Requirements
The following are admitted as applicants:
- Holders of a master's degree or legal equivalent in the fields of social sciences and humanities, physical and natural sciences, and engineering;
- Holders of a bachelor's degree or legal equivalent, holders of an academic, scientific, or professional curriculum of relevance that is recognized as attesting to the ability to carry out this cycle of studies.
Applications
Applications 2023/2024
1st Call:
- Applications: 20th March 2023 [2 pm] to 4th May 2023 [5 pm]
- Interviews: 15th May 2023
- Results: 16th May 2023
2nd Call:
- Applications: 22nd May 2023 [2 pm] to 30th June 2023 [5 pm]
- Interviews: 10th July 2023
- Results: 11th July 2023
Applications through the ICS FenixEdu platform: https://fenix.ics.ulisboa.pt.
To create a registration, please access https://fenix.ics.ulisboa.pt/accountCreation.
In case you already have a registration, you can recover the access at https://fenix.ics.ulisboa.pt/passwordResetRequest.
In case you already have a student number at ICS, you should use your Campus account credentials. You may recover your access to this account at https://utilizador.ulisboa.pt.
The application fee is € 50.
Applications must be submitted with the following documents:
- Certificate of Qualifications (master's or equivalent academic degree);
- Academic, scientific and professional curriculum;
- Supporting documents referenced in the Curriculum;
- Letter of Motivation;
- One letter of recommendation.
The validation of the application implies the payment of the respective fee.
Admission
According to the regulation, the criteria for the 1st phase of selection and ranking of applicants are based on:
- the excellence of the candidate's academic and professional career (EAPR);
- the letter of motivation and the reference letter(s) (LMRL).
The first criterion (EAPR) i) has a weight of 80% and ii) has a weight of 20%. Both criteria are evaluated on a scale of 0-5 and each document is evaluated by at least 2 members of the Scientific Committee (SC). Generally, these 2 members are: the Director of the PDACPDS and another member of the candidate's area of specialization. In this first criterion, the 'excellence of the candidate' (EAPR) is evaluated and we try to be as objective as possible. It is calculated based on the following factors:
- 5-year master's degree or academic degree note (pre-Bologna degree or equivalent);
- curriculum vitae (including research activity), professional career and other relevant skills and qualifications.
The weighting, within the EAPR criteria, will be 30% (I), 50% (ii), 10% (iii) and 10% (iv), respectively. All applications will be evaluated on a scale of 0-5. The score will be calculated as follows:
- Research articles will be calculated according to the number of articles as first author (0.5 points / each) and co-author (0.25 / each);
- Events organized by the candidate (0.3 / each);
- Lectures (oral presentation = 0.15 / each and poster = 0.1 / each) until the candidate reaches a maximum score of 5.
As for professional career (including coordination, innovation and participation in relevant projects) and other competence and qualification factors, they will be evaluated by each of the evaluators. The final criterion score (EAPR) for each candidate is calculated according to the percentages indicated above.
The second criterion (LMRL) (50%) is more subjective and values, the candidate's ability to express their motivation using positive and constructive 'statements', identifying real societal challenges, indicating the area of study in which they are most familiar or motivated to tackle during his/her PhD Thesis. This criterion is also evaluated on a scale of 0-5. Each rater submits their score, which is averaged to arrive at an LMRL score.
Candidates are ranked according to their EAPR and LMRL scores.
The top 30 resulting from this ranking are selected for the 2nd phase, which consists of a brief interview (20 to 30 minutes) by at least 2 members form the Scientific Committee (usually the director and an expert in the field of the research candidate) to assess the level of knowledge, skills and conditions to engage in a 3 to 4 year commitment. A score from 0 to 20 is assigned by each evaluator, and the arithmetic mean of the evaluations is determined. The Scientific Committee meets and decides on the final ranking, the 30 candidates are ranked.
FUNDING
Approved applications in the said competition and financed by institutions or companies must be duly documented and must be regularized by October of each year.
