Centre for Assuring Autonomy Fellowships

What our Fellowships offer

Through our Fellowship scheme, we are inviting individuals to spend time collaborating with our world-leading researchers at the Centre for Assuring Autonomy in York: learning about the challenging task of applying safety engineering principles to autonomous systems, getting up to speed on the latest thinking in safe autonomy and safe AI, gaining insights from our research and industry-agnostic projects, and learning about the ethical and legal challenges of assuring safety.

Working with the Centre

We need help to ensure that our research concepts and industry guidance reach the right audiences, that they are fit for purpose, that we really understand and address the issues which need urgent attention and that we communicate effectively to achieve this. We want to stimulate new opportunities to work with Fellows for the long term.

Each Fellowship will be different, and previous Fellows have often used them as a catalyst to achieve meaningful change in their organisations. We hope that Fellows will contribute in one or more of the following areas:

• Reviewing existing regulations and standards
• Matching policy questions with research knowledge
• Co-authoring a briefing paper
• Liaising with policy advisors
• Assembling workshops, meetings or events
• Co-creating a research or project proposal
• Tailoring a bespoke CPD programme
• Creating and collating resources to be used by their employers
• Drafting guidance and information
• Creating resources to help manufacturers and others to meet their regulatory requirements for autonomous systems

Apply for a Fellowship

Each year we will be awarding four Fellowships. We invite applications from individuals involved in policy, regulation, certification, approval, development or deployment of autonomous systems and AI/ML in safety-critical sectors (e.g. health, transport including aerospace, automotive and maritime). Candidates should be employed by non-academic organisations, and may be based anywhere in the world. 

We ask all prospective applicants to contact a member of the Centre’s team to discuss their interest in applying, before submitting an application. We can also help by recommending the most appropriate collaborator(s) at York if the applicant does not already know who would be best-placed, and we can assist in refining the scope of the Fellowship.

The applicant should submit a single pdf file, maximum length of four A4 sides of single-spaced 11pt Arial text. The PDF file must contain the following sections:

• Applicant details: name, position, organisation, address, email address and telephone number
  Two page CV of the applicant
• Case for support covering: the aims of the Fellowship and the benefits to the applicant and to the Centre for Assuring Autonomy
• Total budget requested and justification of costs (e.g. £xx for economy flights, additional travel, visas, accommodation, subsistence (calculated on a per diem basis – the Centre Administrator can provide guidance on accommodation costs in York if required))
• Proposed dates

Assessment Criteria

Applications are assessed by the Centre’s Executive Group, who meet regularly. Outcomes will normally be communicated to applicants within one month. Proposals are assessed against the following criteria:

• Applicant profile
• Proposed contribution to the Centre
• Impact of the proposed activities