15 Fully Funded Doctoral Candidate Positions in Optical Integrated Sensing and Communication, INSIGHT MSCA Doctoral Network

Doctorat / PhD Profil chercheur : First Stage Researcher (R1) Type de contrat : Temporary Date limite de candidature : 15 Feb 2027 - 23:59 (Europe/Madrid) Date de début : 2 Nov 2026 Programme UE : Horizon Europe - MSCA Référence : 101312457 Département : Coordinator at Instituto de Óptica "Daza de Valdés", CSIC Domaine : Other

Applications are invited for 15 fully funded Doctoral Candidate positions within INSIGHT, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe. INSIGHT will train a new generation of researchers in optical integrated sensing and communication, aiming towards compatibility by design, by combining expertise in optical communications, distributed fibre sensing, photonic integration, frequency combs, structured light, digital signal processing, machine learning, network optimisation and industrial sensing applications. Each Doctoral Candidate will undertake an individual research project within a coordinated international and intersectoral 36-month programme. The programme includes advanced scientific training, transferable-skills development, secondments at academic and industrial partners, joint workshops and network meetings, international conferences, and training in research integrity, open science, innovation, communication, entrepreneurship and intellectual property. The selected candidates will be employed by the relevant INSIGHT recruiting beneficiaries and enrolled in a doctoral programme at the designated degree-awarding institution, subject to its admission requirements. Available Projects/Positions: DC1 – Optimal amplification schemes for transmission and sensing coexistence This project will develop hybrid optical amplification strategies to allow high-capacity communication and distributed fibre sensing to share long-haul and metropolitan networks. The planned research combines modelling and experimental validation to balance reach, capacity and sensitivity in optical communication and sensing. Recruiting host: CSIC Location: Madrid, Spain PhD institution: Universidad de Alcalá DC2 – Noise-tolerant distributed optical fibre sensing architectures for long-haul sensing This project will create noise-tolerant distributed acoustic sensing architectures for long-haul fibres shared with telecommunications traffic. The project will use wideband and multi-wavelength probes, optical frequency combs, modelling and signal processing to improve robustness and compatibility with telecom infrastructure. Recruiting host: CSIC Location: Madrid, Spain PhD institution: Universidad de Alcalá DC3 – Low-frequency distributed acoustic sensing for infrastructure and environmental monitoring This project will extend distributed acoustic sensing towards ultra-low-frequency and long-term measurements without losing fast dynamic performance. Applications include environmental monitoring, early warning in natural catastrophes, power-cable thermometry, infrastructure health and the observation of slow geophysical processes. Recruiting host: CSIC Location: Madrid, Spain PhD institution: Universidad de Alcalá DC4 – Co-designed optical waveforms and physical-layer architectures for O-ISAC This project will focus on the design of the next generation of optical communication systems that can simultaneously transmit data and sense the physical environment of optical fibers. Develop and experimentally validate innovative optical waveforms and PHY architectures for high-capacity, distributed fiber sensing, combining photonics, signal processing, and AI-enabled sensing. Recruiting host: Politecnico di Torino Location: Torino, Italy PhD institution: Politecnico di Torino DC5 – Network-level coexistence, optimisation and deployment strategies This project will investigate how optical sensing and high-capacity WDM communication can safely coexist in real telecom networks, from metro to long-haul systems. Develop network-level models, optimization and control strategies, and validate ISAC technologies through experiments on real operator fiber infrastructures Recruiting host: Politecnico di Torino Location: Torino, Italy PhD institution: Politecnico di Torino DC6 – Application of agile optical frequency combs in Optical Integrated Sensing and Communications The overarching goal of this project is to investigate a sub/system-level framework for the generation, characterization and optimization of agile optical frequency combs (OFCs) to be employed in O-ISAC systems. This will entail the validation (numerical and experimental) of reconfigurable multi-carrier signals for high-capacity transmission and high-resolution fiber sensing. Recruiting host: Dublin City University Location: Dublin, Ireland PhD institution: Dublin City University DC7 – Photonic integrated circuit-based frequency-comb sensing in short-reach networks The primary objective in this project is to investigate the constraints imposed on PIC based OFCs employed as a transmitter/ad-hoc interrogator in cost sensitive short reach communications systems. This will entail designing and fabricating a PIC to be utilized in existing short reach optical infrastructure to monitor structural health, temperature fluctuations, and acoustic vibrations without degrading the communication throughput. Recruiting host: Dublin City University Location: Dublin, Ireland PhD institution: Dublin City University DC8 – Structured-Light Fiber System for Simultaneous High-Speed Communication and Distributed Sensing This doctoral project will develop a fibre-based system that uses structured light, such as vortex and cylindrical vector beams, for simultaneous high-speed communication and distributed sensing. The work combines laser development, mode-selective amplification and experimental validation over a 5 km fibre link Recruiting host: Tampere University Location: Tampere, Finland PhD institution: Tampere University DC9 – AI-Driven Reconstruction of Complex Multimode Optical Fields for Advanced Photonic Sensing This doctoral project will develop a physics-aware machine-learning framework to reconstruct and interpret complex spatio-spectral optical fields in multimode fibers. The work combines digital holography, numerical propagation modelling and AI-based inversion to enable more sensitive and higher-resolution fiber sensing of environmental changes such as strain, bending and temperature Recruiting host: Tampere University Location: Tampere, Finland PhD institution: Tampere University DC10 – Impact of noise on optical fibre sensing systems based on Rayleigh backscattering This project will focus on the theoretical, numerical, and experimental investigation of the impact of various noise sources on optical fibre sensing systems based on Rayleigh backscattering. Novel mathematical and modelling frameworks based on first principles will be developed and experimentally validated Recruiting host: Technical University of Denmark Location: Kongens Lyngby, Denmark PhD institution: Technical University of Denmark DC11 – Quantum-noise-limited signal demodulation This project will develop AI-assisted digital signal processing algorithms for highly sensitive estimation of strain, temperature, and pressure from Rayleigh-backscattered signals. The ultimate goal is to achieve record sensing sensitivity and push the performance of optical fibre sensing towards the fundamental quantum limit Recruiting host: Technical University of Denmark Location: Kongens Lyngby, Denmark PhD institution: Technical University of Denmark DC12 – DAS and DTSS compatibility with communication links This doctoral project will investigate how distributed acoustic, temperature and strain sensing can coexist with high-capacity optical communication systems in live telecom networks. The research combines optical scattering analysis, advanced signal processing and machine-learning techniques to mitigate impairments and enable reliable sensing alongside WDM transmission Recruiting host: Uptech Sensing Location: Navarra, Spain PhD institution: Universidad de Alcalá (TBC) DC13 – Multi-asset structural health monitoring In this project you will develop a groundbreaking single laser platform that unifies coherent optical sensing and multi-wavelength communications within one compact fibre-based architecture. This PhD position offers you the opportunity to pioneer ultra-short Erbium-doped fibre lasers, frequency comb generation, and next-generation smart infrastructure solutions at the intersection of photonics and telecommunications. Recruiting host: Somni Solutions Location: Delft, The Netherlands PhD institution: Dublin City University DC14 – Agile PIC-based transmitters and interrogators This doctoral project will aim to develop an ultra-fast wavelength tunable laser-based transmitter and interrogator optimized for intelligent optical networks that unify communications and sensing. Specifically, it will address the design, fabrication, demonstrator development and performance evaluation of wideband fast tunable laser sources for dual-use scenarios, ensuring spectral uniformity, coherence, and fast tunability under dynamic network conditions Recruiting host: Pilot Photonics Location: Dublin, Ireland PhD institution: Dublin City University DC15 – Adaptive data compression and anomaly detection for O-ISAC This project develops a unified architecture for adaptive data compression / augmentation for anomaly detection in next-generation optical networks, leveraging artificial intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML) for efficient telemetry data handling in advanced optical fiber sensing. Recruiting host: Nokia Location: Munich, Germany PhD institution: University of L’Aquila

Applications are invited for 15 fully funded Doctoral Candidate positions within INSIGHT, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe. INSIGHT will train a new generation of researchers in optical integrated sensing and communication, aiming towards…