Master’s and PhD scholarships in Automation and Decision Support, Distributed Systems, and Multi-agent Systems
Duration: Funding is available for up to two (2) years for Master's students and up to four (4) years for PhD students, subject to satisfactory academic and research progress.
The C5I Research Centre at École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) is seeking highly motivated students interested in pursuing master's (M.Sc.) or doctoral (Ph.D.) studies in the fields of agentic artificial intelligence (AI), distributed multi-agent systems, automation, and decision support.
Successful candidates will contribute to innovative research projects focused on the development of intelligent, autonomous, and collaborative systems capable of assisting or automating decision-making in complex environments. Research activities include applications in critical infrastructure domains and may address topics in the following research areas.
Research Areas
- Multi-agent systems and distributed artificial intelligence
- Agentic AI and autonomous agents powered by Large Language Models (LLMs)
- System-of-system architectures and complex systems engineering
- Intelligent automation and autonomous systems
- Coordination, planning, and negotiation among collaborative agents
- Trustworthy, secure, explainable, and resilient AI architectures
- Cloud-native, distributed, and sovereign AI environments
- Integration of machine learning and generative AI models into decision-support systems
Responsibilities
Successful candidates will:
- Design and validate architectures and systems for automation and decision support.
- Develop novel methods, models, and algorithms.
- Design, implement, and conduct experimental evaluations.
- Analyze, interpret, and communicate research findings.
- Contribute to the development of prototypes, experimental platforms, and technology demonstrators.
- Publish research results in leading scientific conferences and journals.
- Collaborate closely with researchers, students, and industry and government partners.
Candidate Profile
The successful candidates are distinguished by their scientific curiosity, creativity, intellectual rigour, and commitment to advancing knowledge. They are motivated to tackle cutting-edge scientific and technological challenges and to develop innovative, high-impact solutions in the fields of artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and intelligent decision-making.
Required knowledge
Applicants must possess:
- A Bachelor's degree (for Master's applicants) or a master's degree (for PhD applicants) in Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
- Excellent academic standing.
- A strong understanding of programming fundamentals, data structures, and algorithms.
- Proficiency in programming languages, such as Python, TypeScript, C#, or equivalent languages.
- A strong interest in artificial intelligence, distributed systems, autonomous systems, or optimization.
- The ability to work independently while collaborating effectively within multidisciplinary research teams.
- Strong written and oral scientific communication skills.
- Eligibility to undergo a security assessment and obtain and maintain a Government of Canada Reliability Status and Level II Secret Security Clearance.
Preferred Qualifications:
The following will be considered assets:
- Experience in research and software development.
- Familiarity with AI and machine learning frameworks.
- Experience in simulation, experimentation, or prototype development.
- Knowledge of cloud computing environments, containerization technologies, or DevSecOps practices.
- Scientific publications, research projects, or contributions to open-source software initiatives.
About the C5I Research Centre
The C5I Research Centre is a new ÉTS research initiative dedicated to advancing knowledge, technologies, and innovative solutions in Command and Control (C2), Communications, Computing, Cybersecurity, and Intelligence for defence and security applications. The Centre fosters collaborative research across a broad range of technological domains, including automation and decision support, multi-agent adaptation and coordination, navigation, telecommunications, cybersecurity, quantum technologies and algorithms.