PhD position - Smart-Contract Language Development for Blockchain-Tech Systems

Currently existing smart-contract languages on blockchains are not  suitable for human readability and lack key constructs for making them  valid in court. Thus, the utility of smart-contract languages is limited  and requires research work for the development of compilers and virtual  machines.

PhD Position (4 years)

LSS Group (lss.ttu.ee) at the Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia, Department of Software Systems

Position Description

Please find general descriptions on this website: 
https://www.ttu.ee/faculties/school-of-information-technologies/doctoral-studies-6/

Additionally, more information is available on slides that are available with the link below: https://drive.google.com/a/ieee.org/file/d/0Byw4AEomZK2edGJuNG5aR1RKcGs/view?usp=drivesdk

Applicants  must have a master's degree in computer science, informatics, or  related studies. The focus of the PhD position will be conducting  research and publishing peer-reviewed scholarly papers. The research  will also comprise proof-of-concept prototyping. Additionally, the  candidate will supervise master-thesis projects that help to further the  actual PhD topic. We aim to keep teaching obligation limited so that  the the candidate has the necessary timetable available for research  activities. The candidate is expected to know excellent English in  spoken and written form.

PhD Topic

The  traditional understanding of a contract is a written or spoken  agreement enforceable by law. In most business cases, contracts are  documents that identify the contracting parties uniquely, a service that  is offered for some form of compensation that is usually monetary, and a  set of additional clauses such as service-delivery dates, penalties for  delivery failure, compensation clauses, and so on. Subsequent  transactions are trust-based and contracting parties usually consider  contracts as a symbol for an existing business deal. Another problem  with the traditional form of setting up and managing contracts is that  they are often underspecified. Most importantly, traditional contracts  do not provide sufficient details about the actual transaction  process and consequently, frictions with conflicts between the  contracting parties are very likely.

With respect to  smart-contract languages, we consider the Solidity language of Ethereum  and Eris. The latter is a fork of Ethereum with the objective to turn  the public blockchain of Ethereum into a permissioned version to be more  attractive for reclusive application domains such as in the banking  industry. This forking explains why Eris also considers Solidity for  smart-contract specifications. Because of the Turing-complete nature of  Solidity, it is in principle possible to achieve in some more or less  cumbersome way a support or all concepts and properties of the  smart-contract ontology that eSML embodies. However, certain concepts  are not supported, such as pattern-based design, process awareness,  matching of processes, etc., are not adopted in any way in Solidity.  With respect to inventing cumbersome workarounds, a recent  conference-paper publication uses Solidity to demonstrate the  feasibility of untrusted business-process monitoring and execution in  smart contracts.

Given the detected deficiencies of the current  smart-contract lingua france, the main research question for this PhD  position is: How to develop a smart-contract language that has the  utility and suitability for legal use by industry practitioners?

The  inherent suitability and expressiveness of smart-contract languages  also has implications on the underlying enactment machinery.  Blockchain-enabled smart contracts that employ proof-of-stake validation  for transactions, promise significant performance advantages compared  to proof-of-work solutions. For broad industry adoption, other important  requirements must be met in addition. For example, stable  backwards-compatible smart contract systems must automate  cross-organizational information-logistics orchestration with lite  mobile wallets that support simple payment verification (SPV)  techniques.

Application Instructions
Please follow the instructions of this website to be admitted for the position competition: https://www.ttu.ee/studying/phd-studies/admission-4/

Note  that the application for this PhD position is under the section for  information and communication technology. The link above also provides  all other relevant information. Further inquiries may be asked by  sending an email to [email protected]