Cyber Valley Journalist-in-Residence Program

What does the buzzword "arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence" actu­ally mean? And what impact do machine learn­ing and neur­al net­works have?

Good sci­ence journ­al­ism has the oppor­tun­ity to update out­dated ideas and provide guid­ance on new and future risks and oppor­tun­it­ies. At the same time, machine learn­ing applic­a­tions are par­tic­u­larly use­ful for research­ing large amounts of data, for visu­al­iz­a­tions or for pat­tern recog­ni­tion. All of this can help journ­al­ists to bet­ter nav­ig­ate the digit­al­ized (sci­entif­ic) world and pro­duce high­er qual­ity sci­ence journ­al­ism. The RHET AI Cen­ter offers the "Cyber Val­ley Journ­al­ist-in-Res­id­ence Pro­gram" to meet both of these challenges.

What do we offer?

Journ­al­ists are offered three to six months of paid time with cre­at­ive free­dom to research a self-chosen research ques­tion and imple­ment­a­tion of own pro­ject ideas — if chosen in exchange with AI research­ers of vari­ous dis­cip­lines. Dur­ing their stay, Journ­al­ists-in-Res­id­ence not only have the oppor­tun­ity to get to know the basics, pos­sib­il­it­ies and lim­it­a­tions of machine learn­ing, com­puter vis­ion and robot­ics. You can also build up your own net­work of research­ers and vari­ous insti­tu­tions that deal with AI and its impact on sci­ence, busi­ness and society.

• Intro­duc­tion to the basics of machine learn­ing, com­puter vis­ion and robotics
• Oppor­tun­it­ies to build your own net­work with researchers
• Insights into the Cyber Val­ley ecosystem
• Space for cre­ativ­ity and reflec­tion on meth­ods, tools and AI-sup­por­ted journalism
• honored work contract
• Budget for own events (e.g. work­shops, expert talks, trips)
• Office and accom­mod­a­tion costs are covered

How can you apply?

Apply until Feb­ru­ary 29th, 2024 with a cov­er let­ter, CV and an idea paper.

Inter­ested media rep­res­ent­at­ives can apply with a cov­er let­ter, a CV and an idea paper via email to the Uni­ver­sity of Tübingen's Pub­lic Engage­ment Man­ager, Patrick Klü­gel. The two-page idea paper should illus­trate which journ­al­ist­ic chal­lenge is to be solved dur­ing the stay with regard to the top­ic of AI or with the help of AI. Please also indic­ate the peri­od dur­ing which you would like to take up the offer. The call for applic­a­tions is expressly aimed at per­man­ent and freel­ance journ­al­ists. The renu­mer­a­tion via a con­tract for work is based on TV‑L E13. The stay can be com­pleted part-time. The selec­tion decision will be made by a jury by the begin­ning of April 2024.

Fur­ther inform­a­tion on the call for applic­a­tions and the pro­cess of the Cyber Val­ley Journ­al­ist-in-Res­id­ence Pro­gram sum­mar­ized in this doc­u­ment (DE).

Project partners

The pro­gram is fun­ded by the Volk­swa­gen Found­a­tion through the Cen­ter for Rhet­or­ic­al Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion on Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (RHET AI).