Public notice for research grant

SLICE  - PTDC/CCI-COM/30787/2017

INESC-ID - Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa is a R&D institute dedicated to advanced research and development in the fields of Information Technologies, Electronics, Communications, and Energy. INESC-ID has participated in more than 50 research projects funded by the European Union and more than 190 funded by national entities. Until today, our researchers have published more than 700 papers in international journal papers, more than 3000 papers in international conferences, and have registered 15 patents and/or brands.

1 | RESEARCH GRANT TYPE

ONE research grant for candidates with Master Degree with reference number BI|2021/131 is now available under the scope of project SLICE  - PTDC/CCI-COM/30787/2017, funded by Fundação para a ciência e tecnologia I.P. and under the following conditions:

2 | DURATION

6 months, starting in April 2021

-     Renewable, if the candidate is enrolled in a PhD program -  art. 6º, n.4 c)

(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/RegulamentoBolsasFCT2019.pdf  )

subject to suitable performance within the period of the project, not exceeding the maximum period set by FCT for such grants – 4 years (included contract renewals)

-     Renewable, if the candidate is enrolled in a non-degree programme – art. 6º, n. 4 a)

(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/RegulamentoBolsasFCT2019.pdf  )

subject to suitable performance within the period of the project, not exceeding the maximum period set by FCT for such grants – 1 year (included contract renewals)

3 | LEGISLATION

A fellowship contract will be celebrated according to:

1.       Law 40/2004 of 18^th of August (Scientific Research Fellow Status) and its successive amendments, including the amendments introduced by the Decree Law n. 123/2019 of 28 ^th of August 
https://dre.pt/web/guest/legislacao-consolidada/-/lc/124281176/201912061112/73740605/diploma/indice?lcq=estatuto+do+bolseiro,

2.        Regulations for Research Grants of the Foundation for Science and Technology in force  (https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/RegulamentoBolsasFCT2019.pdf )

3.        INESC-ID Lisboa Grant Regulations

https://www.inesc-id.pt/scholarship-regulations/

The fellowship contract is awarded on an exclusive dedication basis – art. 5 of Scientific Research Fellow Status and art. 16 of Regulations for Research Grants of the Foundation for Science and Technology.

4 | MONTLY AMOUNT

The monthly amount of the grant 1 074,64 € is in accordance with the values stipulated in the “Regulations for Research Grants of the Foundation for Science and Technology” in force (https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/Tabela_Valores_SMM_LOE_2020.pdf) and shall be rendered through a monthly bank transfer to an account held by the grantee

5 | OBJECTIVES/WORKPLAN

The candidate will work on the project SLICE, which aims to develop and validate an authoring-friendly framework for the creation of transparent social intelligent agents capable of being deployed as virtual characters in training simulations or games or used to drive the behaviour of social robots. This framework joins two until now disparate areas of artificial intelligence research, namely, social agent architectures and machine learning. In particular, the candidate will work on the Model and Dialog System components.

6 | SCIENTIFIC SUPERVISION

The activity will be supervised by Joana Carvalho Filipe de Campos researcher at INESC-ID Lisboa.

INESC ID will integrate the grantee in the research team of the scientific advisor

7 | ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The candidates should have a Master Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics or related area

By the grant start date, the candidate must be enrolled in

a)        a PhD programme – art. 6º, n.1
(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/RegulamentoBolsasFCT2019.pdf)

or

b)        a non-degree programme – art. 6º, n. 2
(https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/RegulamentoBolsasFCT2019.pdf )

Preferential factors:

Preference will be given to candidates who have strong knowledge and experience in Natural Language processing

8 | EVALUATION CRITERIA AND COMMITEE

The selection will be according to the following criteria:

          I.            Academic record of the candidate (including performance in related courses, publication record and past experience in research) and relevance of the research areas of the candidate with respect to the goals of the project (60%);

        II.            Personal reference (20%);

       III.            Portuguese language level (10%);

      IV.            English language level (10%).

The jury may also decide not to assign the scholarship, if none of candidates meets the required conditions

9 | COMPLAIN AND APPEAL DEADLINES AND PROCEDURES

The jury has the faculty not to select a candidate who does not prove the requirements mentioned in required education Level and research experience

The admitted and excluded candidates will be notified by email of the final ranking list, including the copy of the Preliminary Report of the jury.

Prior Hearing and Deadline for Final Decision: After being notified, candidates have 10 working days to submit, if applicable, a formal rebuttal.

After that period, the jury notifies the candidates of the Final Report.

Excluded applicants may complain about the jury's final report for 15 working days after notification or appeal the jury's decision to the INESC ID Board of Directors for 30 working days after notification.

According to the Portuguese Law, a disabled candidate has a preference when in equal classification, which prevails over any other legal preference. Candidates must declare their respective degree of disability, the type of disability and the means of communication / expression to be used in the selection process, under the law.

10 | FORMALISATION OF APPLICATIONS