PhD position in Clinical Natural Language Processing

At the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aalborg University, a full time PhD stipend in Clinical Natural Language Processing is available for appointment from December 1st. 2026, or soon hereafter. 

The stipend is available within the doctoral program “Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience”, and the duration of the position is three years.

Project

During patient care, hospital nurses write clinical notes daily, and these are essential for documenting the provided care, supporting decision-making, care planning, and communication. Beyond their primary use, these notes may be used to analyze and learn from the delivered care and outcomes. Here, AI, particularly NLP, has great potential to extract, structure, and analyze clinically relevant information from these unstructured narratives. The project aims at enabling AI-assisted clinical decision support and documentation grounded in clinical practice and evidence.

Your work tasks

This PhD project sits at the intersection of AI and healthcare, exploring how AI can assist clinical practice to improve efficiency, quality, and outcomes. A special focus is natural language processing (NLP) for health data, including large language models (LLMs) and agent-based frameworks. The project aims to develop novel AI-based solutions for supporting nursing documentation, care planning, and clinical decision-making, with a particular focus on identifying and preventing missed nursing care (omitted or delayed essential tasks). 

The first focus will be on developing an interactive LLM-based agent framework with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities for managing relevant information from electronic health records (EHRs), clinical guidelines, and medical literature. The second focus will be on enabling the system to synthesize evidence and translate it into actionable insights, including potential instances of missed nursing care, while ensuring traceability and interpretability. The third focus will be on enabling the system to support nurses in planning and decision making at the point of care. This project may also explore human-in-the-loop (HITL) and virtual human twin (VHT) approaches. 

You will be based in the Clinical AI Group at the Center for Clinical Data Science (CLINDA), Aalborg University and Aalborg University hospital. You will collaborate closely with the Clinical Nursing Research Unit at Aalborg University as well as clinical departments at hospitals of the North Denmark Region, primarily using data from the NordEPJ EHR system.

Your competencies

We are looking for a candidate who has many of the following qualifications:
•    A background in computer science or a related field, with an interest in AI, machine learning, and NLP.
•    Experience or education in health data science or a health-related field is a plus.
•    Strong programming skills in Python with the ability to implement and prototype research ideas.
•    A mathematical foundation to support the design and analysis of algorithms.
•    Curiosity, motivation, and strong communication skills.
•    An open and collaborative mindset, with an interest in working with health-domain experts to ensure that research addresses real-world needs.
•    Fluency in English, written and spoken (required). 
•    As the project involves working with Danish clinical texts, proficiency in Danish or another Scandinavian language, or a willingness to learn Danish, is a plus.

Qualification requirements
PhD stipends are allocated to individuals who hold a Master's degree. PhD stipends are normally for a period of 3 years. It is a prerequisite for allocation of the stipend that the candidate will be enrolled as a PhD student at the Doctoral School in Medicine, Biomedical Science and Technology in accordance with the regulations of Ministerial Order No. 1124 of September 19, 2025 on the PhD Programme at the Universities and Certain Higher Artistic Educational Institutions.

According to the Ministerial Order, the progress of the PhD student shall be assessed at regular points in time. As part of the PhD study, you are among other things required to complete PhD courses corresponding to 30 ECTS, gain experience with teaching or other forms of knowledge dissemination and complete an external research stay outside of Aalborg University, preferably 3-6 months at a foreign research institution.

Who we are    

The student will be anchored at the Center for Clinical Data Science (CLINDA). CLINDA aims to conduct independent research in the development, application, and implementation of data infrastructures for AI-based decision support tools and is rapidly growing with currently more than 20 people. This center provides an excellent environment to conduct innovative research with fellow PhD students, post-docs, and more senior researchers, and also promote social interactions.

The Department of Clinical Medicine provides research-based teaching across all disciplines of the medical degree programme and conducts research within the clinical specialties. The department collaborates closely with hospitals in the North Denmark Region and general practice in both teaching and research. Medical students receive instruction at several hospital sites and in general practice throughout the region. The department is affiliated with approximately 40 research units, each representing a specific medical specialty. In addition, the department is also associated with several other research units and centres. The majority of the department’s staff hold concurrent clinical positions alongside their academic appointments. 

Read more about the Department of Clinical Medicine here. 

How to apply
Your application must include the following:

• Application, stating reasons for applying and qualifications in relation to the position
• Curriculum Vitae (CV)
• Diplomas (bachelor's and master's degree diploma, including grades) 
• The MSc thesis (if completed at the time of application)
• A list of max 3 references that can be contacted
• Other relevant documents

The application must be submitted via Aalborg University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aalborg University's website. 

Aalborg University wants to reflect the surrounding society and has diversity as a core value. Therefore, everyone, regardless of personal background and orientation, is encouraged to apply for the position.

Do you have any questions?     
If you have any questions about the position, you are more than welcome to contact us. You will find contact persons at the bottom of the jobpost.

Application process

Selected candidates will be invited for an interview. A second interview will be organized shortly after, if needed, with a focus on completed projects and technical competencies.

Further information  
Read more about our recruitment process here.

The assessment of candidates for the position will be carried out by qualified experts.
Shortlisting will be applied. This means that after the application deadline, the head of the department, with the assistance of the hiring committee, will select the applicants to be assessed. All applicants will be informed whether they have been shortlisted for assessment or not.

The hiring process at Aalborg University may include a risk assessment as a tool to identify potential risks associated with new hires, ensuring the safety, compliance, and integrity of the workplace.

Read more about The Doctoral School in Medicine, Biomedical Science and Technology

Salary and terms of employment
The employment is in accordance with the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities and the Ministerial Order on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities. Furthermore, your terms of employment and salary are in accordance with the collective agreement between the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations and the state (AC collective agreement). 

You can find information about the salary and salary structure for the position in the Salary Overview for Recruitment - Scientific positions (VIP). Please refer to the introductory section of the page and the section entitled “PhD Fellow”.

There is a mutual probationary period of 3 months for the position.

Aalborg University - Knowledge for the world
Aalborg University is an international workplace with more than 3,700 employees. We offer real-world-oriented education and create world-class research results through collaboration between researchers, students, and public and private companies. This is how we achieve insights, new solutions to societal problems, and knowledge that changes the world. Our main campus is in Aalborg, but we also have campuses in Esbjerg and Copenhagen.