Research Associate / PhD Student (m/f/x)

Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Sciences (CIDS), Department for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (ScaDS.AI Dresden)
2026-04-27T15:45:03+02:00

The LLM-OCR-D project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), aims to create adaptive full-text transformation of extensive historical collections using generative language models. The project seeks to develop a production-ready solution, i.e., one that is high-quality, robust, and scalable for the semi-automated full-text transformation of diverse digitized collections, building on tools from the OCR-D ecosystem. The focus lies on the intelligent selection and execution of OCR workflows, quality assurance and post-correction using large language models (LLMs), as well as structured preparation for scholarly reuse. In addition, the project will examine the practical suitability of novel multimodal LLMs that can operate directly on scans and thus potentially replace or simplify traditional OCR processing steps. The project therefore combines established tools from the OCR-D ecosystem with innovative AI-based methods and near-production execution on high-performance computing systems at ScaDS.AI providing direct added value for libraries, humanities research, and digital infrastructures.
Professional assignment: Chair of Scalable Software Architectures for Data Analytics (Prof. Dr. Michael Färber)
Research areas: Natural Language Processing, Large Language Models, Knowledge Graphs, and related fields (e.g. Graph Machine Learning)

Tasks:

scientific research in at least one of the above-mentioned research areas

collaboration in national and international research projects, possibly with an industrial collaboration

presentation and publication of research results in top-tier conferences/journals

project-based support for students
The position comes with access to high performance computing resources and access to training opportunities within ScaDS.AI.