Atlantic International Research Centre (AIR Centre) opens a Call for 6 (six) PhD grants from a set of nine available themes within the in the field of Computer Science, Natural Science and Ocean Sciences complying with the provisions of the FCT Regulation for Research Studentships and Fellowships (RBI) and the Research Fellowship Holder Statute (EBI):
1) Development of aquaculture technology for the Azorean limpet species: life cycle, culture systems and feeding
2) Mid-Atlantic Ridge seascapes: Tools to understand deepsea connectivitty
3) Distribution modelling of oceanic megafauna towards dynamic ocean management
4) Impacts of submarine volcano eruptions on the shallow ocean from satellite imagery and Machine learning
5) Automatic image annotation of underwater video imagery with artificial intelligence techniques and machine learning algorithms
6) Vision and predictive analytics for monitoring sustainability of exploited fishing populations
7) Impacts of microplastic pollution in commercial fish species from the Azores-Toxicological effects and implications for human health
8) CellFish: establishing fish cell cultures from Azorean species for sustainable food production.
9) Tracing value chains and using fisher’s knowledge to understand the status of commercial fisheries stocks in the Azores
The grants will be financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the Collaboration Protocol signed between the FCT and the AIR Centre.
Application
The call is open from January 25th to March 15th 2023 (23:59 Lisbon Time)
Applications, and all the supporting documents described in the RBI and in this Notice of the Call, must be submitted online using the appropriate application form available here.
Applications submitted by other means will not be accepted.
All the application procedures, including submission, evaluation, results communication, preliminary hearings, are performed online.
Each applicant may submit one application (for theme) only, under penalty of cancellation of all applications submitted.
Providing false declarations or committing acts of plagiarism by applicants leads to the exclusion of the application without prejudice of taking other corrective and punitive disciplinary measures.
Type and Duration of Studentships
Aiming to support advanced training, PhD studentships will be granted to applicants that fulfil the requirements to join a study cycle that allows to obtain a PhD degree and that wish to develop research work that allows obtaining that degree.
The research work may be carried out in any environment of production and dissemination of knowledge, national or international, including higher education institutions, R&D units, Associated Laboratories, Collaborative Laboratories, Interface Centers, State Laboratories and other public research institutions, other Public Administration entities or private non-profit institutions developing R&D activities, companies acknowledged for their scientific and technology interest or consortia that includes any of the mentioned institutions.
The work plan must be developed entirely or partially in a national institution (studentship in Portugal or both in Portugal and abroad, respectively)
As a rule, the duration of PhD studentships is annual, renewable up to the maximum number of months requested upon application and cannot be granted for a period less than 3 consecutive months neither more than 48 months.
In case of a studentship carried out both in Portugal and abroad, the work plan period in a foreign institution cannot exceed 24 months.
Recipients
AIR Centre PhD grants are aimed at applicants enrolled or that comply with the requirements to enroll for PhD related studies and who wish to carry out research towards this degree.
Admissibility
Applicants’ admissibility requirements
The following citizens may apply to this call:
- National citizens or citizens from other member-states of the European Union;
- Third-party states citizens;
- Stateless individuals;
- Citizens holding a political refugee status.
To apply for a PhD studentship, it is necessary:
- To be a citizen permanently and usually living in Portugal, in case the work plan of the requested studentship proceeds, partially, in foreign institutions (in case of both in Portugal and abroad studentships); this requirement is applicable to both national and foreign citizens;
- Not to have benefited from a PhD or a PhD in industry studentship directly funded by FCT, regardless of its duration.
- Not hold a PhD
Application’s admissibility requirements
It is mandatory to submit the following documents, under penalty of non-admissibility:
a) Your personal identification (ID card, passport)
b) An updated version of your Curriculum Vitae (CV)
c) Academic degree certificates, indicating the final grade and ECTS and, if possible, the final classification of the disciplines completed.;
d) Motivation letter, explaining the reasons for your application, presenting your academic/professional career path and how it is related to the work plan; in case of also presenting the document or achievement considered the most representative, applicants should also explain this option in the motivation letter;
e) Two (2) different recommendation letters, signed by the respective issuer; these letters should include the academic and/or professional context relationship of the candidate with its referee and should also specify that are related with this call; supervising acceptance letters should not be used as recommendation letters; as an example, recommendation letters may refer to the applicant’s maturity and career path adequacy related to the proposed work plan;
Research work plan and Scientific orientation of the Studentship
More more detailed work plans will be prepared by the selected candidates together with the supervisors These work plans will be approved and will be part of the application to the doctoral program of the degree-granting university.
Once the provisional ranked list of the evaluation results has been communicated, applicants who have an unfavourable provisional decision may use their right to dispute it during the preliminary hearing phase, which takes place within 10 working days, according to Articles no. 121 and the following of the Administrative Procedure Code (CPA).
The final decision will be disclosed after the analysis of applicants’ arguments presented in the preliminary hearing. Final decision can be claimed within 15 working days or, alternatively, appealed within 30 working days, after the communication of the final results, respectively. The AIR Centre team shall receive the applicants’ complaints and appeals and remit them to the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia I.P., accompanied by its assessment. The complaints and appeals must be addressed to FCT’s Administration board.
The studentships will start at the 1st day of the month indicated by the applicant during the granting procedure, that must occur within six months of the date of notification of the approval decision.
The research scholarships contracts will be dealt directly with the FCT. The following documents are of mandatory submission, upon conditional granting of the studentship for purposes of contracting thereof:
a) Copy of the documents of personal identification, tax number and, if applicable, socialsecurity;
b) Copy of the academic degree certificates.
c) Work Plan
d) Document proving the acceptance and registration in the 3rd study cycle from the educational offer in the higher education institution that will grant the academic degree;
e) Supervisor(s) statement declaring to coordinate the work plan, as established in Article no. 5-A of the Statute for Research Fellowships (template will be made available by FCT);
f) Institutional document supporting the applicant, issued by the institution(s) where the work plan will be carried out, guaranteeing the necessary conditions to its successful development, as well as the fulfilment of the duties established in Article no. 13 of the Research Fellowship Holder Statute (template will be made available by FCT);
g) Updated document proving the exclusivity dedication regime (template will be made available by FCT).
The lack of any of the necessary documents to complete the contracting procedure implies the expiration of the studentship granting and conclusion of the process; applicants have up to 6 months after the disclosure of the provisional granting to present all of the listed documents.
