Associate Laboratories - Draft Regulations for Granting the Statute and Allocating Funding

The FCT puts the draft Regulations for Granting the Status and Allocation of Funding to Associate Laboratories under public consultation(here), for a period of 30 days, from the publication of notice no. 10377-C/2019 in Diário da República 2nd series, no. 177 of June 21, 2019. As part of the public participation, and under the provisions of Article 101 of the CPA, interested parties should submit their suggestions to the FCT through the email address avaliacao.las@fct.pt.

Under the legal regime for research and development (R&D) institutions, approved by Decree-Law No. 63/2019, of May 16, 2019, FCT is responsible for conducting the process of evaluating proposals for the creation and renewal of Associate Laboratories, as well as for monitoring them.

An Associate Laboratory is an R&D institution, or a consortium of R&D institutions, established to pursue specific national scientific and technological policy objectives. In this context, and within the scope of the strategy of diversification and densification of R&D institutions, the main objective of the Associate Laboratories should be to gather the critical mass needed to pursue specific national scientific and technological policy objectives and to further the development and promotion of their own scientific or technical careers, provided through permanent employment contracts or open-ended employment contracts, depending on the applicable legal regime. 

The draft Regulation on the Attribution of the Statute and Award of Funding to Associate Laboratories aims to clarify the rules for the recognition or attribution of the status of Associate Laboratory to the entities that apply for it, thus ensuring the transparency and rigor of the process, as well as an equitable treatment of interested parties. This draft Regulation is prepared under the provisions of the legal regime of research and development institutions, Decree-Law No. 63/2019, of May 16, 2019.