Open call for one post-doctoral fellowship - The MARVEN Project

One post-doc fellowship is opened under the scope of project MARVEN (ref. FA_05_2017_007), “The MARVEN Project: The Portuguese biotechnological database for marine animal venoms and toxins”/ Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT-NOVA), which is co-financed by Fundo Azul (Open call n.º 5/2017).

1. Scientific area: Marine Biology

2. Sub scientific area: Marine Biotechnology

3. Admission Requirements: As criteria for eligibility, the candidate must: i) hold a Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences or similar completed no more than two years before the closing date of application; ii) having published at least five articles in international journals with peer review belonging to the Science Citation Index, three of which as first author; iii) At least three oral communications (as presenter/co-author) in international scientific meetings, iv) experience in marine/coastal biological sampling for marine animals; v) experience in ecology of marine/coastal invertebrates in Portugal, and iv) experience in toxicological assays for substance testing. Preference will be given to candidates with research experience on bioproducts from marine Polychaeta, science communication and data handling.

4. Work Plan: The researcher will participate in the following tasks in the project: i) Field collection and laboratory rearing of aquatic organisms, with emphasis on target invertebrates; ii) taxonomic identification of collected organisms; iii) extraction and purification of toxin secretions from collected organisms, and iv) planning and executing standard bioassays with aquatic models (e.g. Daphnia) to identify toxin effects and mode-of-action, and v) extract RNA/DNA from organisms for “omics” analyses.

5. Rules and Regulations Law no. 40/2004, of 18 August, amended and republished by Decree-Law No. 202/2012 of 27 August (Statute of the Scientific Research Fellowship) and amended by Decree-Law No. 233/2012 of 29 October and Law No. 12 / 2013 of January 29; Research Foundation Regulations of the Science and Technology Foundation, I.P. approved by Regulation No. 234/2012, published in the II Series of the Diário da República of June 25, 2012, amended and republished by Regulation No. 326/2013, published in the II Series of the Diário da República of July 27, 2013 and amended by Regulation No. 339/2015, published in the II Series of the Diário da República of June 17, 2015, and by Regulation No. 137-A / 2018, published in the II Series of the Diário da República February 27 of 2018, available at: http://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/regulamento.phtml.pt and http://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/docs/RegulamentoBolsasFCT2018.pdf

6. Working location and supervisor: The work is to be carried out at the SeaTox Lab of UCIBIO, at the Department of Life Sciences, at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (FCT-NOVA) under the scientific supervision of Dr Pedro M. Costa

7. Fellowship duration: The fellowship will be for 12 months under the regime of exclusive dedication, eventually renewable according to legal terms, until the end of the project. The fellowship is expected to start in January 2020

8. Salary and benefits: The monthly maintenance allowance is € 1 509,80 according to table values of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia regulations, in the country (http://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/valores) and will be paid monthly by bank transfer. If the fellowship holder wishes to apply to the voluntary social security, the contributions will be covered by the project.
9. Selection methodology: The candidates will be selected according to four criteria: publications (35%); communications in scientific meetings (20%); technical and theoretical expertise relevant for the project (30%); motivation letter (15%). Emphasis will be given to the applicant’s ability to write and communicate science, ability to work in a team and motivation to follow a career in research. The top applicants may eventually be short-listed and called for an interview, if the jury so deems necessary. In this case, the weight percentages will be: publications, 30%; communications in scientific meetings, 15%; technical and theoretical expertise relevant for the project, 25%; motivation letter, 10%; interview, 20%.

10. Jury members:
President:
Doutor Pedro M. Costa
Effective jurors:
Doutora Ana Rita Grosso
Doutora Carolina Madeira
Substitute jurors:
Professor Doutor Mário Diniz
Professora Doutora Alexandra Fernandes

11. Notification of Results: The evaluation results will be publicized as a ranked list in a public place at the Department of Life Sciences of FCT-NOVA. The selected candidate will be notified by e-mail.

12. Application Procedure: The call for applications is open between November 29 and December 12, 2019. Applications must be submitted in English, by email to pmcosta@fct.unl.pt, indicating ”MARVEN Fellowship” in the subject area, and the following (five) documents attached:

a) Full CV;
b) Ph.D. certificate
c) A PDF offprint of a published article as first author judged to be most significant
d) Motivation letter
e) Publication list containing the DOI links of articles, whenever applicable

The applicants should include their full contact information in the body of the e-mail.

Candidates who obtained their academic degrees from non-Portuguese institutions must present proof of the recognition of the qualifications by a Portuguese institution and the conversion of the respective final grade to the Portuguese grading scale. The legal regime applicable to recognition processes, required after January 1, 2019, is that approved by Decree-Law no. 66/2018, of August 16. Additional information available on the Portal of the Directorate-General for Higher Education (Direção Geral do Ensino Superior, DGES) https://www.dges.gov.pt/en/pagina/degree-and-diploma-recognition 

13. Non-discrimination and equal access policy: FCT-NOVA actively promotes a non-discrimination and equal access policy, reason for which no candidate can be benefited, prejudiced or deprived of any duty, namely age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, chronic illness, nationality, ethnic origin or race, religion or political beliefs.