1. Academic qualifications: Applicants holding a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or related scientific fields are eligible to apply, provided they are enrolled in a doctoral programme at the University of Algarve in a relevant area, or undertake to submit proof of enrolment and registration before the grant agreement is signed. Alternatively, applicants holding a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or related fields are eligible, provided they are enrolled in a Master’s programme at the University of Algarve in a relevant area, or undertake to submit proof of enrolment and registration before the grant agreement is formalized. For admission and curriculum assessment purposes, particular consideration will be given to demonstrated expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine translation, including sequence-to-sequence modelling, Neural Machine Translation (NMT), and gloss processing; deep learning, Transformers, and multimodal modelling, including multimodal fusion, cross-attention mechanisms, transfer learning, and fine-tuning; large language models (LLMs) and linguistic contextualization, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, gloss-to-text and text-to-gloss approaches; system integration and software engineering for R&D, including microservices, APIs, gRPC, Protocol Buffers, Git, and experimental pipelines; technical documentation and reproducible artefacts; scientific publications or reproducible research outputs; as well as analytical skills, autonomy, and effective communication within an R&D team environment.
   1. Technical-scientific oral and written proficiency in English is mandatory, with a minimum proficiency level of B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), or an equivalent qualification. A C1 level or documented experience in producing technical documentation, reports, software documentation, or scientific publications in English will be considered an asset. This requirement stems from the need to read and prepare technical documentation, communicate effectively with the project team and international partners, and participate in R&D meetings. Failure to provide adequate evidence of technical English proficiency, or to demonstrate the required level of competence, will constitute grounds for exclusion from the selection process. Proficiency in spoken and written Portuguese, at a minimum B2 level under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, or equivalent, as evidenced by documentation and/or assessed during the interview, will also be valued. In the event of a tie in the final ranking, preference will be given to the candidate who demonstrates greater proficiency in Portuguese, as it is relevant to the communication, documentation, and implementation of the project activities.
   2. Taking into account paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 6 of the Research Grants Regulations of the Foundation for Science and Technology or paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 5 of the University of the Algarve’s Research Fellowship Regulations: “1. Research grants, hereinafter referred to as BI, are intended for R&D activities by students enrolled in an integrated master's degree, a master's degree or a doctorate, with a view to consolidating their scientific training through the development of research work leading to the award of the respective academic degree, whether or not integrated into R&D projects. 2. The scholarships referred to in this article may also be intended for the performance of R&D activities by graduates or masters enrolled in non-degree courses integrated into the educational project of a higher education institution, developed in association or cooperation with one or more R&D units.”
2. Preference and Selection Condition: Preference will be given to applicants holding a Master’s degree who are enrolled, or who undertake to enroll, in a doctoral programme under the conditions specified above. Applicants holding a Bachelor’s degree may be selected only if no Master’s degree holders who meet the admission requirements apply, or, where such applicants do apply, if they do not possess the required academic background and/or the experience corresponding to the requirements established in this call for applications.

• Pedro Jorge Sequeira Cardoso (Chair) (Professor Coordenador; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• João Miguel Fernandes Rodrigues (1st full member) (Professor Coordenador Principal; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• Jaime Afonso do Nascimento Carvalho Martins (2nd full member ) (Professor Adjunto; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• Roberto Célio Lau Lam (1st Alternate Member) (Professor Adjunto; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• Pedro Miguel Mendes Guerreiro (2nd Alternate Member) (Professor Adjunto; Instituto Superior de Engenharia).

1. Individual Taxpayer Registry (INV) information, if the applicant is a nationality other than Portuguese, must be submitted during the scholarship agreement process, under penalty of forfeiture of the scholarship award;
2. Documents proving that the candidate meets the eligibility requirements for the respective type of research grant, namely evidence of enrolment and registration in a doctoral programme, Master’s degree programme, integrated Master’s programme, or non-degree course eligible under the applicable regulations at the University of Algarve, or, where no relevant programme is offered by the University of Algarve in the field covered by this call, at another higher education institution. Applicants must also provide proof of possession of the academic qualifications required for the relevant type of grant, where applicable.
3. Declaration of the advisor(s) assuming responsibility for supervising the work plan, in accordance with Article 5-A of the Research Scholarship Statute, as well as guaranteeing the necessary conditions for the successful development of the work and compliance with the duties set forth in Article 13 of the Research Scholarship Statute;

Candidates may, if they so wish, comment on the draft decision to award the requested scholarship, at a hearing for interested parties within 10 business days, under the terms and for the purposes set forth in Article 121 of the Code of Administrative Procedure.

Candidates have the right to complain to the evaluation panel within 10 business days regarding the commission or omission of any act.

An appeal may be filed against the final decision of the application evaluation panel to the Rector within 10 business days of notification.

After receiving all required documentation, a scholarship contract will be signed with the selected candidate(s) in accordance with the attached template.

At the end of each fellowship contract period, the advisor will evaluate the fellow(s)' work by applying the following criteria, in accordance with the attached template:

(a) Compliance with the established working hours, attendance requirements, and the exclusive dedication regime;

b) Fulfilment of the work plan, specifically the development of multimodal translation models and Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions;

c) Validation of the sign-to-text and text-to-sign translation pipelines using sign language data.

1. Academic qualifications: Applicants holding a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or related scientific fields are eligible to apply, provided they are enrolled in a doctoral programme at the University of Algarve in a relevant area, or undertake to submit proof of enrolment and registration before the grant agreement is signed. Alternatively, applicants holding a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or related fields are eligible, provided they are enrolled in a Master’s programme at the University of Algarve in a relevant area, or undertake to submit proof of enrolment and registration before the grant agreement is formalized. For admission and curriculum assessment purposes, particular consideration will be given to demonstrated expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine translation, including sequence-to-sequence modelling, Neural Machine Translation (NMT), and gloss processing; deep learning, Transformers, and multimodal modelling, including multimodal fusion, cross-attention mechanisms, transfer learning, and fine-tuning; large language models (LLMs) and linguistic contextualization, including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, gloss-to-text and text-to-gloss approaches; system integration and software engineering for R&D, including microservices, APIs, gRPC, Protocol Buffers, Git, and experimental pipelines; technical documentation and reproducible artefacts; scientific publications or reproducible research outputs; as well as analytical skills, autonomy, and effective communication within an R&D team environment.
   1. Technical-scientific oral and written proficiency in English is mandatory, with a minimum proficiency level of B2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), or an equivalent qualification. A C1 level or documented experience in producing technical documentation, reports, software documentation, or scientific publications in English will be considered an asset. This requirement stems from the need to read and prepare technical documentation, communicate effectively with the project team and international partners, and participate in R&D meetings. Failure to provide adequate evidence of technical English proficiency, or to demonstrate the required level of competence, will constitute grounds for exclusion from the selection process. Proficiency in spoken and written Portuguese, at a minimum B2 level under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, or equivalent, as evidenced by documentation and/or assessed during the interview, will also be valued. In the event of a tie in the final ranking, preference will be given to the candidate who demonstrates greater proficiency in Portuguese, as it is relevant to the communication, documentation, and implementation of the project activities.
   2. Taking into account paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 6 of the Research Grants Regulations of the Foundation for Science and Technology or paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 5 of the University of the Algarve’s Research Fellowship Regulations: “1. Research grants, hereinafter referred to as BI, are intended for R&D activities by students enrolled in an integrated master's degree, a master's degree or a doctorate, with a view to consolidating their scientific training through the development of research work leading to the award of the respective academic degree, whether or not integrated into R&D projects. 2. The scholarships referred to in this article may also be intended for the performance of R&D activities by graduates or masters enrolled in non-degree courses integrated into the educational project of a higher education institution, developed in association or cooperation with one or more R&D units.”
2. Preference and Selection Condition: Preference will be given to applicants holding a Master’s degree who are enrolled, or who undertake to enroll, in a doctoral programme under the conditions specified above. Applicants holding a Bachelor’s degree may be selected only if no Master’s degree holders who meet the admission requirements apply, or, where such applicants do apply, if they do not possess the required academic background and/or the experience corresponding to the requirements established in this call for applications.

• Pedro Jorge Sequeira Cardoso (Chair) (Professor Coordenador; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• João Miguel Fernandes Rodrigues (1st full member) (Professor Coordenador Principal; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• Jaime Afonso do Nascimento Carvalho Martins (2nd full member ) (Professor Adjunto; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• Roberto Célio Lau Lam (1st Alternate Member) (Professor Adjunto; Instituto Superior de Engenharia);
• Pedro Miguel Mendes Guerreiro (2nd Alternate Member) (Professor Adjunto; Instituto Superior de Engenharia).

1. Individual Taxpayer Registry (INV) information, if the applicant is a nationality other than Portuguese, must be submitted during the scholarship agreement process, under penalty of forfeiture of the scholarship award;
2. Documents proving that the candidate meets the eligibility requirements for the respective type of research grant, namely evidence of enrolment and registration in a doctoral programme, Master’s degree programme, integrated Master’s programme, or non-degree course eligible under the applicable regulations at the University of Algarve, or, where no relevant programme is offered by the University of Algarve in the field covered by this call, at another higher education institution. Applicants must also provide proof of possession of the academic qualifications required for the relevant type of grant, where applicable.
3. Declaration of the advisor(s) assuming responsibility for supervising the work plan, in accordance with Article 5-A of the Research Scholarship Statute, as well as guaranteeing the necessary conditions for the successful development of the work and compliance with the duties set forth in Article 13 of the Research Scholarship Statute;

Candidates may, if they so wish, comment on the draft decision to award the requested scholarship, at a hearing for interested parties within 10 business days, under the terms and for the purposes set forth in Article 121 of the Code of Administrative Procedure.

Candidates have the right to complain to the evaluation panel within 10 business days regarding the commission or omission of any act.

An appeal may be filed against the final decision of the application evaluation panel to the Rector within 10 business days of notification.

After receiving all required documentation, a scholarship contract will be signed with the selected candidate(s) in accordance with the attached template.

At the end of each fellowship contract period, the advisor will evaluate the fellow(s)' work by applying the following criteria, in accordance with the attached template:

(a) Compliance with the established working hours, attendance requirements, and the exclusive dedication regime;

b) Fulfilment of the work plan, specifically the development of multimodal translation models and Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions;

c) Validation of the sign-to-text and text-to-sign translation pipelines using sign language data.