Open letter to the President of the Science and Tecnology Foundation (FCT), Dr. Miguel Seabra

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Open letter to the President of the Science and Tecnology Foundation (FCT), Dr. Miguel Seabra

Platform in Defense of Science and Scientific Career in Portugal

Your Excellency, Dr. Miguel Seabra,

A few hours ago, two weeks after the Investigador FCT 2013 candidates were informed by email of the final decision given to their submitted proposal, the actual written comments by the reviewers were sent to the candidates. We, as the Representative Commission of the Platform in Defense of Science and Scientific career in Portugal, hereby, in the spirit of the motion carried by hundreds of researchers, Professors and lecturers and scholars, in plenary session, communicate to you the following.

We note that applicants were not entitled to an assessment under conditions of absolute equality and repudiate the process, which reveals complete disrespect by the scientific community.

After the recent email sent by the FCT, to which your Excellency presides, several candidates of this Public Call (who spent months preparing their proposals), are still unaware of who are the “external” reviewers of the pre-selection panel, their CVs, and their affiliation. These are elements necessary to ensure that the evaluation has complied with the regime of incompatibilities, and whether the candidates were assessed by the International Panel as provided for by the law. Unlike the information provided on the clarifications published by FCT, many applications have no evaluation or received less than those 3 evaluations as stated for in the Call. The candidates did not have, for the most part, access to complete evaluation reports drawn up by "external evaluators" and/or by international panels. In many cases, the evaluation made available to researchers suggests that a detailed assessment of the submitted CVs and projects has not been made. In several cases, the summary of the evaluation received clearly shows that the evaluators have no scientific expertise on the candidates’ research field. As of today, it is still to be publically accessible a detailed list of all assessments, a list of all Candidates whose proposals were either successful or rejected as a sine qua non for transparency and guarantee protection of the candidates (by comparison) in request for a prior-hearing. We recall that the pre-selection panel was not foreseen in the law that governs this Call and therefore no opportunity to appeal by those who were rejected by this extra-Panel. There are candidates whose results were reported today, in a bitter and disrespectful manner of a a few generalist lines without empirical evidence and no quantification of the valuation item. We consider this an unacceptable process.

Thus, we demand:

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

-The communication to the Investigador FCT 2013 candidates the identity of their external evaluators, their CV and professional affiliation.

-The communication to the Call candidates the written review by these external reviewers.

-Public access to all proceedings, with the arguments/opinions of jury relating to each of the successful and rejected candidates.

-The Constitution of a wider range of international jury panels that will demonstrate more comprehensive representation of the different fields of research and each with a greater number of members to enable an accurate and objective assessment, where not only the candicates’ merit is based on their CV, but also of the research projects proposed in all applications submitted.

The funding of science must be based on scientific criteria and transparency. The Science and Technology Foundation cannot afford to conduct competitive calls that leave a huge indignation, suspicions and doubts within the national scientific community. This is not a matter that concerns only to individual scientists in this Call and the individual panels, but to all Professors, lecturers and researchers, to how the management of public funds is being done, to the conduct of transparent policies from the administrative to the scientific level.

 Accepting an obscure process riddled with irregularities and suspicion would open a dangerous precedent for all competitions/calls (projects, researchers, research centers). If there is no public clarification of the whole process, until the 16th December at 16:00, we will proceed with a lawsuit in order to contest this Call, so that new one, that will permit all candidates to be evaluated under equal conditions and which meets strictly all the legal provisions required for such a competitive call.

Lisbon, December 9, 2013

Representative Commission of the Platform in Defense of Science and Scientific Career in Portugal

Ana Delicado, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa

Isabel Marcos, E-GEO, FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

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

João Romão, Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Mónica Chaves Afonso, Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Superior Técnico

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

Quirina Ferreira, Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Superior Técnico

Raquel Varela, Instituto de História Contemporânea, Universidade Nova de Lisboa; International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam

Rita Salgueiro, GeoBioTec, Universidade de Aveiro

Sérgio Ávila, CIBIO, Universidade dos Açores

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

Contacto: emprego.cientifico@gmail.com