Ana Figueiredo, from Miguel Soares Lab, Carolina Pereira, from Raquel Oliveira Lab, Francisco Paupério from Isabel Gordo Lab & Tiago Paixão unit, Kátia Ribeiro de Jesus from Luis Moita Lab, Lucrezia Ferme from Caren Norden Lab and Priscilla Abena Akyaw from Elio Sucena Lab are the candidates selected for the FCT PhD Research Scholarship in 2020.

FCT PhDs Research Scholarships are merit grants awarded in all scientific areas and will allow the selected six students to develop their research work plans for obtaining a doctoral degree at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência.

The 2020 competition involved 407 evaluators, distributed by 36 scientific panels, who analyzed and classified the applications and made their ranking in the panel. The Competition’s Scientific Coordination team defined the number of grants to be financed in each panel, taking into account the respective demand and scientific policy guidelines for Portugal in the European context (Higher Education, Research and Innovation in Portugal – Perspectives for 2030).

The 2020 competition results show that women represented 58.1% of the candidates who reached funding priority and men 41.9%. The scholarships that will be entirely carried out in Portugal correspond to 80.1% while 17.0% will be mixed (partly in Portugal and partly abroad) and 2.9% will be fully carried out abroad. Of the selected candidates, 80.8% are Portuguese nationals. In total, candidates from 43 countries, including Portugal, are proposed for funding, standing out among foreign candidates (19.2% of the total), those of Brazilian nationality (115 scholarships), Italian (41 scholarships), Iranian (15 scholarships) Spanish (12 bags) and German (10 bags).

The next Call for PhDs Research Scholarships in all scientific areas will be announced in January 2021.