Role Overview The i2CAT Foundation in Barcelona is seeking high‑potential postdoctoral candidates to co‑develop competitive proposals for the 2026 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships. As a premier European hub for applied research, our centre focuses on generating social and economic impact in the sectors of Telecommunications (6G), Cybersecurity, Connected Mobility, and GovTech.

Scientific Director

Dr.

Xavier

Costa and Dr.

Josep

Escrig will supervise the fellow’s scientific progress and professional integration. Fellows will gain access to state‑of‑the‑art facilities, including Europe’s first 6G space laboratory, and receive dedicated proposal‑writing support from our European Project Officers.

Research Pillars

Pillar I: Multi‑Agentic AI through Continual Learning and LLM Adaptation This pillar investigates how LLM‑powered agents can become truly adaptive lifelong learners. You will explore Just‑In‑Time Reinforcement Learning (JitRL), a breakthrough approach that modulates a model’s frozen prior toward an optimal posterior without expensive gradient updates or catastrophic forgetting.

Leveraging non‑parametric memory and adjusting action logits, agents can learn from live environmental feedback in real‑time. Research will use state‑of‑the‑art benchmarks like MEAL (Multi‑agent Environments for Adaptive Learning) to ensure adaptive agents maintain stable cooperation as their surroundings and roles evolve.

Pillar II: Quantum Multi‑Agentic AI and Entanglement‑Based Coordination Scaling multi‑agent swarms currently faces a communication wall where message overhead grows quadratically with each new agent.



This line uses Quantum Entanglement as a shared substrate for coordination, bypassing the need for explicit message‑passing.

Through Entangled Quantum

Multi‑Agent Reinforcement Learning (eQMARL), you will design agents whose cognitive states are physically correlated, allowing instantaneous state alignment upon quantum measurement. The framework enables constructive interference of compatible plans while canceling incompatible ones, synchronizing massive drone swarms or 6G network slices with zero latency.

Pillar III: Social Multi‑Agentic AI and Cross‑Stakeholder Trust This pillar explores the social intelligence required for Multi‑Agentic AI systems where independent agents, belonging to different companies or stakeholders, must collaborate despite differing interests. You will investigate indirect reciprocity and reputation systems, building trust among digital strangers and creating win‑win collaborations in decentralized environments.

Integrating game theory and negotiation mechanisms, you will develop protocols that guide agents toward a stable Nash equilibrium, ensuring fair and efficient outcomes in complex environments such as GovTech participation platforms or multi‑provider 6G network slices.

Benefits and Working Conditions

Hybrid model (4 days remote,



1 day in office) with core hours between 10:00 and 15:00.

Early‑Finish Fridays: an intensive 6.5‑hour workday to start your personal time by mid‑afternoon.

Intensive summer schedule: a 7‑hour workday from 22 June to 4 September.

27 paid vacation days per year, with at least 12 days expected to be taken in summer.

Career development plan with growth opportunities.

Application Details and Deadlines

Supervisors: Dr. Josep Escrig and Dr. Xavier Costa.

Mobility rule: candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity in Spain for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the call deadline.

Key dates: Call opens 9 April 2026; deadline 9 September 2026.

Contact: Interested candidates are invited to submit a CV and a brief research interest statement to begin co‑developing a competitive proposal.

Requirements MUST HAVE

PhD degree at the time of application.

Compliance with the MSCA mobility rule: no more than 12 months of residence or main activity in Spain during the past 36 months before the call deadline.

Relevant scientific publications in Artificial Intelligence or related areas.

Previous participation in national, European, or international research projects.

NICE TO HAVE

PhD in Artificial Intelligence or a closely related field.

Strong publication record in Artificial Intelligence.

Publications in Agentic AI, Multi‑Agent Systems, LLM‑based agents, autonomous agents, or related topics.

Previous experience leading or coordinating research activities, work packages, or research projects.

📌 Msca Postdoctoral Fellowship 2026: Next-Generation Of Multi-Agentic Ai (Madrid)
🏢 i2CAT Research Centre
📍 Madrid