Motion 1

Motion 1

 «FCT Investigator Call 2013 - In defense of science»

SIGNED by Researchers, academics, post-docs and PhD-students gathered on 9th December 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal Total of 1761 signatures (closed)

 The Investigator Call FCT (Science and Tecnology Foundation) 2013 raised a problem already widely discussed within the national scientific community: the absence of a scientific employment policy which is reflected in the continued precariousness of young researchers, the aging academic staff, and on the increasing workload of the academic staff that stays in the university. On one side, there is the cyclical unemployment of researchers – doctoral students, post-doctoral (about 95% of whom do not have a proper labor contract and therefore do not contribute for the social welfare and therefore have no rights to unemployment, maternity or paternity leave, holidays, pension, and periodic salary rise. Many are under these circumstances for more than 10 years), Researcher positions with laboral contracts in the auspices of the scheme Commitment with Science – that are bound to a labor productivity that goes far beyond the 40 hours a week to maintain high rates of publications and ensure financing. The same are often pressured to teach for free due to thinning of the University Faculty. On the other hand, we are witnessing the growing pressure on those who have permanent positions to teach more courses, obtain funding, and in increasingly worsening working conditions (salary cuts, special mobility (where academics are forced to go to other parts of the country or they lose their position), replacing Academic positions by adjunct professors hired on a part-time basis paid hourly). The current work policy demotes the working and research conditions and implies destruction in building national wealth. Furthermore, there is as a serious leak of specialized people off the country and also the prevention of the return of those who left with Public funding, to carry-out their PhD´s or Post-Docs. This is true to the various Governments during the last two decades.

In this context, the way the Investigator FCT 2013 call, as well as what has come to be known about the contest to award doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships, merit, on the part of researchers, academics and scholars who endorse this motion, the following considerations described below.

The FCT Investigator 2013 call has raised within the portuguese scientific community very serious doubts relative to the equality terms in which the candidates competed. We condemn unequivocally the fact that candidates had not been immediately informed of its detailed assessment and the reasons for their approval or exclusion of the contest. The central question that we want to see now is whether all the enlightened applicants had the right to an assessment under conditions of absolute equality and that unfolds in the following issues:

-Were there one or two phases of evaluation? If there was only one, why was there a pre-selection by a panel of external evaluators for which applicants cannot appeal to?

-Were the candidates pre-selected by the external evaluators rated by the international panel? Or were the proposals never assessed by the Panel? Was that evaluation performed by that jury? What is the CV of the members of this jury and what was the detailed evaluation grid assigned to each of the candidates (detailed CV weight per item, methodology, aim of the project, etc.)? Within the evaluators of the pre-selection, can FCT ensure that every member respects the regime of incompatibilities defined (not being of the same institution, etc.)? Were all candidates entitled to an assessment by all three external evaluators?

-Was the International Panel to ensure a sufficient number of experts in the different fields of research and is eligible to evaluate the projects it was responsible for?

-There have been situations where Academic Staff (with permanent position, and not eligible to apply to this call), who had their applications funded. We demand to know whether all the criteria for eligibility of candidates for the Investigator FCT 2013 correctly applied. Considering that this call for proposals is based on public funding – and different from the publication of an article – we do not accept the anonymity of "external evaluators" and therefore demanded to know their identity, their CV´s and the detailed assessment given to each overall proposal (i.e., project and CV) made by the external evaluators. To accept this anonymity would mean to accept that a candidate can go to a trial, but is stopped just outside the Court´s door by a group of anonymous judges.

On the basis of these considerations and in the name of more complete transparency that is imposed in such contests, researchers, University professors and other scholars require:

-To guarantee that all applications submitted to this FCT Investigator 2013 call are evaluated under equal conditions by a panel composed exclusively by international experts.

- The FCT Investigator contest 2013 candidates must be informed of the identity of their external evaluators, their CV and their scientific institutions to which they are affiliated.

- All FCT Investigator contest 2013 candidates should have full access to the evalution written by the reviewers.

-Public access to all proceedings, with the arguments/opinions of jury relating to each of the candidates, whether the proposals were funded or not.

-The establishment of a wider range of international jury panels, with a more encompassing expertise and with a greater number of members so that a constructive and fair evaluation of all proposals can be achieved.

 The funding of science must be based on scientific criteria and through a transparent process.

Science and Technology Foundation cannot afford to conduct call for project proposal that leave the national scientific community with enormous indignation, many suspicions and doubts. This is not a matter that concerns the placing of individual scientists in the contest or to the individual panels, but a matter that concerns all Academic Staff and researchers, the management of public funds, the conduct of transparent policies on the administrative and scientific fields.

 If there is not a public clarification of the whole process, until the 16th December 2013 at 16:00, we will move forward with a lawsuit to annul this call for project proposal and schedule a new one, that will put the candidates under equal conditions, and by meeting strictly all the legal provisions required for such evaluation procedure.

Accepting an obscure process riddled with irregularities and suspicion would open a dangerous precedent for all similar calls (research projects, researchers positions, research centers). Thus, we challenge all the national scientific community -Professors, researchers, grant and scholarship holders – as well as the research units and its Heads, and faculty deans, to join this appeal.

Document Prepared by

Ana Delicado, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa

João Neres, Global Health Institute, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Suíça

Mário Machaqueiro, CRIA, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Raquel Varela, Instituto de História Contemporânea, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Vera Assis Fernandes, Museum für Naturkunde-Berlin e UNINOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Contacto: emprego.cientifico@gmail.com

Lisbon, December 9, 2013