Roberta Calegari, Marco Pistore
  • Financing institution: Università di Bologna “Alma Mater Studiorum” and Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per l’Informatica (CINI)   Location: Bologna
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Ingegneria della Conoscenza Assistita dall’IA con Modelli Linguistici di Grandi Dimensioni“, ref.: Valentina Presutti
  • Financing institution: Università degli Studi di Messina  Location: Messina
    • 1 scholarship on the topic “Distributed Intelligence and Federated Learning in Cloud-Edge Continuum“, ref.: Massimo Villari

(*) The following additional scholarship is not listed in the call document. It will be assigned to the candidates of the selection DIN_AI_01:

  • Financing institution: Università degli Studi di Bari and Planetek Italia S.r.l.   Location: Bari
    •   1 scholarship on the topic “Large Multimodal Models for Symbiotic AI in the domain of Earth Observation“, ref.: Giovanni Semeraro