Admission Requirements: 

a)           To hold a master’s degree in biotechnology, microbiology or related areas; 

b)           to be enrolled in a PhD awarding program of an academic institution.

Monthly maintenance allowance: According to the values for Research Fellowships awarded by FCT in Portugal (https://www.fct.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Tabela_valores_SMM_2025.pdf), the amount of the monthly maintenance allowance is 1 309,64 €, being the payment method an option of the Fellow by Wire Transfer/Check.

Admission Requirements: 

a)           To hold a master’s degree in biotechnology, microbiology or related areas; 

b)           to be enrolled in a PhD awarding program of an academic institution.

Selection methods: The selection methods will be the following: Curriculum evaluation, with eventual individual interview if necessary. The criteria used to evaluate the candidates’ curricula will be as follows:

1. Acquaintance with coral husbandry techniques and mesocosm experiments mimicking climate change events; experience in measuring and analysing phenotypic indicators of octocoral health (15%); 

2. Experience with bioinformatics tools used in the analysis of nucleic acid sequences (e.g., DADA2, MEGA, iTOL, R language), notions of molecular taxonomy and phylogeny, preferentially when applied to the study of bacterial symbionts of octocorals (15%); 

3. Experience with functional annotation of bacterial genomes and metagenome-assembled genomes, with emphasis on the study of marine and/or coral-associated bacteria. Skills in processing 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing data, especially if applied in the study of octocoral microbiomes, will be considered a plus (20%);  

4. Academic trajectory, with special value attributed to indicators of the academic qualifications of the candidate (e.g., quality of the Master thesis dissertation, scientific initiation and participation as grant holder in projects funded in the areas mentioned above, participation in scientific conferences) (20%);

5. Demonstrated capacity to conduct the research plan described above (30%).

Composition of the selection Jury: 

Professor Rodrigo da Silva Costa (Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico)

Professor Miguel Nobre Parreira Cacho Teixeira (Department of Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico)

Doctor André Conceição Pereira (Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Instituto Superior Técnico)

Announcement/ notification of the results: The final evaluation results will be communicated to all applicants by email.

Deadlines and procedures of complaint and appeal: A complaint may be lodged from the final decision, or an appeal to the Executive Board of IST-ID, within 15 working days counted from the respective notification.

Legislation and Regulations: Statute of Scientific Research Fellow, approved by Law nr. 40/2004, of August 18, as worded by Decree-Law nr. 123/2019, of August 28; IST-ID Regulation for Research Studentships and Fellowships, available on https://ist-id.pt/recursos-humanos/bolseiros/#documentos-relacionados .

Workplace: The work will be developed at the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB) of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, under the scientific supervision of Prof. Rodrigo da Silva Costa and Dr. Tina Keller-Costa.