The FAIR Programme is an academic industrial collaboration which aims to develop an actionable framework for trustworthy and reliable AI adoption at scale within the Financial Services industry. We are aiming to do this by tackling three key challenges:
- Development of robust AI assurance frameworks, including the design and testing of AI assurance methods to assess the robustness, explainability, fairness or privacy of AI systems. This includes contributing to the development of auditable validation tools and scalable frameworks that can be adapted across a wide range of AI use cases, from time series forecasting to anomaly detection.
- The advancement of AI-powered financial crime detection, including early-warning systems capable of detecting emerging financial threats. Collaborating with data scientists, financial crime analysts, and regulators, the candidate will use real-world transactional data (where permitted) to design innovative AI models that enhance resilience while minimising bias and unintended harms.
- Design and Development of Trustworthy Agentic Workflows, focused on reinforcement learning optimisation, supervised fine-tuning, RLHF and alignment, uncertainty quantification and LLM-as-judge evaluations.
Find out more: FAIR: Framework for responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in the financial services industry.
ROLE PURPOSE
The FAIR Programme is inviting early-career researchers to pitch short-term research projects of three to five months that advance one or more of the challenge areas set out above. This is an opportunity to lead a focused piece of work of your own design, supported by FAIR’s research community, and to contribute to the programme’s mission to become the trusted authority on AI innovation within the financial services sector. As the successful candidate, you will:
- Pitch a focused project: Use your covering letter to set out a short-term project within one or more of FAIR’s challenge areas: AI assurance, AI-powered financial crime detection, or trustworthy agentic workflows. Tell us the research question, your proposed approach, the deliverables you envisage and a realistic timeline. Shortlisted candidates will be asked to present their pitch at interview.
- Deliver within a fixed timeframe: All projects must be completed, and all deliverables submitted, by no later than 31 March 2027. No funding is available beyond this date, so your plan must account for every envisaged output within that window, including publications, code, reports and any conference travel or attendance. Projects can start as soon as possible, and proposed durations should reflect the time available before this date.
- Conduct rigorous research: Develop, implement and evaluate novel methods, models or tools in areas such as reinforcement learning, anomaly detection, privacy, robustness, uncertainty quantification and the evaluation of AI agents.
- Collaborate with a world-class team: Work alongside researchers at the Alan Turing Institute and FAIR’s partner universities (Edinburgh, Oxford, UCL, Cambridge and Warwick), and engage with industry partners to test your work against real-world financial services challenges.
HOW YOU WILL MAKE AN IMPACT
- Scope, pilot and deliver high quality research activity under the direction of the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigators.
- Drive collaboration with academic experts and industrial research partners from across the Turing and the wider Turing community
- Publish and disseminate high-quality research papers and publications detailing research output and project case-studies.
- Work with industrial partners to design and test technical solutions to key challenges in AI governance, and operationalisation.
- Become part of the broader FAIR Programme team.
- Present, disseminate and explain technical topics to colleagues, external partners, and broader community by preparing and presenting reports, blog posts, organising and delivering presentations, and taking an active role in meetings and discussions. Act as an advocate for the programme’s brand and outputs.
- Continuously update your knowledge concerning AI in Financial Services, including staying up to date with the news, emerging policy, and regulation.
- Work collaboratively with a team of research associates focused on fundamental research in each of the themes of FAIR and develop responsible AI tools and techniques through the FAIR framework.
- Develop documentation and manuscripts explaining research outputs for commercial partners and test outputs on use cases provided by partners.
- Contribute to the life of the Institute and support its community.
ABOUT YOU
- Associate level: PhD in Mathematics, Computer Science or a closely related discipline.
- Research Assistant level: Near completion of a PhD or equivalent level of professional qualification in Mathematics, Computer Science or closely related discipline.
- A solid background in one or more of the following: (multiagent) reinforcement learning, bandit methods, anomaly detection, privacy, robustness,uncertainty quantification, quantitative finance.
- Understanding of the technical challenges facing financial services in the operationalisation of AI, including generative AI.
- Experience in design, development and implementation of research software tools and libraries, such as Python, Java, GPU programming (Tensorflow, PyTorch, etc), symbolic verification (SAT, SMT)
- Track record of the ability to initiate, develop and deliver high quality research aligned with the research strategy indicated by the PI and any industrial stakeholders and to publish in peer reviewed journals and conferences.
- Track record of outstanding research and in delivering impact appropriate to career stage
- Experience in publishing research papers, reports for industry and the general public, code libraries or technical reports and giving presentations or classes on technical subjects for non-technical audiences.
- Commitment to EDI principles and to the Organisation values
Please see the Job Description for a full breakdown of the role and person specification
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form including your CV and covering letter. If you have questions about the role or would like to apply using a different format, please contact us at [email protected].
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This post is offered on a fixed-term basis until 31 March 2027. Full-time and Part-time applications will be considered. The annual salary range is £46,000 - £52,494 (pro-rated to working hours) plus excellent benefits, including flexible working and family friendly policies, Employee-only benefits guide | The Alan Turing Institute
Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as Research Assistant at a salary of £43,445 (pro-rated to working hours) per annum.
EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
We value diversity of background, experience, and perspective, and are proud to be an inclusive employer. We warmly encourage applications from all backgrounds, particularly from groups currently under-represented in our sector. If you feel passionate about this role but don’t meet every single requirement, please apply – we recognise that great candidates may bring strengths beyond the criteria listed.
We are committed to making sure our recruitment process is accessible and inclusive. This includes making reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability or long-term condition. Please contact us at [email protected] to advise us how we can assist you.
Please note all offers of employment are subject to obtaining and retaining the right to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check. Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [email protected].