Applicants are invited for a PhD fellowship/scholarship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Electrical and Computer Engineering programme. The position is available from 1 January 2026 (can be discussed). You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.
 

Title:
1 Open PhD position on Digital Twin-enabled Validation and Maintenance for Pharma Industrial Processes

Research area and project description:
We are looking for 1 industrial PhD candidate to work on Digital Twin based validation of Pharma manufacturing processes, in collaboration with Technicon. The aim of this PhD project is to adopt Digital Twins in order to reduce the time gap between a product being complete, and being delivered to a customer, as well as to optimize maintenance efforts, through monitoring, after the product has been delivered. These are crucial for the manufacturing industry, as they relate directly to the time-to-market, and customer satisfaction, thus impacting the revenue of manufacturing companies.

Digital Twins are a promising technology intended to provide a variety of services, however their adoption in industry has not reached a mature stage, and typically focuses on monitoring a few properties, and to some extent predictive maintenance. Through this project, the PhD candidate will go beyond the state-of-art by applying Digital Twins at the validation and certification phases, thus reducing the time gap through digital experiments. Furthermore, methods will be developed to handle the operation of multiple monitors, and potential system inconsistencies.

Become part of an innovative and flexible environment where your ideas help shape the future of pharma automation.

Project description

For technical reasons, you must upload a project description. Please simply copy the project description above and upload it as a PDF in the application.

About Technicon

WHO ARE WE?
At Technicon, we are driven by the ambition to create intuitive and user-friendly automation solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. We believe that the best solutions come from the synergy between people and technology, and from the collaboration of skilled and committed colleagues.

You’ll become part of a passionate, interdisciplinary team where you can grow both personally and professionally.

We offer:

• A great work environment with humor in everyday life
• Good and flexible working conditions
• A focus on you and your personal preferences
• Close collaboration and sparring with experienced colleagues

WHY TECHNICON IS INVESTING IN THIS PHD PROJECT – OUR MOTIVATION AND VISION
We see great potential in this project to strengthen our innovation capacity and technological leadership. By integrating cutting-edge research directly into our development processes, we aim to accelerate the adoption of Digital Twin technologies in the pharmaceutical industry and deliver even more intelligent, efficient, and reliable automation solutions to our customers.

If you have any questions about the workplace, feel free to contact Lars Dahl Vester at +45 29161012 or ldv@technicon.dk.

Qualifications and specific competences:
Applicants must have a relevant Master’s degree in the area of computer engineering, computer science, robotics, or similar. A background in digital twin engineering, autonomous systems, and machine learning is required. Fault detection, multi-objective optimisation, and online decision-making approaches are relevant areas of expertise for this position.

Previous experience with developing models, tools, or processes is desired.

The candidate has experience in the following fields.

• Cyber-physical modelling and simulation
• Digital Twins
• Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
• Probability & Statistics incl. Python/R

Place of employment and place of work:
The place of employment is Technicon, and the workplace at the company is Sjællandsvej 19, 9500 Hobro. The place of work at Aarhus University is Helsingforsgade 10, 8200 Aarhus.

Since it is an Industrial PhD project, the Industrial PhD candidate will be employed in the company and enrolled at Graduate School of Technical Sciences (Aarhus). The Industrial PhD candidate is expected to split the time equally between the company and the university, i.e. work equally in both places – the actual scheduling will be decided within the framework of the project.

Contacts:
Applicants seeking further information regarding the PhD position are invited to contact:

• Peter G. Larsen, pgl@ece.au.dk (main supervisor)
• Mirgita Frasheri, mirgita.frasheri@ece.au.dk (co-supervisor)

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide. If answers cannot be found there, please contact:

• admission.gradschool.tech@au.dk

How to apply:
Please follow this link to submit your application.

Application deadline is 31 August 2025 at 23:59 CEST.

Preferred starting date is 1 January 2026 (can be discussed).

Please note:

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated. Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be taken into account.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications.
• Admission is contingent upon full external funding from Innovation Fund Denmark, thus, if approved by GSTS, it will be a conditional approval until full external funding is secured.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants. All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.