European Doctoral Network on Multilingualism, Language Awareness, and Digitalization —  Applications for doctoral positions now possible

How is digit­al trans­form­a­tion chan­ging our aware­ness of lan­guage? What role do mul­ti­lin­gual­ism and lin­guist­ic diversity play in social par­ti­cip­a­tion and cohe­sion? And how can chal­lenges such as lin­guist­ic inequal­ity, bias in AI sys­tems, or the tech­no­lo­gic­al gap between resource-rich and resource-poor lan­guages be addressed?

These are the ques­tions explored by the new European doc­tor­al net­work Mul­tiLAwa (Mul­ti­lin­gual­ism and Lan­guage Aware­ness in the Digit­al Age). Fun­ded by the European Uni­on through the Mar­ie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Doc­tor­al Net­works Joint Doc­tor­ates (DN-JD) pro­gram, the pro­ject brings togeth­er lead­ing uni­ver­sit­ies and prac­tice part­ners from across Europe to invest­ig­ate the inter­con­nec­tions between mul­ti­lin­gual­ism, lan­guage aware­ness, and digit­al transformation.

International Doctoral Positions

As part of Mul­tiLAwa, 14 fully fun­ded doc­tor­al pos­i­tions are being advert­ised for the peri­od from 1 Novem­ber 2026 to 31 Octo­ber 2029. Doc­tor­al can­did­ates will par­ti­cip­ate in a joint doc­tor­al pro­gram at two European uni­ver­sit­ies and work in inter­na­tion­al research teams on top­ics related to mul­ti­lin­gual­ism, lan­guage policy, digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tion, lan­guage tech­no­lo­gies, and arti­fi­cial intelligence.

The net­work con­nects ten uni­ver­sit­ies with numer­ous part­ner organ­iz­a­tions from aca­demia, cul­ture, edu­ca­tion, and industry. In addi­tion to their research, doc­tor­al can­did­ates will bene­fit from an extens­ive train­ing pro­gram and inter­na­tion­al research stays.

For an over­view on all open doc­tor­al pos­i­tions, click here.

RHET AI Center as a Network Partner

The Cen­ter for Rhet­or­ic­al Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion Research on Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (RHET AI) is also part of the net­work as an Asso­ci­ated Part­ner. In par­tic­u­lar, the Chair of Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion with a focus on Lin­guist­ics at Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy held by Prof. Dr. Annette Leßmöll­mann, which has long been engaged in research on lan­guage, media, sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion, and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, plays an act­ive role in the project. 

As part of the net­work, the RHET AI Cen­ter will host and sup­port research­ers from two doc­tor­al pro­jects dur­ing their research stays:

Con­nect­ing to the RHET AI Center’s Research

Both pro­jects address key research ques­tions that have been cent­ral to the work of the RHET AI Cen­ter and the Chair of Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion with a focus on Lin­guist­ics at Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy since their inception.

In the con­text of digit­al­iz­a­tion and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, lan­guage aware­ness now encom­passes far more than tra­di­tion­al meta­lin­guist­ic com­pet­en­cies. Under­stand­ing and shap­ing digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tion envir­on­ments increas­ingly requires media lit­er­acy and mod­el lit­er­acy as well. This is par­tic­u­larly rel­ev­ant for sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion: sci­entif­ic con­tent must be com­mu­nic­ated in a lin­guist­ic­ally reflect­ive and audi­ence-appro­pri­ate man­ner while also being crit­ic­ally con­tex­tu­al­ized with­in AI-sup­por­ted forms of communication. 

At the same time, digit­al media and AI sys­tems them­selves shape soci­et­al con­cep­tions of lan­guage, know­ledge, and mean­ing. They increas­ingly func­tion as com­mu­nic­at­ive act­ors that influ­ence pub­lic dis­course and thereby con­trib­ute to shap­ing soci­et­al lan­guage aware­ness. Mul­tiLAwa there­fore provides an import­ant frame­work for jointly invest­ig­at­ing these devel­op­ments from lin­guist­ic, com­mu­nic­a­tion stud­ies, and soci­et­al perspectives.

Application and Information Event

Applic­a­tions for the 14 doc­tor­al pos­i­tions are now open.

Applic­a­tion dead­line: 8 July 2026

Online inform­a­tion event:
16 June 2026, 2:00 p.m. (CEST)

Applic­ants are gen­er­ally expec­ted to hold a Master’s degree in lin­guist­ics, lan­guage stud­ies, or a related field. Addi­tion­al require­ments include com­pli­ance with the network’s mobil­ity rules and lan­guage pro­fi­ciency of at least B2 level in both Ger­man and English.

Contact Persons

RHET AI Center / KIT

Project Coordination

Further Information

• Fur­ther inform­a­tion about the pro­ject, the doc­tor­al pos­i­tions, and the applic­a­tion pro­cess can be found on the offi­cial Mul­tiLAwa pro­ject web­site.

• Addi­tion­al details on the applic­a­tion pro­ced­ure and the doc­tor­al net­work are avail­able here.