MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship - LLM-augmented Agent-Based Modelling for Ageing-at-Home and Long-Term Care

Is the Hosting related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Contact Information

Organisation / Company Type: Higher Education Institution

Website: https://www.vu.lt/en/, https://mif.vu.lt/lt3/en/, https://aiml.lt/

Email: valentas.gruzauskas@mif.vu.lt

Street: Didlaukio g. 47

Description

Vilnius University (VU) invites motivated researchers with a strong track record to prepare joint applications for 2026 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF) call with a deadline on September 9, 2026. MSCA PFs are among Europe’s most prestigious research schemes, supporting researchers’ career development while strengthening their creative, innovative capacity and promoting excellence in research.

• European Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to researchers of any nationality who wish to engage in R&I projects by either coming to Europe from any country in the world or moving within Europe (12-24 months).
• Global Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to engage in R&I projects with organisations outside EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries (12-24 months outgoing phase in a non-associated Third Country & 12 months mandatory return phase to a host organisation in Europe).
• Boost your chances of success with ERA Fellowships! If you are applying for the European Postdoctoral Fellowship with a host institution in a widening country (such as Lithuania), and your proposal is not funded under the MSCA PF call due to budget limitations, it will automatically be resubmitted to the ERA Fellowships call, which will give your project an additional opportunity to receive support.
• Additional incentive available for researchers applying with host institutions in Lithuania! The Government of the Republic of Lithuania has transferred some European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funds to the Horizon Europe programme, enabling the European Commission to finance more well-evaluated MSCA PF projects submitted with Lithuanian institutions.

HOST INSTITUTION AND RESEARCH GROUP

Founded in 1579, VU combines centuries of academic excellence with a strong contemporary research culture. As the largest university in Lithuania, it comprises 15 academic units and brings together more than 3,400 academic staff and over 26,000 students. Its active research community is supported by extensive infrastructure, including research institutes, 3 university hospitals, the oldest academic library in the Baltics, 3 botanical gardens, and an astronomical observatory, creating a fertile environment for scientific discovery and innovation.

VU consistently ranks as the top university in the country, excelling in both education and a broad range of fundamental and applied research. Recognised among Central and Eastern Europe’s leading research institutions, it fosters cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research and maintains strong partnerships within a global academic network.

Artificial Intelligence Methods Lab (AIML) at the Institute of Computer Science of VU Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics develops computational methods for modelling complex socio-technical systems, combining agent-based modelling (ABM), data-driven simulation, and LLM-based agentic workflows. The host offers strong technical supervision, HPC resources for large-scale simulation/experiments, regular seminars, and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. The AIML research group is implementing the project “Ageing at home: experiences, challenges and meeting care needs”, and the fellow will have access to the project’s data, including domain knowledge, stakeholder-informed scenarios, and empirical inputs (surveys/interviews), to ground and validate simulation assumptions and outcomes.

SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Valentas Gružauskas works at the intersection of AI and computational modelling, with a focus on agent-based modelling, socio-economic simulation, and modern AI methods (incl. LLM-driven agentic workflows) for decision support in complex systems. He has extensive teaching and supervision experience in AI-related topics and supervises technical projects involving LLM agents, evaluation and controllability. His research emphasises reproducible computational experiments, sensitivity/uncertainty analysis, and methodological rigour when linking empirical evidence to simulation. The MSCA PF will be guided in a highly technical manner while jointly developing domain understanding with ageing/long-term care partners.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE AND PERSONAL SKILLS

• PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Computational Social Science, Complex Systems, OR/Simulation, or related.
• Strong Python; experience building ABMs (e.g., Mesa/NetLogo/Repast/AnyLogic or custom ABM frameworks).
• Experience with LLMs and agentic workflows (multi-agent coordination, tool use, RAG) and an evaluation mindset (robustness, validation, sensitivity analysis).
• Interest in socio-economic modelling and human behaviour; willingness to learn ageing-at-home / long-term care domain with an interdisciplinary team.

POSSIBLE RESEARCH TOPICS

LLM-augmented Agent-Based Modelling for Ageing-at-Home and Long-Term Care Scenarios. Traditional simulations often treat humans as homogeneous “average” decision units; this misses emergent phenomena driven by cognition, adaptation, stress/fatigue, and heterogeneous preferences. The project will develop an ABM where key actors (older adults, informal caregivers, social workers/case managers, municipalities/service providers) are heterogeneous agents. LLM-based agentic workflows will model bounded rational decision-making under incomplete information (with constraints/guardrails), enabling scenario analysis of service uptake, unmet needs, workforce bottlenecks, and policy interventions. Empirical grounding will leverage the project “Ageing at home: experiences, challenges and meeting care needs” via survey/interview evidence and stakeholder-informed validation.

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

• Supported fellows must be in possession of PhD at the call deadline (September 9, 2026).
• Have up to 8 years experience in research from the date of award of the doctoral degree at the call deadline.
• Fellows must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the beneficiary (for European Postdoctoral Fellowships), or the host organisation for the outgoing phase (for Global Postdoctoral Fellowships) for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline

Detailed information on the eligibility can be found on p. 81-83 of the MSCA Work Programme 2026-2027.

HOW TO APPLY?

• Contact the supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Valentas Gružauskas (valentas.gruzauskas@mif.vu.lt), directly to express your interest in making a joint application based on your research interests. Do not forget to provide the following documents (cc to research@cr.vu.lt):
  • curriculum vitae
  • list of publications
  • proposal summary
• Request a letter from your supervisor endorsing you as a candidate and send it to the Research Projects Office (research@cr.vu.lt).
• After receiving your supervisor’s endorsement, you can start preparing your MSCA PF project proposal. Please note that in order to prepare and submit your application on time (by September 9, 2026), you can seek support from VU Research Projects Office (research@cr.vu.lt).

For more information follow the link.