Job Information
- Organisation/Company
- CENTRO DE INVESTIGAÇÃO DE POLÍTICAS DO ENSINO SUPERIOR
- Research Field
- EconomicsEducational sciences
- Researcher Profile
- Recognised Researcher (R2)
- Country
- Portugal
- Application Deadline
- Type of Contract
- Temporary
- Job Status
- Full-time
- Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?
- Not funded by an EU programme
- Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?
- No
Offer Description
Project: PTDC/CED-EDG/5530/2020
Refª PTDC/CED-EDG/5530/02
CIPES hereby announces that, until the 19th of January 2024, an international public notice is opened to recruit one Doctorate in the form of an Uncertain Term Work Contract under the Portuguese Labour Code. This doctoral vacancy is opened in the context of the research Project “Dynamics of Inequality in Portuguese Higher Education System – Access, Gender, and Mobility.”
The project is funded by the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). It is a full-time position (100%), and the selected candidate will be responsible for conducting research in the field of Economics, namely Labour Economics, Economics of Education and Econometrics.
The contest is governed by the provisions of Decree-Law 57/2016, August 29, that approves the rules for post-doctoral work contracts, designed to stimulate employment in science and technology in all areas of knowledge (RJEC) within the legal provisions of the Labor Code, Law nr.7/2009, February 12, in its current wording and other applicable legislation and regulations. The gross monthly payment corresponds to €2,206.05, corresponding to level 33 of the Single Salary table, approved by Order no. 1533-C/2008 of 31 December.
The selected candidate will be hired under an uncertain term employment contract under the applicable legal terms of paragraph b), no. 1 of article 6 of RJEC, ex vi no. 2 of article 18 of RJEC, and will remain only for the period necessary for the execution of the tasks defined in the project.
Brief summary of the project:
Recent decades have seen a massive expansion in the access to higher education (HE). One of the major developments in dealing with mass HE has been a tendency to de-regulate higher education systems (HES), allowing them to follow the interplay of the supply and demand forces. However, it has been argued that de-regulation and competition could lead to significant stratification and inequalities in HE.
There are several dimensions through which HE can reproduce or amplify inequalities. One of the potential sources of inequality is that of institutional stratification. In many systems the major issue is not anymore of access to a degree, but increasingly about the type of degree, the type of institution, the region chosen, or the field of study being chosen. This seems to be particularly relevant regarding the future benefits of HE as the job prospects and income seem to vary substantially depending on the field of study and educational institution. A second source of inequality refers to the way HE reproduces and amplifies socioeconomic inequalities. Due to the strong competition for certain programs and institutions, students and their families have adopted a variety of strategies, namely by mobilizing more resources that could place them in an advantageous situation. Moreover, others have questioned that the current system focus on certain competences and skills that do not guarantee a good academic performance of students once they enter HE. A third important dimension of inequality in a mass system has to do with the opportunities it creates according to gender. Although women’s levels of participation in HE and qualification have improved significantly, this is still not homogeneous across all fields. In particular, women are still underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions, despite investing on average more years in education than males, which can partly justify the gender pay gap, as women miss out on high-paying careers. A fourth and final dimension of inequality refers to the number of years of study and the growing divide between those with a first-degree and those with postgraduate education and the financial advantages of the latter.
In this project we aim to study several dimensions of the dynamics of inequality in mass HE by focusing on the Portuguese system. A crucial aspect to study is the impact of the access system and the way this is replicating and amplifying different types of inequalities. Thus, we aim to analyse the access system in Portugal and to what extent it is performing well its function, namely:
(i) First, to analyse the matches and mismatches between students’ preferences and existing capacity in the system and how this has evolved over time. We are interested in analyzing at various levels (system, institution, and field of studies) to what extent supply and demand of HE is well balanced or if there are relevant disequilibria.
(ii) Second, to analyse the matches and mismatches between secondary education and HE. Namely, we are interested in studying the way this cycle prepares students for HE (as measured by secondary education grades and final examinations) and the academic performance of students after they enter in HE.
Another important dimension of inequality in the Portuguese HES has to do with the opportunities it creates according to gender, especially in prestigious and well-paid occupations. Thus, we will focus on the analysis of women’s access to STEM degrees and their recognition in the Portuguese labor market, namely we want to understand:
(iii) What makes a HE institution an invigorating environment that motivates students, in particular females, to complete their STEM degree on time?
(iv) How does the labor market valuation of a STEM degree evolve, as women take up a rising share of its workforce?
A third and final dimension of inequality to be analyzed in Portuguese HE refers to the number of years of study and the growing divide between those with a first-degree and those with postgraduate education. This has been particularly accelerated with the Bologna reforms that were implemented in many European HES such as the Portuguese one. We aim to analyse mobility between the first and second cycles of studies, namely the following questions will be addressed:
(v) Who are the students moving to a master program immediately after graduating?
(vi) Where do they go? Are they adjusting the pathways they choose as undergraduates by moving to different fields of study? Do they stay in the same institution and region?
We will use rich longitudinal individual data on HE and the labor market. The data allow us to follow individuals from the moment they apply to secondary education, through their performance in HE, and their subsequent trajectory as graduates from the different HE fields in postgraduate education or in the labor market.
Requirements
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Level
- Good
- Languages
- PORTUGUESE
- Level
- Good
Additional Information
Eligibility criteria
The candidate is required to have a PhD in Economics degree or related.
Selection process
1. Admission Requirements:
- Candidates must hold a PhD degree in Economics or a degree recognised as equivalent. Candidates who completed their PhD degree in the last 6 years are given preference.
- They must have an interest in the field of Economics of Education/Labour Economics, ideally demonstrated through publications in national or international peer-reviewed journals;
- Candidates should ideally demonstrate high-level competencies in working with large datasets and should have good computational skills (e.g. STATA, R), as well as, Econometrics knowledge;
- All candidates should be fluent in English and have good knowledge of Portuguese;
- Candidates should have a significant degree of autonomy in conducting research.
2. Work Plan:
The successful candidate will:
- Conduct relevant and innovative research in the fields of Economics of Education/Labour Economics;
- Develop relevant and rigorous analyses of the data used for the project;
- Participate in the elaboration of publications (articles, books, chapters, etc) and activities of dissemination.
3. Applications
Applications should be addressed to the CIPES director, Professor António Magalhães, and sent by e-mail to cipes@cipes.up.pt no later than the 4th of January 2024.
The application should include:
- the call identification
- the applicant’s identification, including full name, birth date, nationality, mailing address, and e-mail.
- a detailed CV, which must include the identification of degrees held by the applicant, a description of the applicant’s research activities and outputs, and a description of other relevant professional experience;
- a motivation letter, which must briefly present how the candidate expects to contribute to the research agenda of the project;
- other inputs that the candidate finds relevant contained within a single compressed file;
- copies of certificates with respective grades or of other documents that are legally recognised for the same purpose, including training certificates,
- a statement by the applicant declaring that the elements or facts contained in the application are correct and accurate.
The applications can be written in English or Portuguese. Candidates will receive an e-mail confirming the receipt of the application. Non-compliance with the submission deadline and the application's incorrect formalization results in the application's exclusion. If applicable, the exclusion decision will be communicated to candidates by e-mail.
4. Jury
The call jury has the following composition.
President: Prof. Carla Sá, U. Minho, NIPE and CIPES, PI of the project.
Jury Members:
Prof. Hugo Figueiredo, U. Aveiro and CIPES
Prof. Pedro Luís Silva, CIPES and U. Porto
Substitute Jury Members:
Prof. Ricardo Biscaia – U. Porto and CIPES, Co-PI of the project,
5. Jury Operation Rules
The jury deliberations are held by roll call voting, requiring the absolute majority of votes of the members of the jury present at the meeting, with abstentions not being allowed. The jury deliberates the candidacy's approval based on the candidates' overall curriculum concerning the scientific areas of the call. For the approved candidates, the jury will begin the process of the applications’ appraisal, taking into account the criteria set out in this notice.
6. Evaluation, Selection and Ordering of Candidates
The jury will select candidates focusing on curriculum evaluation and the relevance and quality of achievements. In the case of the top-placed candidates, the curricular assessment (C.A.) will be complemented with an additional interview (I.). The final evaluation score will reflect both components.
The evaluation of applicants’ curricula (C.A.) will be based on the following criteria:
- advanced training in Economics, namely in the fields of interest of the project; experience working with large databases; other skills and knowledge that qualify the candidate for the research work to be carried out (50%);
- previous experience in scientific research, namely the intrinsic quality of autonomous research and its scientific contribution will be assessed (40%);
- the dimension Science Outreach and knowledge dissemination for a wide audience (10%).
The score obtained in the C.A. is expressed on a numeric scale of 0 to 100. The final result is the weighted mean of the classifications of each dimension mentioned above.
The jury deliberates by vote justified according to the evaluation criteria. No abstentions are allowed. The classification of each candidate is obtained by averaging the scores of each of the members of the jury. In case of a tie, the decision of the tie-breaker shall be the responsibility of the president of the jury.
Once the C.A. is completed, candidates with a minimum classification of 75 are approved for an I. process in which they should make a formal presentation to the jury, which should:
- discuss their research interests and how the project fits those interests (25%);
- present their scientific contributions of the last five years, their impact, and recognition by the scientific community (25%);
- demonstrate their level of experience in the critical deployment of quantitative research methods (25%);
- answer queries from the jury (25%).
The I. will be conducted online and will have a maximum duration of 30 minutes, with 10 minutes devoted to the presentation and 20 minutes to questions from the jury. Each criteria stated above will be scored using a numeric scale from 0 to 100. A final score for the I. will be obtained by averaging all scores according to the weights defined above.
The final score (F.S.) of each candidate is obtained through a weighted average, by assigning a weighting factor of 90% to the curricular assessment and of 10% to the interview (I.). In case of a tie, the decision of the tie-breaker shall be the responsibility of the president of the jury.
7. Advertising and notification of results
The final evaluation results will be publicized through an ordered list (by final score obtained) posted in the institution and all candidates will be notified by email.
Work Location(s)
- Number of offers available
- 1
- Company/Institute
- CIPES
- Country
- Portugal
- City
- Matosinhos
- Postal Code
- 4450-227
- Street
- Rua 1.º Dezembro, 399
- Geofield
Where to apply
- cipes@cipes.up.pt
Contact
- City
- Matosinhos
- Website
- Street
- Rua 1º Dezembro 399
- Postal Code
- 4450-227 Matosinhos
- cipes@cipes.up.pt