Research Fellowship for Master - ALQI

Job Description:

Universidade Lusófona, established by COFAC - Cooperativa de Formação e Animação Cultural. CRL, hereby announces a call for the award of 1 (one) PhD grant, hereinafter referred to as PhD Research Grant, in the area of Informatics, under the FCT Research Grant Regulations (RBI) and the Research Grant Holder Statute (EBI). The grant will be funded by the research project "ALQI: an intelligent chatbot to explore new literacies in the age of algorithms and AI.", funded by the ILIND/Universidade Lusófona/COFAC and developed at the R&D Unit CICANT - Research Center for Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (5260).

1. Type and number of grant(s) to be awarded: 1 (one) Master student research grants, with reference  ALQI-BM
2. Scientific field(s): Informatics and Social Psychology
3. Funding Source: The grants related to the grant components are funded by Ilind (Instituto Lusófono de Investigação e Desenvolvimento) Universidade Lusófona – Centro Universitário de Lisboa.
4. Applicants: The MSC Research Grant is intended for candidates already enrolled or candidates who meet the necessary conditions to enroll in a MSC Program in Computer Science or equivalent and who wish to develop research activities, leading to a master’s degree, in the context with the scientific work developed by CICANT (Universidade Lusófona) under the project " ALQI: an intelligent chatbot to explore new literacies in the age of algorithms and AI "
5. Eligibility of applicants: The following are eligible to apply to this call: National citizens or citizens of other European Union Member States; Citizens of third countries; Stateless persons; Citizens benefiting from political refugee status.
   Candidate Admission Requirements:
   Bachelor's degree in the study area of Informatics / Computer Science
   To be permanently and habitually resident in Portugal, a requirement applicable to both Portuguese and foreign citizens
   No to be the recipient of another grant for study/research
   Proficient command of English

5.2 Application Admissibility Requirements

It is indispensable, under penalty of non-admission to the Call, to attach the following documents to the application:

• Curriculum vitae of the candidate, indicating the electronic address, and all scientific production (scientific articles, books, chapters, communications, etc.) should be accessible on the RESEARCH GATE, ORCID or VITAE Science platform, or in PDF format;
• Certificates of the academic degrees held, specifying, necessarily, the final classification and, if possible, the grades obtained in all subjects taken. Alternatively, declaration of the candidate's honor  that he/she has completed the degrees required in the announcement by the application deadline;
• Any other documents that the candidates may consider relevant for the assessment of their merit;
• The application and all documents associated with it, including the letters of motivation and recommendation, must be written in English.
   
• 5.3 Preferential requirements:
• Knowledge and experience in the development of data-driven iOS and android apps
• Desirable: experience in chatbots and /or recommender systems
• Desirable: knowledge and experience in statistical natural language processing
• Desirable: knowledge, experience and/or publications in the domain of communication science, esp. social networks.

Applicable legislation and regulations:
Research Grant Holder Statute (EBI), approved by Law no. 40/2004 of 18 August, in its current wording published by Decree-Law no. 123/2019 of 28 August Research Grant Regulations, no. 950/2019 of 16-12-2019, of the Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. - in force.

Contracting entity:

COFAC –Cooperativa de Formação e Animação Cultural, C.R.L. com sede em Av. Campo Grande 376, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal

Unit for hosting research work and scientific guidance:

The work will be carried out at CICANT - Research Centre for Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (ref: 5260)/ Universidade Lusófona- Centro Universitário de Lisboa under the scientific supervision of Professor Doutor. Manuel Marques-Pita.

Duration of the grant(s)
The grant will have a duration of 6 months and can be renewed up to a maximum of 11 months.

Amount of the monthly maintenance allowance:

The amount of the SMM corresponds to 875,98 euros/month, in accordance with the table of values of the FCT, I.P. grants (Table of monthly maintenance allowances of the FCT I.P. Research GrantsRegulations).

Payment is made between the 1st and the 8th of each month, by transfer to the IBAN/NIB of the grant recipient indicated in the contractualization process.

Other benefits:

Reimbursement of Voluntary Social Insurance, corresponding to the 1st Step of the contributory base (for grants lasting 6 months or more) and Personal Accident Insurance.

Exclusive regime:

The performance of functions as a research fellow is carried out on an exclusive basis, under the terms of article 5 of the Research Fellow Statute and applicable research grant regulations.

Deadline for applications and how to submit applications:

The call is open from January, 19^th to February, 10^th at 17h59 (Lisbon time) on. Applications and supporting documents for the application set out in this call for applications must be submitted by email to cicant@ulusofona.pt, with the subject of the email being “ALQI-BM application”. Each candidate may submit only one application, under penalty of cancellation of all applications submitted. The provision of false statements or plagiarism by the applicants will lead to the cancellation of the application without prejudice to the adoption of other sanctionary measures.

Evaluation and selection criteria and procedures:
For the purposes of the decision on the award of the scholarships, the candidates will be ordered according to the weighted average of the classification obtained in each of the three criteria, translated by the following formula:

• Criterion A – Curriculum vitae 70%
• Criterion B – Research interests letter 30%
• For the purposes of the decision on the award of the scholarships, the candidates will be ordered according to the weighted average of the classification obtained in each of the three criteria, translated by the following formula:

Merit Classification = (70% ×A)+(30%×B)

For tie-breaking purposes, the candidates will be ranked on the basis of the marks attributed to each of the evaluation criteria in the following order of precedence: criterion A, criterion B, criterion C.

The Jury may decide to invite the three best classified candidates to an interview, in which case the following evaluation sub-criteria shall apply

1. Interpersonal skills (30%)
2. Demonstrated knowledge in the area of the competition (40%)
3. Motivation (10%)
4. Language Skills (20%)

The grading of the Interview will be obtained by applying the following formula:

Interview = a + b + c + d

In case the interview is held, the final classification of the Merit and Interview will be obtained by applying the following formula: following formula:

Final Classification = (Merit*0,7) + (Interview*0,3)

If the interview is not held, the final classification will correspond to 100% of the evaluation obtained in the Candidate Merit.

The jury may not award the scholarship if the quality of the candidates is inferior to the desired quality, establishing as a minimum score for awarding the scholarship the score of 75 points
 

Composition of the Selection

Board President

Manuel Pita

Effective members

João Carvalho

Loureiro

Substitute members

Rita Grácio

Should the President of the Jury be unable to attend, he shall be replaced by the first effective member, and the alternate member shall be appointed to replace the effective member.
 

Dissemination of results:

The final results of the evaluation will be published through a list ordered by the grade obtained, posted in a visible and public place of the University, as well as on the institutional website of CICANT- https://cicant.ulusofona.pt/ - and also by email to all candidates. The notification will be sent to the email address used/indicated by the candidates when submitting the application. The selected candidate must express in writing his/her intention to accept the scholarship. In case of non- acceptance, the scholarship will be awarded to the candidate in order of final ranking.

Complaint and appeal procedures:

If the result is unfavourable to the granting of the requested scholarship, the candidates have a period of 10 working days to give their opinion, if they wish, in a prior hearing to the interested parties, under the terms of articles 121 and 122 of the Administrative Procedure Code (DL nº 4/2015 of 7 January). A complaint may be lodged against the final decision, within 15 working days, addressed to the President of the Jury.

Non-Discrimination Policy and Equal Access

The Universidade Lusófona and CICANT promote a policy of non-discrimination and equal access, whereby no applicant may be privileged, benefited, prejudiced, or deprived of any right or exempted from any duty on the grounds of, namely, ancestry, age, gender, sexual orientation marital status, family situation, economic situation, education, origin or social condition, genetic heritage, reduced capacity to work, disability, chronic illness, nationality, ethnic origin or race, territory of origin, language, religion, political or ideological beliefs and trade union membership.