PhD – Cybersecurity and Human-AI Teamwork for Critical Infrastructures – Norway

Are you motivated to take the step towards a PhD and open yourself up to exciting career opportunities? As a PhD candidate with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, you will work towards your PhD while gaining valuable experience that will equip you for a future career in higher education and research, both within and outside academia.

The position is part of the HAT-CI project (Human-AI Teamwork Framework in Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructures: Improving Resilience and Autonomy), funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) for 2025-2029.

The HAT-CI project addresses critical deficiencies in cybersecurity by developing a novel framework for human-AI collaboration in Security Operations Centres (SOCs) that protect critical infrastructures. Rather than relying solely on AI systems or exclusively human oversight, HAT-CI promotes the paradigm of adaptive and ethically grounded human-AI teams. The project addresses persistent challenges, such as high false positive rates, limited AI adaptability to constantly evolving threats, and poor context understanding, by integrating human expertise with AI capabilities.

Requirements:

• You must have a relevant master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Security, Computer Engineering or a related field. Your study programme must correspond to a Norwegian five-year programme, with 120 master’s credits. Master’s students may apply, but the master’s degree must be obtained and documented before starting the position.
• You must have a solid academic background in your previous studies and agrade pointaverage of B or higher in your master’s degree or equivalent education, accordingtotheNTNU grading scale. If you do not have letter grades in your previous studies, you must have an equally solid academic foundation. If your academic background is lower, you may consider documenting that you are particularly suited for a PhD.
• Admission to the NTNU Doctoral Programme in the relevant discipline (Cybersecurity, Computer Science or Information Security). Your qualifications and admission status must meet the requirements of the Doctoral Programme at the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.
• Proficiency in English (written and spoken): equivalent to at least level B2 of the CEFR or higher. This is essential for reading academic literature, writing research articles and participating in international collaborations.
• Strong interest and motivation in research in at least one of the following areas:
  • Cybersecurity for critical infrastructures
  • Interaction and teamwork between humans and AI
  • AI ethics and responsible AI governance
  • Human factors in cybersecurity
  • Incident response and threat detection
  • Digital sovereignty

Benefits:

The gross salary will be NOK 550,800, depending on your qualifications and seniority. A statutory contribution of 2% to the State Pension Fund is deducted from the salary.

Organisation/Company: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Research field: Computer Engineering and Information Technology.

Research profile –Early-stage researcher (R1).

Country: Norway.

Application deadline: 10 February 2026.

Further information:Euraxess.