Allocating funding at Calls for research and development projects

Following the doubts raised about the mechanism for granting funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the Call of R&D Projects in All Scientific Domains, in which, in recent days, incorrect information about this process and in particular about the application of the AlmaScience Collaborative Laboratory to the same, the FCT's Board of Directors decided to issue this note of clarification in order to inform the public opinion.

The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) is a public institute under a special regime with administrative and financial autonomy, under the authority and supervision of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, whose mission is to promote and support research in science, technology and innovation in all areas of knowledge.

The Call of R&D Projects in All Scientific Domains is an annual FCT Call , financed entirely by its budget from the State Budget, and aims at funding the scientific community to promote and strengthen the competences of scientific and technological institutions through the participation of their teams in projects.

This year, Call was open for applications from the scientific community from February 8 to March 11. After this phase, the evaluation of the applications began, which focuses on the scientific merit of the submitted project and the scientific merit of the project team members. This process is coordinated by FCT and carried out by scientific panels made up of independent experts from foreign institutions and of recognized scientific merit, appointed by the FCT Board of Directors, who are sovereign in the evaluation process. The projects are ranked according to the classification given by the panel. After this phase, the decision to grant funding is up to the FCT Board of Directors, by virtue of its status as a public institute, whose legal framework guarantees administrative and financial autonomy.

On July 27, FCT published the list of projects recommended for funding under this Call. In this list, one of the projects submitted by the AlmaScience Collaborative Laboratory was proposed for funding, reflecting the classification assigned by the evaluators of the scientific panel. The list of these results is provisional, and from its publication opened the period for prior hearing. After analyzing the statements of the applicants during the prior hearing of interested parties, the results of Call will be approved and FCT will publish the list of final results. It should also be noted that, as in all of its tender procedures, the FCT publishes all public documents of the process and updated information about the conduct of the process at all stages on the webpage Call on its institutional site on the Internet, as a way of ensuring transparency, both to the candidates and to the general public.