Ph.D. Student in Ethics of Robotics

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label Burse autorenew 2025-09-29, 17:01 history_edu Maria Dumitru
One of departments of the Faculty is the Department of Philosophy, which specializes in research in philosophy of technology. The Department is also embedded in the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology, an international 3TU Centre of Excellence of the three philosophy departments of the technical universities in the Netherlands. The Department of Philosophy is looking for a Ph.D. Student (fulltime) in Ethics of Robotics, with a focus on Robot-Enhanced Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Job specification

This PhD position is funded by the European FP7 project “Development of Robot-Enhanced therapy for children with AutisM spectrum disorders” (acronym: DREAM). This exciting interdisciplinary, large-scale project, involving 7 European partners from Sweden, Belgium, Romania, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France, will develop next-generation robots that mediate between therapists and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in autism therapy. In this Robot-Enhanced Therapy (RET), the robots will be able to interact with the child autonomously for limited periods under the supervision of a therapist (“supervised autonomy”).

The use of robots in therapeutic contexts raises several ethical issues, such as the degree of autonomy to be given to the robot and the question if parents are happy to leave their child ‘in the hands of the robot’. The “Ethics” work package (WP) will address these ethical issues by making sure that all relevant known ethical constraints and existing laws applicable are implemented in the design process, by examining specific ethical questions raised by the interaction between child and autonomous therapeutic robots, and by investigating if and how we can build in ethical constraints into the meta-cognition level of the robot.



In addition, through close collaboration between the technical and ethical researchers and the ASD practitioners, the project will determine how to achieve the maximum impact of RET through effective integration of technology with clinical therapy practices in general.

The Organisation

Within the University of Twente, the Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, which houses the department of philosophy, offers the following Bachelor programmes: Educational Science (OWK), Communication Studies (CW) and Psychology (PSY), and the following Master programmes: Educational Science and Technology (EST), Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society (PSTS), Communication Studies (CS), Psychology (PSY) and two Masters for Teachers.

Most of the faculty’s research is carried out within the Institute for Governance Studies (IGS) and focuses on the themes Health and Safety, Labor and Organization, Knowledge and Education and Communication and Media. Furthermore research is carried out within the Institute for Biomedical Technology and Technical Medicine (MIRA), The institute for nanotechnology (MESA+) and the Institute for Information and Communication Technology (CTIT).