Call "DOCTORATES 4 COVID-19" received 128 applications

The Call DOCTORATES 4 Covid-19 for the attribution of Studentships of research for doctoral studies, promoted by FCT in collaboration with the Agency for Clinical Research and Biomedical Innovation (AICIB), has received a total of 128 applications.

This Call, whose applications closed on May 14, was launched in the context of the pandemic situation caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and is oriented towards obtaining new knowledge to create skills to respond to this and future pandemics, and that translate into efficient prevention measures, better health care and effective support to citizens.

By gender, the candidates are 65% female and 35% male.

Of the total number of applications, 87.5% correspond to Studentships in Portugal and 12.5% to Studentships to be developed in national and foreign host institutions, called Studentships mixed.

Foreign applicants represent 20% of all applications, coming from 7 countries. The countries with the most applicants to Call are Brazil (15) and Italy (5).

This Call is part of a varied set of support, Calls and other initiatives, launched this year by FCT within the scope of the fight against Covid-19: the support RESEARCH 4 COVID-19; the Call for R&D projects AI 4 COVID-19: Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Public Administration; the Gender Research 4 Covid-19 support; the Science 4 COVID-19 portal, the increased capacity of the RCTS - Science, Technology and Society Network, which supports the Internet connections of the education and research community; the reinforcement of the capacity of the services that ensure distance learning and teleworking in the academic and scientific community (Colibri, NAU, Educast, Videocast); and the creation of a COVID-19 page on the FCT website, which gathers all the information that is being issued, directly or indirectly related to this pandemic situation.

The FCT Doctoral Research Studentships are grants awarded competitively to support advanced training in all areas of knowledge for obtaining a doctoral degree. These Studentships allow doctoral students to dedicate themselves exclusively to their research, thus contributing to the scientific and technological development of the country.