Postdoctoral Fellowships: Open-Ended Interactive & Embodied Intelligence

Join the CAIR Team at CYENS to build generalist agents that discover, reason, and act in interactive environments.

The Opportunity

The Cognitive Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) research team at CYENS Centre of Excellence (Nicosia, Cyprus) invites expressions of interest for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF) 2026.

We are recruiting ambitious candidates to co-develop competitive proposals on interactive and embodied AI. Our research vision moves beyond static datasets toward generalist agents that leverage open-ended learning, world models, and multi-agent dynamics to discover and adapt through interaction. Projects may be evaluated in interactive environments (simulation, games, and multi-agent worlds) and, where relevant, extended to real-world validation on robotic platforms.

Timeline

Call opens: 9 April 2026
Deadline: 9 September 2026

About the Host and Supervisor

The CAIR team at CYENS is led by Dr. Vassilis Vassiliades and studies learning systems that autonomously acquire, adapt, and reuse skills over time.

The supervisor’s prior research spans Quality-Diversity algorithms and skill repertoires, reinforcement learning (including hierarchical and multi-agent methods), continual learning, and data-efficient robot learning and control, with an interest in predictive models for planning and decision-making. These foundations motivate the team’s current direction toward open-ended embodied intelligence.

The MSCA project is intended as a collaborative effort in which the postdoctoral researcher plays a central role in shaping the scientific direction and establishing a new research line within the team.

Why Apply With CYENS?

The “Widening” Multiplier: As a Cyprus-based host (a Widening country), eligible proposals may also be considered for ERA Fellowships if not funded under the main MSCA call, providing an additional funding pathway without requiring a new application.
Pure Research Focus: This is a dedicated research role with no teaching obligations, designed to support high-impact publications in venues such as NeurIPS, ICRA, CoRL, RSS, ICML, and ICLR.
Agile Infrastructure: We prioritize compute-efficient and simulation-first approaches, offering dedicated HPC resources (A6000 48GB / A5000 24GB nodes) suitable for large-scale simulation and fine-tuning foundation models, with reliable access and minimal contention.
Training & Mobility: We support incorporating an optional secondment/research visit with academic collaborators abroad (within MSCA rules) to strengthen training, networking, and Impact.

Research Tracks

We encourage proposals that bridge these areas (e.g., world models for robust transfer and planning, or auto-curricula that drive the discovery of reusable skills). Tracks 1–2 can be pursued fully in interactive simulation environments, while Track 3 focuses on robotics and cross-platform transfer.

1) Open-Ended & Continual Learning

Moving beyond static datasets through self-generated experience and lifelong interaction.

Auto-Curricula: co-evolution of agents and environments (e.g., POET, UED) to generate “regret-maximizing” training distributions.
Discovery Algorithms: Quality Diversity (e.g., MAP-Elites), intrinsically motivated goal exploration, and unsupervised skill discovery.
Continual & Meta-Learning: solving the stability-plasticity dilemma and utilizing learning-to-learn strategies for fast adaptation to novel tasks without catastrophic forgetting.
Predictive Knowledge: learning large collections of self-generated predictions (e.g., General Value Functions) to continually expand the agent’s knowledge without relying on external rewards.

2) World Models & Abstraction

Structuring learned knowledge into abstractions that support planning and reasoning in embodied or interactive environments.

Multi-Level Representations: hierarchical world models planning over skills/options rather than atomic actions.
Learning Abstractions: discovering compact state and skill representations that enable long-horizon planning.
Multi-Agent Models: learning predictive models of other agents and joint dynamics for coordination and planning.
System-2 Reasoning: utilizing learned world models for test-time search (e.g., MCTS) and counterfactual reasoning.

3) Robot Learning & Transfer

Scaling robot learning via simulation-first development, portable data, and cross-platform transfer (including sim-to-real when relevant).

Foundation Model Adaptation: efficient fine-tuning/distillation of Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for robotic control.
Heterogeneous Coordination: decentralized policies for diverse robot teams (e.g., Quadruped + Mobile Manipulator collaboration).
Data-Driven Manipulation: leveraging UMI (Universal Manipulation Interface) for portable data collection and low-cost arms for accessible teleoperation and imitation-learning pipelines.
Robust Transfer: uncertainty-aware control and distributional RL for safe generalization across domains (simulation and, where relevant, real-world).

Resources & Hardware

We support simulation-first research with pathways to real-world validation when relevant:

Compute: Dedicated CYENS AI Cluster (HPC) with A6000 48GB / A5000 24GB nodes for large-scale simulation (Isaac Lab / MuJoCo) and deep learning.
Robotics Platforms: Unitree A1 (quadruped), Turtlebot 4 (mobile base), SO-101 low-cost manipulation arms for teleoperation and imitation-learning experiments; plus support for portable demonstration collection (UMI-style).
Collaborative Arms: Availability of commercial 6-DoF collaborative arms through CYENS facilities and partner arrangements.

Eligibility Check

PhD Rule: You must hold a PhD by 9 September 2026 (with max 8 years post-PhD research experience).
Mobility Rule: You must not have lived or worked in Cyprus for more than 12 months in the 3 years prior to the deadline.

How to Apply

Email v.vassiliades@cyens.org.cy with the subject: “MSCA-PF-2026 Candidate”

Please include:

CV: Including a full list of publications.
Research Statement (Max 1 Page): A concrete project sketch outlining the problem, method, and evaluation plan. Please note: Generic applications without a specific research idea aligned with these tracks will not be considered.
Representative Work: PDFs or links to 2–3 of your best papers.
Eligibility Note: Brief confirmation of your PhD date and months spent in Cyprus in the last 36 months (mobility rule).

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted within 7–10 days of submission.

We expect to work closely with a small number of shortlisted candidates (typically 2–4) to co-develop full MSCA proposals.

Deadline for Expressions of Interest: 15 May 2026 (Rolling review).