Student Casual – IDAI Summer Internship – Institute for Data and AI – Grade 6 – 907380 in Birmingham

Please note that this vacancy may be taken down early depending on the number of applications received. We advise you to submit your application promptly.

Our offer to you

At the University of Birmingham, Worklink is the dedicated student employment service which helps students to find flexible, well paid part-time roles that fit around your studies. Each year, the University invests more than £2.5 million to employ 3,000 of our own students in a wide range of roles, supporting our student community into part-time work. Roles available via Worklink include a range of positions, including administrative roles, support staff such as cleaners or baristas, research roles and many more.

Jobs through Worklink help you to gain work experience, develop skills relevant for your future career, and improve your soft and hard skills in a professional setting. Enhance your CV and get valuable experience ready for graduate roles and feel connected to your university and local community.

Our jobs are flexible and can be scheduled around your academic commitments, so you can focus on your studies first. Our team are passionate about supporting students into work. Worklink are based in a central location on campus which is easily accessible for students and can also be contacted online.

Find out more about working through Worklink here or via the student intranet.

Job context

The Institute for Data and AI (IDAI) promotes excellence in Data Engineering, Data Science and AI theory and practice, ensuring their co-evolution and competent adoption across disciplines to enable transformative, interdisciplinary, impactful data-intensive research. The Institute brings together researchers and educators from across the University around a shared ambition to address grand societal challenges through open collaboration across disciplinary boundaries.

Job summary

Large language models do not simply process text, they embed values. Yet we have little systematic evidence on what governance values AI systems hold, or what drives variation across models. This project maps the governance values of the most popular LLMs on Hugging Face and builds a dataset of model attributes to understand what shapes those values. Interns will contribute on two fronts. First, structured data completion: our existing dataset captures country of origin, licence, and regulatory flags, but many entries are incomplete.

Interns will locate missing information (model parameters, data jurisdictions, GDPR/EU AI Act mentions, usage policies, etc) through model cards, developer websites, and public documentation. Second, codebook development: interns will read model card information and help the PI design a classification scheme for governance-relevant content, for example, how models frame safety, accountability, use restrictions, and transparency commitments. The resulting dataset will form the empirical foundation of a major research grant project, with outputs including peer-reviewed publications and policy-facing findings on AI governance with direct implications for AI policy debates. Interns will gain hands-on experience in systematic content analysis, AI policy research, and interdisciplinary social science methods.

Main duties

• Collect research data; this may be through a variety of research methods, such as scientific experimentation, literature reviews, and research interviews
• Analyse research data as directed
• Present research outputs, including drafting academic publications or parts thereof, for example at seminars and as posters
• Develop or adapt techniques, models and methods
• Provide guidance as required to support staff and any students who may be assisting with research
• Deal with problems that may affect the achievement of research objectives and deadlines
• Carry out administrative tasks related directly to the delivery of the research
• Fosters a fair and equitable workplace for all staff
• Identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant university policies and procedures
• Other relevant criteria from our equality and diversity duties document.
• This role may also require the successful candidate to conduct literature reviews to map the current research landscape relevant to the project

Required knowledge, skills, qualifications & experience

• Applicants should be graduate or PhD students in political science, social science, public policy, or related field with quantitative research skills
• Practical experience of applying the relevant skills and techniques
• Ability to read and synthesise technical documentation and academic literature
• Ability to analyse information and communicate effectively
• Ability to access and organise resources successfully
• Comfortable working with structured data in spreadsheets
• Attention to detail for systematic data collection tasks
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics and duties under the Equality Act 2010. Including fostering good relations and advancing the universities Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).
• Other relevant criteria from our equality and diversity knowledge, skills and experience document.

For any informal queries, please contact Ruth Bertram (v.r.bertram@bham.ac.uk)

The University of Birmingham restricts all students to working up to 20 hours per week during term time for a maximum of 13 consecutive weeks. If your application is successful and your course does not follow the usual academic term timetable (e.g. PGT, PGR or PhD student), you and your supervisor must formally agree vacation periods if this role exceeds 20 hours per week. In addition to this, please be aware if you are an international student you will be required to apply to the Registry for the appropriate authorised absence.

You are only eligible to apply to this role if you are a current University of Birmingham student. If you are not a University of Birmingham student your application will not be considered.

To work you will need to carry out a right to work check. These checks will need to be completed prior to work commencing.

Regarding the use of AI in applications, we review hundreds of applications and shortlist candidates based on their unique perspective, motivations and potential. Cover letters generated through, or edited by, AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT or CoPilot) are easy to identify. They produce generic answers and will not score highly enough to progress. You may use AI tools for research, but all written content in your application must be your own work. Authenticity and originality are key to standing out in this process.

Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we’re unable to contact all applicants individually. You can check the progress of your application by logging into the Worklink jobs portal using the same email address you used to apply. If you haven’t heard back within six weeks of the closing date, please assume your application has been unsuccessful.