Careers

KMi Belief

The Knowledge Media Institute is a multidisciplinary R&D lab that has been at the forefront of innovation for the past 20 years. We lead in a number of areas, including Semantic Technologies, Educational Media, Social Media Analysis, Big Data, Smart Cities, Blockchain, IoT and others.

We believe in research which has impact in the real world with real users. For this reason, we work with industry, government, local authorities, charities, schools and a variety of other organisations.

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Researcher

The Knowledge Media Institute is a multidisciplinary, multinational lab with a cutting edge research agenda and leading academics. Its expertise range from Semantic Technologies, Educational Media, Social Media Analysis, Big Data, Smart Cities, to Blockchain, IoT and others. KMi offers a working culture open to new ideas and promoting collaboration. Researchers at KMi benefit from an excellent data science infrastructure, systems and project support teams, media and graphic experts.

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PhD Student

KMi offers students an intellectually challenging environment with exceptional research and computer facilities. KMi sees PhD students as critical to its mission, and awards Studentships. PhD students at KMi have the opportunity to pursue project based research working with our widely recognised multicultural, talented team. KMi supports students to build their research profile encouraging them to attend top-ranked conferences and training workshops.

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Systems & Development

KMi gives you an opportunity to work on challenging projects involving latest hardware and software. You will face technological challenges and be given the resources and autonomy to solve these and collaboratively work with other team members to help steer the future direction of KMi’s infrastructure and online presence. The working environment can be described as 'open, very engaging, interesting and above all fun'.

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Support Team

The best part of working in KMi is the people and the culture; they are a diverse bunch who are passionate about what they do. Be they professors, researchers, post-grad students or other non-academic staff, they treat you as a valued team member. Exacting in their demands of you, yet committed to maintaining a low-bureaucracy environment, supporting these visioneers to achieve their research goals can be challenging, but immensely satisfying.

Why Join KMi

Visa Sponsorship

KMi welcomes students and job applicants from all over the world. The University can give help with documents in support of visa applications, help with finding accommodation and with opening a UK bank account.The Open University is a Tier 4 Sponsor under Tier 4 of the points-based Immigration scheme.

Family leave

A range of Maternity / Paternity / Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave schemes are available through the University. There is also a salary sacrifice scheme which enables staff to take advantage of tax and national insurance exemption on up to £243 of childcare vouchers per month.

Free parking

There are many parking spaces around the Open University for its employees. Allocated parking spaces for disabled people, electric vehicles and staff who register for a lift-sharing scheme.

Training

KMi encourages and financially supports its members to attend training sessions to develop their skills. Staff can also usually enroll onto the Open University courses free from fees.

Paid holidays

The Open University offers 30 days for support staff and 33 days for academic, academic related or research staff, in addition to all bank and other public holidays.There are also three additional University closure days that are usually taken between Christmas and New Year.

Social Facilities

KMi has table tennis and table football, and hosts regular in-house tournaments. Staff socialise in the Lab coffee lounge area.

Flexible working

Productivity cannot be restricted to office hours so KMi supports flexible working hours to meet staff members’ needs.

Social Activities

KMi has its own Social Committee that often organises a variety of social events. Musicians will be happy to know that we have our own rock band.

Fitness and Leisure facilities

The University hosts a variety of sports facilities and sports clubs on the campus. The University has a Cycle to Work Scheme, which is a government initiative that allows employees to obtain a brand new bike and safety equipment (tax free) for commuting purposes.

Testimonials

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“A special passionate research place”

Aldo Gangemi, University of Bologna and Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies, CNR, Italy

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“KMi has many faces ...friendly people and lots of competence...”

Marko Grobelnik, Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia

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“20 years of top research”

Frank van Harmelen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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“One of the most influential research groups: many groundbreaking results were produced here and many more will be”

Valentina Tamma, Department of Computer Science, Liverpool University, UK

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“50 research papers / 4 years and many friends for life :) Missing KMi”

Marta Sabou, Vienna University of Technology, Austria

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“Awesome Researchers and exciting projects! Keep up the good work!”

Lora Aroyo, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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“The team at KMi have provided some really inspiring project support for Milton Keynes over the years, not least the leadership of MK:Smart and CityLabs. It has been really refreshing to work with an organisation where the entire team has a part to play in innovation and support.”

Geoff Snelson, Director of Strategy and Futures, Milton Keynes Council, United Kingdom

Our Team

David Pride Photograph

I completed my MSc. in Computer Science at The University of Hertfordshire in 2016 and then joined KMi as a part of the CORE team. I completed my PhD. in 2020 and am currently a Research Associate......Read more about David Pride

 
Enrico Daga Photograph

Enrico Daga has carried out R&D on Web Semantics first at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and then at the Knowledge Media Institute of The Open University in the UK, where he obtained a......Read more about Enrico Daga

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Our Culture

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Diversity & Inclusion

We believe that creativity and innovation emerge from diversity. KMi promotes difference as set out in the values of the Athena Swan Charter. Different backgrounds, different ideas, different personalities make strong teams.

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Collaboration

A strongly held belief at KMi is that success comes from teams. This is why we have a collaborative culture that encourages researchers and technical staff to work together. Collaboration is not limited to research but expands to co-creating the future of the lab through open meetings, seminars and workshops.

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Real-world impact

Real-world impact; Visit our ‘hot’ projects to discover more about our research collaborations and deliverables.

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Social scene

Work-life balance is a key value for us. Our social committee organises events to expand this culture. KMi people socialise in our dedicated coffee space and the kitchenette.

Latest Seminar
Dr Nirwan Sharma
Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University

Designing Dialogic Human-AI interfaces to further Citizen Science practice.

Watch the live webcast

CONTACT US

Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1908 653800

Fax: +44 (0)1908 653169

Email: KMi Support

COMMENT

If you have any comments, suggestions or general feedback regarding our website, please email us at the address below.

Email: KMi Development Team