Outline

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Health (CIIS) of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) ) hereby announces the opening of a call for applications for 1 (one) research scholarship, hereinafter referred to as Ph.D.Research Scholarship, in ​​Cognition and Language Sciences, under the FCT Research Grant Regulation (RBI) and the Research Grant Holder Statute (EBI).

The grant will be financed by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) under the Collaboration Protocol for the Pluriannual Financing Plan for Doctoral Degree Students Research Scholarships, signed between FCT and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Health (CIIS), R&D Unit No. 4279.

The call for applications shall be open from February 15th 2023 until March 1st 2023 (5 pm - Lisbon time).

Applications and their respective supporting documentation, stipulated in the present Public Notice of Call for Applications, must be submitted via email to saude.sede@ucp.pt

Candidates may submit one application only. Submission of more than one application will result in the annulment of all applications.

False statements or plagiarism on the part of candidate are grounds for annulment of the application, without prejudice to any other punitive measures.

What is funded

Doctoral Research Scholarships are intended to finance students’ PhD research, leading to the attainment of a PhD degree, in Portuguese universities.

The research activities leading to a PhD degree shall take place at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Health (CIIS), R&D Unit No. 4279, which will be the scholarship recipient’s host institution, without prejudice to any other work undertaken in collaboration with one or more institutions.

The research will be carried out in Lisbon, at one of the research infrastructures of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Health (CIIS), under the supervision of an ICS professor, who should also be an integrated researcher at CIIS.

The research activities leading to the academic degree of Doctor of the selected scholarship holder must be framed in the plan of activities and strategy of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Health (CIIS), R&D Unit No. 4279, and must be developed within the scope of the Ph.D. Program in Cognition and Language Sciences at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, in one or more of the following areas: pain; aging and dementia; functionality and cognition; linguistics; language intervention; mind brain and education; and experimental psychology.

Duration

As a rule, this annual scholarship is renewable for a maximum period of three years (36 months). Scholarships cannot be awarded for periods of less than three consecutive months.

In the case of a mixed scholarship, the period stipulated by the work plan to be hosted by a non-Portuguese institution cannot be greater than 24 months.

Eligibility

The Ph.D. Research Scholarship is awarded to candidates who are either enrolled or who meet the requirements to enrol in the Doctoral Programme detailed in Article 2 of the present Public Notice and who furthermore seek to develop research leading to the academic degree of Doctor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Research (CIIS), R&D Unit no. 4279, or in host institutions associated with it.

Candidate Eligibility Requirements

The following are eligible to apply:

• Portuguese citizens or citizens of other European Union member States;
• Citizens from other States;
• Stateless persons;
• Citizens holding political refugee status.

To apply for a Ph.D. Research Scholarship, applicants must:

• Hold a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in the areas of Psychology, Cognitive Sciences, Neurosciences, Language Sciences, and in other areas of Health or Education or other related areas;

• Reside in Portugal on a permanent and regular basis, at the time the work plan is due to begin abroad, whenever the work plan associated with the scholarship takes place partially or in totality in international institutions (for mixed scholarships). This requirement is applicable to both national and international candidates;

• previously not been the recipient of a doctoral scholarship or an in-company doctoral degree financed by FCT, regardless of its length;
• Not hold a Doctoral degree.

Application Eligibility Requirements

The following documents, without exception, must be included in the application, under penalty of exclusion from the call for applications:

• The details stated on the identity card, citizen’s card or passport;

• Curriculum vitae of the candidate;
  • • Qualification certificates of the academic degrees held, specifying the final classification and, whenever possible, the marks received for each subject studied., Alternatively, should candidates be unable to access their undergraduate or Master’s degree certificate by the application deadline, a declaration upon honour that the candidate completed their undergraduate or Master’s degree studies prior to the application deadline;
• Registration of the recognition of academic degrees awarded by foreign higher education institutions, which must, without fail, be accompanied by a record of the conversion of the respective final classification to the scale applied in the Portuguese classification system. Alternatively, a declaration upon honour that the candidate completed the international equivalent to an undergraduate or Master’s degree up until the end of the application period;
• Letter of motivation;
• Preliminary Ph.D. project proposal within the scope of the Brain and Behavior Research Lab and/or Lang_Lab objectives of the Translational Neuroscience Research Platform (up to 2000 words);
• Curriculum or curricula of the advisor(s) (not a mandatory document).

As regards the aforementioned eligibility requirements, the following should be noted:

• in the case of academic qualifications awarded by non-Portuguese higher education institutions, and in order to ensure the principle of equal treatment of candidates with national and non-national academic degrees, the recognition of all academic qualifications and the conversion of their final classification grades to the Portuguese classification scale is mandatory.

• The recognition of non-Portuguese academic titles and diplomas, as well as the conversion of final classifications to the Portuguese classification scale may be requested at any public higher education institution or from DGES – the General Directorate of Higher Education (only for requests for automatic recognition). On this matter, candidates are advised to consult the DGES website at the following address: https://www.dges.gov.pt/en.
• Candidates will only be considered if they have completed the cycle of studies leading to undergraduate or Master’s degrees by the deadline of the call for applications. Should they not have the certificates testifying to attaining the necessary qualifications for the submission of their applications by this deadline, then a declaration upon honour shall be provisionally accepted. However, the awarding of the scholarship shall remain contingent on the submission of the certificates attesting to the attainment of the required academic qualifications during the contractual process.