TWO POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE PROJECT “PTE Federal Award No: 1U19AI171110-01 Subaward No:13668sc”

OPENING OF INTERNATIONAL TENDER PROCEDURE FOR HIRING TWO POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE PROJECT “PTE Federal Award No: 1U19AI171110-01 Subaward No:13668sc”, DESIGNATED BY “QCRG Pandemic Response Program”

1. Within the powers delegated by the Board of Trustees of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Trustee in charge of the Department of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência authorized opening of an international Tender for the position oftwo postdoctoral researchersto carry out scientific research activities at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) facilities, in Oeiras, Portugal, under a undefined employment contract, with a view to filling a vacancy within the scope of the project “PTE Federal Award No: 1U19AI171110-01 Subaward No:13668sc”, with the title “QCRG Pandemic Response Program”, financed by National Institutes of Health (NIH); Pass-Through Entity: The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco.

The candidates to be selected will be co-supervised by  Pedro Beltrao (Gulbenkian Senior Fellow and ETHZ Professor) and Maria João Amorim head of the Cell Biology of Viral Infection Laboratory (CBV lab), based at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Portugal, being responsible for carrying out scientific research activities as part of a project of the NIH-funded Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Center, an interdisciplinary program that aims to identify new direct-acting antivirals for SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses. The selected candidates will further develop and apply computational methods to predict the structures of proteins, protein complexes, their conformational changes and active sites, which will contribute to broader structural characterization of viral proteins in the Centre. They will also contribute to the analysis of large-scale multi-omics datasets of viral infections and generally work towards the development of novel antiviral therapies.

This will be a highly collaborative project with project members in different physical locations (Lisbon, San Francisco and Zurich) and it is expected that the candidates will be able to work well as part of a team. There will be an opportunity to spend periods of time in different locations but travelling is not a requirement.

Scientific Areas: Bioinformatics, structural bioinformatics, protein networks, omics, virology.

1.      Applicable legislation: Labour Code, approved Law 7/2009 of February 12th with the changes introduced by Law 93/2019 of September 4th and complementary legislation.

2.      The tender selection panel will be as follows: President: Dr. Pedro Beltrão; Members: Dr. Maria João Amorim and Dr. Tiago Paixão.

3.      The place of work is located at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, at Rua da Quinta Grande nº6, Oeiras, Portugal.

4.      The employment contract will be for an uncertain term under article 148 of the Labor Code, with a maximum duration of 4 years.

5.      Monthly remuneration to be paid corresponding to the level 38 of the Single Salary Table, approved by Order no. 1553-C/2008, of 31st December, updated pursuant to Decree-Law nº 84-F/2022 of December 16, on exclusive dedication.

6.      Applicants to this Tender can be national, foreign, and stateless candidates who hold a doctoral degree in biology or similar and have a scientific and professional curriculum evidencing an adequate profile for the activity to be carried out. If the doctorate degree was granted by a foreign higher education institution, it must comply with the provisions of Decree-Law no. 66/2018, of August 16 and of the Regulatory Ordinance No. 33/2019, of January 25, and all formalities established therein must be complied with until the fate of signing the contract. In case the doctorate degree of the selected candidate does not comply with the Decree-Law above mentioned including all its formalities, the Selection Panel reserves the right to select the next best candidate.

7.      General tender admission requirements: We are seeking highly independent candidates with a PhD in bioinformatics related fields.

Programming knowledge in R or Python and past experience in bioinformatics projects is required.

Past experience in some of the following areas or methods would favorably considered: structural bioinformatics; protein network analysis; multi-omics data integration; protein variant effect predictions; machine learning and deep learning.

8.      Evaluation criteria: applications will be evaluated according to the Curriculum vitae (35%) and the motivation letter (30%). If deemed necessary by the selection panel, the interview of the selected candidates will represent 35% of the final classification.

9.      The decision is made by nominal vote of the selection panel members, in accordance with eligibility and selection criteria, with no abstentions allowed. The final results will be presented on a scale from 0 to 100.

10.    Minutes of the panel meeting should be drawn up to include a summary of all occurrences of said meeting, as well as all votes cast by the members with the respective justification together with a sorted list of approved candidates with their respective classification. These minutes should be made available to candidates whenever requested.

11.    The final decision of the jury is approved by the member of the Board of Trustees mandated for this purpose, who is also responsible for deciding on the hiring.

12.    Application formalization:

12.1.       Applications are addressed to the Director of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, and must be formalized to the email address igcpositions@igc.gulbenkian.pt, containing the identification of this tender, full name, number and date of the identity card, Citizen Card or civil identification number, tax identification number, date and place of birth, residency address including e-mail address and telephone number. Informal inquires are welcome to pbeltrao@igc.gulbenkian.pt

12.2.       The Applications shall include all documents providing evidence for the conditions laid down in sections 7 and 8 for admission to this call (single pdf file named “QCRG_LC_PD”), namely:

a)     Introduction letter explaining the motivation to develop the project and including a summary of relevant experience;

b)     Copy of certificate or doctoral diploma referring the relevant conclusion date;

c)     CV that includes the two recommendation letters, indicating the name, position, mailing address, phone number and email address;

d)     List of up to 3 most relevant publications and reasons for selecting them;

e)     Other documents relevant to assess the application and the capacity in the related scientific area.

All candidates (taxpayers in Portugal) are required to present evidence of fulfilment of their individual obligations towards the Portuguese Tax Authority and Social Security. Failure to comply with this requirement will be considered as a reason for exclusion from the selection process.

12.3.       The period for submitting the applications to this Tender, is between 26/01/2023 and 25/02/2023.

13.    All applicants who fail to submit their application correctly or who fail to provide the requirements imposed by this Tender within the dates indicated or who do not meet the legal requirements necessary to be hired under a term employment contract herein are excluded from admission. In case of doubt, the panel is entitled to request further documentation to support candidate statements.

14.    False statements by the applicants shall be punished by the law.

15.    The list of admitted and excluded applicants, as well as the final classification list, will be published on the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência internet site at https://gulbenkian.pt/ciencia/. The Applicants will be notified by e-mail with receipt of delivery of the notification.

16.    Deadline for Final Decision and Claims: within a maximum period of 90 days, counting from the deadline for the submission of the applications, the final decision of the selection panel shall be announced. After being notified of the panel's decision, applicants shall have 10 working days to issue an opinion.  

17.    This tender is intended exclusively to fill this specific vacancy and can be terminated at any time until the approval of the final candidate list, expiring with the respective occupation of said vacancy.

18.    The hiring decision may, by duly substantiated act of the member of the Board of Trustees mandated for this purpose, be revoked for reasons of strategic management, determined by the reorganization of the organic unit in question or by unforeseeable supervening circumstances at the date of approval of the list of final ranking of candidates, relating to the assumptions of the decision to hire and based on reasons of manifest public and institutional interest that justify it.

19.    on-discrimination and equal access policy:

The Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation actively promotes a non-discrimination and equal access policy, so that no candidate can be privileged, benefited, harmed or deprived of any right or exempt from any duty on grounds, in particular, of  ancestry, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family and economic conditions, education, origin or social condition, genetic heritage, reduced work capacity, disability, chronic illness, nationality, ethnic origin or race, origin territory, language, religion, political or ideological beliefs and trade union membership.

20.    Privacy Policy:

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is the controller responsible for the processing of Personal Data in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Regulation on Data Protection).

The personal data processed within the scope of this tender procedure are processed within the framework of said tender procedure only and will be processed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation with the purpose of verifying the fulfilment, by the applicants, of the assumptions established in the applicable legislation for their contracting. Opposition to the processing of the data by the applicants will make it impossible to accept the application and, therefore, to analyse and evaluate it.

The personal data of the Data Subject, if indispensable for the fulfilment of the obligations of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, may be disclosed to third parties, namely the Funding Entities identified in this public notice.

The personal data shall be retained for a period of five years pursuant to Article 32 (1) of the Labour Code.

The Data Subject is entitled to oppose to the collection and processing of data, has the right to verification, the right to rectification, the right to deletion, and the right to restriction of processing of the data collected. However, the exercise of such rights may be excluded when the personal data is used to protect public interest, namely in the detection and prevention of crimes or when subject to professional rules of confidentiality.

The Data Subject has the right of access and portability of the data.

The exercise of the aforementioned rights must be made in writing and addressed to the Privacy Committee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, by email to privacy@gulbenkian.pt or, alternatively, through the postal address at Avenida de Berna 45-A, 1067-001 Lisbon.

The applicant also has the right to submit a complaint to the National Data Protection Commission or other competent control authority in accordance with the law if he/she considers that the data are not being processed in accordance with the European and/or national legislation applicable.

21.    Pursuant to D.L. No. 29/2001, of February 3, disabled applicants have preference in an equal classification situation, which supersedes any legal preference. Applicants must state, when applying, under oath, the respective degree of disability, the type of disability and the means of communication to be used in the selection process, under the terms of the aforementioned diploma.