PhD in Computer Vision for Multi-Agent Perception in Autonomous Driving

1 - Working at the VUB

For more than 50 years, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has stood for freedom, equality and solidarity, and this is very much alive on our campuses among students and staff alike. 

At the VUB, you will find a diverse collection of personalities: innovators pur sang, but above all people who are 100% their authentic selves. With some 4,000 employees, we are the largest Dutch-speaking employer, in the private sector, in Brussels; an international city with which we are only too happy to connect and where (around) our 4 campuses are located. 

Add to this our principle of free research - in which self-reflection, a critical attitude and an open, creative mind around scientific and social issues are central - and you have a university that is fundamentally groundbreaking and pioneering in education and research. In short: the VUB all over again. 

Moreover, the VUB is a member of EUTOPIA, an alliance of like-minded European universities, all ready to reinvent themselves.

2 - Position description

The Faculty of Engineering, Department Electronics and Informatics, Research Group Electronics and Informatics: Research – Development - Innovation is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

ETRO, the Department of Electronics and Informatics (http://www.etrovub.be/) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), performs fundamental and applied research in signal processing, AI, computer vision, NLP, electronics, and computing. We are a member of imec, the world-leading research and innovation hub in nano-electronics and digital technologies. English is our primary working language, and we foster a welcoming, multicultural environment.

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

We invite applications for a fully funded PhD position in Computer Vision within the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant “Reinventing Multiterminal Coding for Intelligent Machines (IONIAN)". More on the ERC IONIAN project: https://shorturl.at/dTG0q.

Why cooperative perception?

State-of-the-art autonomous vehicles can miss a critical obstacle when their camera is blinded by sun glare, or their LiDAR beam is blocked by a truck. To reach level-4/5 autonomy, we need teamwork: nearby vehicles, drones, and roadside units must co-perceive their environment, sharing and fusing complementary sensor views in real time. Yet raw video and point-cloud streams are massive, wireless links are unreliable, and safety demands that information be both timely and trustworthy.

IONIAN tackles this bottleneck head-on. This is why we are seeking a motivated PhD candidate to help the team with the Computer Vision aspects of the project.

Position Overview:

As a doctoral researcher, you will forge a novel framework for cooperative perception by disrupting today’s most vibrant research threads in Computer Vision and Machine Learning :

• Improving and creating state-of-the-art foundation models to be able to enhance both performance and computational efficiency;
• Design world models for cooperative autonomous driving;
• Design large vision-language models for autonomous driving;
• Design generative diffusion & 3D/4D scene synthesis models to enable multiple agents to jointly reconstruct a scene;
• Real-World Validation: Deploy and benchmark your algorithms on our autonomous vehicle, mobile robots, and UAV testbeds.

You will:

• publish in CVPR/ICCV/ECCV, NeurIPS/ICLR, and leading IEEE journals;
• collaborate with top EU labs and industry partners;
• mentor Master’s students and assist in graduate teaching;
• be in a large, dynamic team of researchers working on the same topic.

For this function, our Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene), Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, will serve as your home base. 

3 - Profile

What do we expect from you?

• **

  Required Qualifications:

  • Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, (Applied) Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or related field;
  • Solid grounding in machine learning, computer vision, signal processing;
  • Hands-on experience with deep learning (PyTorch/JAX);
  • Interest in: deep learning for vision-language models, diffusion models, cooperative perception, or 3D vision;
  • Strong programming skills; analytical rigour; excellent English.

  **

Nice-to-Haves:

• Publications in top-tier venues;

• Prior work on cooperative perception, generative AI, or vision-language models;

• Experience with robotics, UAVs or autonomous vehicles;

• Experience with high-performance GPU computing and Slurm.

• You have not performed any works in the execution of a mandate as an assistant, paid from operating resources, over a total (cumulated) period of more than 12 months.

• As a (non-)EEA national, meet the conditions for obtaining a valid permit for VUB and comply with the VUB residence requirements. More info here.

The VUB wants to be a reflection of the society where everyone's talent is valued, regardless of gender, age, religion, skin color, migration background, disability and neurodiversity.

4 - Offer

Are you going to be our new colleague?

You’ll be offered a full-time PhD-scholarship, for 12 months (extendable up to max. 48 months, on condition of the positive evaluation of the PhD activities), with planned starting date between 1st June and 1st September 2026, as well as:

• a fully funded four-year PhD (annual renewal upon positive evaluation) at ETRO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB);
• a competitive salary, you’ll receive a grant linked to one of the scales set by the government, hospital insurance, transport coverage, and generous leave; 
• daily collaboration with an international team of experts in information theory, computer vision, and autonomous vehicles;
• access to state-of-the-art sensing platforms and the imec ecosystem;
• support for conference travel, specialised training, and broad networking.

IMPORTANT: The effective result of the doctorate scholarship is subject to the condition precedent of your enrolment as a doctorate student at the university.

At the VUB, you’re guaranteed an open, involved and diverse workplace where you are offered opportunities to (further) build on your career.

As well as this, you will also enjoy various other benefits:

• Extensive homeworking options, a telework allowance of 50 euros per month OR an internet fee of 20 euros per month;
• An open and informal working environment where attention is paid to work-life balance, and exceptional holiday arrangements with 35 days of leave (based on a fulltime contract), closure between Christmas and New Year and 3 extra leave days;
• Cost-free hospitalisation insurance;
• Full reimbursement of your home-to-work commute with public transport according to VUB-policy, and/or compensation if you come by bike; 
• A wide selection of meals in our campus restaurants at attractive prices;
• Excellent and affordable facilities for sport and exercise, a range of discounts via Benefits@Work (in  all kinds of shops, on flights, in petrol stations, amusement parks...) and Ecocheques; 
• Nursery near campus, discount on holiday camps; 
• The space to form your job content and to continuously learn through our VUB learning platforms and training courses;
• And finally: great colleagues with a healthy drive.

5 - Interested?

Is this the job you’ve been dreaming of? 

Then apply, at the latest on 01/03/2026, via jobs.vub.be, combine the following documents into one PDF and email it to nikos.deligiannis@vub.be:

• your cover letter (1–2 pages) – motivation and fit;

• your curriculum vitae – education, publications, skills;

• your academic transcripts – BSc & MSc;

• your research statement (optional if covered in the cover letter);

• your references – contact details of 2–3 referees.

Join us to redefine how machines see, communicate and decide—together.

Our application process is as follows (subject to change):

• step 1: an initial selection based on your application file; 
• step 2: a job interview.

Do you have questions about the job content? Contact Prof. N. Deligiannis at nikos.deligiannis@vub.be or on +32 (0)2 629 1683.

Would you like to know what it’s like to work at the VUB? Go to jobs.vub.be, and find all there is to know about our campuses, benefits, strategic goals and your future colleagues.

Would you like more information about EUTOPIA? Go to eutopia-university.eu, and read more about the role of the VUB in the development of the EUTOPIA alliance.