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Research Position:

Important note: This is a summarized English version of the full original announcement written in Portuguese, provided for the convenience of non-Portuguese speakers. Only the full Portuguese version has official value for the evaluation and selection process.
Title:
B-0034-23 - Open Notice for PhD Research Scholarship - UIDB/50008/2020
Funding Reference Number:
UIDB/50008/2020
Summary:
The Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT) opens a call for a research grant, hereinafter referred to as a PhD Research Grant, in the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering, complying with the provisions of the FCT Regulation for Research Studentships and Fellowships (RBI) and the Research Fellowship Holder Statute (EBI).
The scholarships will be financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) under the Collaboration Protocol for Financing the Multiannual Plan for Research Grants for Doctoral Students, signed between FCT and the Research & Development (R&D) Unit Instituto de Telecomunicações, UIDB/50008/2020.

The call is open from March 15th to April 14th, 2023 at 11:59 pm (Lisbon time).
Applications, and all the supporting documents described in this Notice of the Call, must be submitted online at the IT portal https://www.it.pt/Positions/OtherResearchPosition/7797
Each applicant must submit one application only, under penalty of cancellation of all applications submitted.
Providing false statements or committing acts of plagiarism by applicants leads to the exclusion of the application, without prejudice of taking other corrective and punitive disciplinary measures.
Scientific Area:
Networks and Services
Group:
Networked Systems – Po
Admission 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 the PhD scholarship, the candidate must:
• Be a master in the scientific area required for the research grant or in related areas, with a minimum grade of 14;
• Not having benefited from a prior PhD grant or a PhD in industry grant directly funded by FCT, regardless of its duration;
• Not have a PhD
Application’s admissibility requirements
It is mandatory, under penalty of non-admissibility, that the candidate attaches the following documents to the application:
• Information of the identity card / citizen card / passport;
• Updated version of the Curriculum Vitae (CV);
• Work plan to be developed, with the following mandatory elements: title; abstract; key words; state-of-the-art; research problems, questions and objectives; work plan; detailed schedule and execution indicators; framework and relevance to the research activities plan of the Instituto de Telecomunicações; references (maximum of seven pages);
• An opinion and statement of agreement from the supervisor and eventual co-supervisor (s) appointed to monitor the candidate's activity. The supervisor must be PhD holder and a member of the Instituto de Telecomunicações, at Porto;
• Full course transcripts and academic degree certificates, indicating the final grade and, if possible, the final classification of the completed disciplines. If the certificates cannot be presented by the end of the application period, the candidate must upload a signed declaration of honour stating that the candidate will complete the master's degree by the end of applying date. Failure to produce the certificates by this date eliminates the candidate.
• Registration of the recognition of foreign academic degree awarded by foreign higher education institutions, and registration of the conversion of the respective final grade to the Portuguese grading scale, or, alternatively, the candidate's declaration of honor confirming that he will obtain the recognition of the foreign degree equivalent to that of a bachelor or master by the contract signature date stated above;
• Motivation letter;
• Present/prepare and submit the application and all related documents, including motivational letter, in Portuguese or in English.
Regarding the admissibility requirements mentioned above, the following should be noted:

• In the case of foreign academic degrees, and to guarantee the application of the principle of equal treatment among applicants with national and foreign academic degrees, it is mandatory to submit the recognition of foreign degrees and the conversion of the respective final grade to the Portuguese grading scale.
The recognition of foreign academic degrees and diplomas, and the conversion of the respective final grade to the Portuguese grading scale, can be issued by any Portuguese public higher education institution, or in case of automatic recognition by the Directorate General for Higher Education (Direção Geral do Ensino Superior, DGES). Regarding this matter, it is suggested to visit the DGES portal through the following address: http://www.dges.gov.pt.
• Applicants will be admitted only if they have completed the study cycle leading to a master's degree by the end of the application period and have uploaded the certificate of completion of the course. Candidates will be admitted also if they upload a declaration of honor stating that they will have completed the necessary qualifications for the purposes of the competition by the end of the contract signature date stated above. The granting of the scholarship always depends on the presentation of proof of holding the academic qualifications necessary for granting the scholarship.
Work Objectives:
The work plan must fall strictly within the scientific area defined in Section 3. It must be in line with the mission of Instituto de Telecomunicações, contribute to the development of its R&D strategic plan, and must be supported and supervised by one of the PhD members affiliated with the IT Porto (https://www.it.pt/ITSites/Members/5). The work plan document must contain, necessarily, all the elements indicated in Section 4.2 of this notice. The evaluation criteria to be applied is provided in Section 6.
Applicable legislation:
The present call is governed by this Notice of the Call, the FCT Regulation of Research Fellowships, approved by the Regulation no. 950/2019, published in the Series II of the DR, of 16th December, by the Research Fellowship Holder Statute, approved by the Law no. 40/2004, of 18th of August, in its current version, and by other applicable national and European legislation.
Place of work:
The PhD research grant aims to finance the research activities, by the grant holder, to obtain a PhD degree from Universidade do Porto. These research activities will take place at Instituto de Telecomunicações (IT), at Porto. IT will be the host institution for the scholarship holders, without preventing that the work may be carried out in collaboration with more than one institution.
The research activities of the selected grant holder leading to the PhD academic degree must be framed in the activities plan and strategy of the Instituto de Telecomunicações.
Duration:
As a rule, the duration of the grant is annual, renewable up to a maximum of four years (48 months), and the grant cannot be awarded for a period of less than 3 consecutive months.
Monthly salary:
The payment of the scholarship will begin after returning the signed contract to FCT, which should happen within the 15 business days after its delivery.
The scholarship granted in this call will be financed by FCT using the State Budget fund and, whenever eligible, using the European Social Fund (ESF), under the Programa Demografia, Qualificações e Inclusão (PDQI), according to the respective requirements.
SCHOLARSHIP ALLOWANCE
Scholarship holders receive a monthly maintenance allowance in accordance with the table in Annex I of the RBI.
The scholarship may include additional allowances, according to RBI’s Article no. 18 and the values indicated in its Annex II.
All scholarship holders have a personal accident insurance related to their research activities, which FCT will support.
All scholarship holders who do not benefit from any social protection regime have the right to social security through the voluntary social insurance regime, under the terms of the Contributory Scheme of the Social Security System. FCT will ensure the charges resulting from contributions under the terms and with the limits provided in Article no. 10 of the EBI.
Selection criteria:
  • C1 (60%)
    Merit of the Applicant, decomposed into three sub-criteria:

    Sub-criterion A1 - Masters’ final mark (0-20 scale), with a relative weight of 60%.

    Sub-criterion A2 - Personal curriculum in the area of the work plan, with a relative weight of 30%.

    Sub-criterion A3 – Motivation letter, with a relative weight of 10%.
  • C2 (10%)
    Merit of the Work Plan

    B1 – Scientific quality, with a relative weight of 80%;

    B2 – Relevance of the work plan for the strategic plan of IT (Instituto de Telecomunicações), with a relative weight of 20%.
  • C3 (30%)
    Scientific merit of the supervising team.

Each criteria, and the final classification F will be evaluated in a scale (0-20). The candidates will be ordered according to:
F = C1 x 60% + C2 x 10% + C3 x 30%
In case of a tie, the tied candidates will be ordered according to C1, then C2...
The Jury has the right to not admit any of the candidates that applied for this position whenever they consider that no candidate meets the minimum requirements for the position.
Jury:
  • Prof. Rui Pedro de Magalhaes Claro Prior, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto (President of the jury)
  • Prof. Marília Pascoal Curado, Universidade de Coimbra
  • Prof. Nuno Miguel Abreu Luís, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa
  • Prof. Pedro Miguel Alves Brandão, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto (Substitute)
Communication of the results:
The results of the evaluation are communicated via e-mail to the e-mail address used by the applicant to create the application account in the Insitituto de Telecomunicações web system
Required Documents:
The research grant contracts are signed directly with FCT.
The following documents are mandatory, upon granting of the scholarship, for hiring purposes:
a) Copy of the documents of personal identification, tax number and, if applicable, social security;
b) Copy of the academic degree certificates;
c) Workplan to be developed
d) Submission of the recognition of foreign academic degree and the conversion of the respective final grade to the Portuguese grading scale, if applicable;
e) Document proving the acceptance and registration in the Doctoral Program identified in this Notice;
f) Supervisor(s) statement declaring the commitment to supervise the PhD work, as established in Article no. 5-A of the Statute for Research Fellowships (template will be made available by FCT);
g) Document proving the candidate's acceptance by Instituto de Telecomunicações, guaranteeing the necessary conditions for its successful development, as well as the fulfillment of the duties provided for in article 13 of the Research Fellowship Holder Statute (template will be made available by FCT);
h) Updated document proving the exclusive work regime (template will be made available by FCT).
The scholarship granting is further dependent on:
• The fulfilment of all the requirements listed in this Notice of the Call;
• The results of scientific evaluation;
• The absence of unjustified non-compliance of the grant holder duties during previous directly or indirectly FCT funded fellowships;
• The FCT's available budget.

The contracting of the scholarship is foreseen during the month of July 2023.
Failure to deliver any of the necessary documents to complete the hiring process by June 2023 may imply the expiration of the referred grant and the termination of the process.

The whole selection process is conducted through the IT web portal. No actions outside this platform are valid.
All the selection process is conducted through the IT web portal. No actions outside this platform are valid.
Application Period:
15-03-2023 to 14-04-2023
Assistance:
Send Email
Published on:
13-03-2023
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