Doctorate equivalent to Assistant Researcher in Psychology

Reference Number: CDL-CTTRI-174-SGRH/2026

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

Public notice Ref.ª CDL-CTTRI-174-SGRH/2026—Doctor Artur Manuel Soares da Silva, Full Professor and Rector at the University of Aveiro, hereby announces that for a period of 30 (thirty) business days starting on the first business day following after which this notice is published, by extractive notice, in the Diário da República, an international public notice is opened for recruitment in the form of an Uncertain Term Work Contract, under the Portuguese Labour Code, of 1 (one) position for a Doctorate equivalent to Assistant Researcher for the exercise of research activities at the University of Aveiro branch of the William James Center for Research, in the scientific area of Psychology, subarea of Basic Psychology. This subfield includes research on elementary psychological processes studied experimentally (mainly in laboratory settings) and aimed at describing and explaining animal and human behavior.

This notice is opened under the contract program to support the development of R & D activities, concluded with the Foundation for Science and Technology and the University of Aveiro and in accordance with the provisions of article 28, paragraph 4, of the Regulation of scientific employment, published in Diário da República by Regulation no. 607-A / 2017 of November 22, amended by Regulation No. 806-A/2019, of 14 October, amended by Regulation No. 985-B/2019 of 31 December, and by Regulation No. 1083/2023 of 12 October.

The present competition was opened on the 11 of July, 2026 by order of the Rector of the University of Aveiro, following the proposal of the Scientific Council.

The contest is governed by the provisions of Decree-Law 57/2016, August 29, that approves the rules for post-doctoral work contracts, designed to stimulate employment in science and technology in all areas of knowledge (RJEC) within the legal provisions of the Labour Code, Law no.7/2009, February 12, in its current wording and other applicable legislation and regulations.

The monthly payment corresponds to 3576,56€.

1 — Admission requirements:

Any national, foreign, and stateless candidate(s) who hold a doctorate degree in Psychology (or scientific area related) and a scientific and professional curriculum whose profile is suited for the activity to be performed, can submit their applications.

Candidate(s) of the contest holding qualifications obtained abroad must prove the recognition, equivalence, or registration of the doctorate degree, under the applicable legislation. This formality must be fulfilled up to the date of signing the contract.

2 — Formalization of the applications:

2.1 — The applications must be accompanied by the following documents:

a) Application minute for the competition addressed to the Rector of the University of Aveiro;

b) Copy of detailed curriculum vitae structured according to the items under point 5;

c) Other documents that are relevant for the evaluation of the qualification in related scientific areas;

d) Any other documents that the applicant considers relevant, namely for the assessment of the information referred to under no. 2 of Article 5 of the RJEC.

2.2 — The curriculum vitae should contain:

a) Full name of the candidate;

b) Copy of the certificate with the respective mark or grade or another document that is legally recognized for the same purpose;

c) All pertinent information for assessing the application, considering the selection and ranking criteria of the present call, being it recommended that this information is organized according to the sub-items of the assessment described under Section 5 below.

2.3 — The compulsory application minute, to be completely filled out, dated, and signed, is available at https://www.ua.pt/file/78384.

2.4 — Submission of the application:

2.4.1 — The application may be submitted in Portuguese or English, by email, to the Human Resources Department of the University of Aveiro (sgrh-concursosdl57-2016@ua.pt), until the deadline stipulated in this Notice. The Services will issue a message proving the electronic validation of the same.

2.4.2 — Instructions for the submission of applications, in digital format, are available in the Competition and Job Offers of the Human Resources area at https://www.ua.pt/en/sgrh/pessoal-investigador-novos-concursos-e-ofertas.

2.4.3 — When formalizing the application, if a classified document is submitted that reveals a commercial or industrial secret; a secret relative to the literary, artistic, or scientific property; or that requires confidentiality, the candidate must identify the document with this information, under penalty of the work in question being unrestrictedly accessed by any of the other candidates, when consulting the process.

2.5 — Non-compliance with the deadline for submission of the application, as well as failure to submit or late submission of the documents, referred to in points 2.1 and 2.2, will lead to the disqualification of the application. Candidates will be notified of the exclusion decision by e-mail, for the hearing of interested parties, following Articles 121 et seq. of the Administrative Procedure Code.

3 — Call Jury:

3.1 — In accordance with article 13 of the RJEC the call jury has the following composition:

President: Doctor Marco Alexandre Barbosa de Vasconcelos, Associate Professor with Habilitation, University of Aveiro.

Jury members:

• Doctor Óscar Filipe Coelho Neves Gonçalves, Full Professor, Portucalense University Infante D. Henrique;
• Doctor Margarida e Sá de Vaz Garrido, Full Professor, ISCTE –University Institute of Lisboa;

Substitute members:

• Doctor Ana Paula Carvalho Soares, Associate Professor with Habilitation, School of Psychology, University of Minho;
• Doctor Maria de São Luís de Vasconcelos Fonseca e Castro Schoner, Full Professor, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto.

4 — Jury operation rules

4.1 — The deliberations are held by roll call voting requiring the absolute majority of votes of the members of the jury present at the meeting, not permitting abstentions.

4.2 — The jury deliberates approval on absolute merit, based on the merit of the overall curriculum of candidates with regards to the scientific area of the Competition and also taking into account, cumulatively, compliance with at least one of the following requisites:

4.2.1 — The applicant is the author or co-author of at least 10 articles, in the scientific area that the Competition is open, indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science from Clarivate Analytics where document type = article or document type = review, or in the SCI Verse Scopus with the same characteristics;

or

4.2.2 — Have obtained a total of at least 100 citations in the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science from Clarivate Analytics or the SCI Verse Scopus, relating to the scientific works produced in the area for which the contest is open,

or

4.2.3 — Have an h-index of at least 5, according to Scopus or Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, based on scientific publications produced in the scientific field for which the position is advertised.

4.3 — The exclusion decision in absolute merit is communicated to candidates by e-mail for their hearing.

4.4 — After the phase of approval in absolute merit, the jury will begin the process of appraisal of applications, taking into account the criteria set out in this notice.

5 — Evaluation and selection:

5.1 —The selection methods are curricular evaluation and a public presentation session.

5.2 — The evaluation of the scientific and curricular course focuses on the relevance, quality, and timeliness:

a) Of scientific, technological, cultural, or artistic production in the last five years, deemed most relevant by the candidate;

b) Of knowledge extension and dissemination activities developed in the last five years, namely under the scope of the promotion of culture and scientific practices, deemed most relevant by the candidate;

c) Of the activities of management of science, technology, and innovation programs, or the experience in observing and monitoring the scientific and technological, or higher education system, in Portugal or abroad.

5.3 — In the assessment of the areas referred to in points a) and b) of section 5.2, particular consideration will also be given to experimental work based on behavioral and cognitive measures conducted in the fields of developmental psychology, social psychology, social cognition, psychology of perception, or psychology of language, to which a weighting factor of 2 will be applied.

5.4— The five-year period mentioned above can be extended by the panel if requested by the candidate, whenever the suspension of scientific activities is reasoned by socially protected grounds like parental leave, long-term serious illness, and other legal situations of unavailability to work.

6 — Curricular Evaluation. This component of the evaluation is expressed on a numerical scale from 0 to 20 taking into account the following criteria:

6.1 — Curricular evaluation criteria are:

6.1.1 - Criteria for the evaluation of the scientific performance of the last five years considered more relevant by the candidate (16 points);

• Scientific Production. Quality and quantity of scientific production in the area that the Competition is open (books, articles in scientific journals, papers presented in conferences) expressed by the number and type of publications, and the recognition given by the scientific community (reflected in the quality of the location where it has been published and the references made by other authors);
• Coordination and participation in scientific projects. Quality and quantity of scientific projects that the candidate has led or participated in, funded on a competitive basis by public funds, through national or international agencies, or by enterprises. The assessment of the quality must take into account the funding obtained, the degree of difficulty of the funding competition, and the expert assessment of the projects.
• Intervention in the scientific community. Assessing the capacity to intervene in the scientific community, particularly by organizing events, being (co-)editor of magazines, participating in the assessment of projects and articles, being invited to give speeches, being a member of academic juries, as well as being recognized through awards or other distinctions and respective impact. It will also evaluate the orientation of students in doctoral and post-doctoral work.

6.1.2 - Criteria for evaluating extension and knowledge dissemination activities developed over the past five years, in particular in the context of promoting culture and scientific practices, considered to be of greatest impact by the candidate (2 points);

Participation in initiatives to disseminate scientific and technological knowledge aimed at the general public (for example organization of congresses and conferences, delivery of talks and seminars). Publications to disseminate science and technology.

6.1.3 - Criteria for the evaluation of the activities of program management for science, technology, and innovation, or experience in observing and monitoring the scientific and technological system or in higher education, in Portugal or abroad (2 points);

The candidate's participation in activities of scientific, technological, and innovation management, or in the observation and monitoring of the scientific and technological system or higher education, in Portugal or abroad.

6.2 — The score obtained in the curricular evaluation method is expressed on a numeric scale of 0 to 20, considering the valuation up to two decimal places.

6.3 — The jury deliberates by vote justified according to the criteria of evaluation; no abstentions are allowed.

6.4 — The classification of each candidate is obtained by averaging the scores of each of the elements of the jury.

6.5 — Once the Curricular Assessment is completed, the 3 highest-ranked candidates with an average score in the Curricular Evaluation equal to or higher than 15 points, are approved for the next stage of assessment, as set out in point 5.1. In the event of a tie, the decision on the tie-break will be made by the president of the jury.

6.6 — Candidates who are not admitted to the following stage of assessment and who have obtained an average score in the Curricular Evaluation equal to or higher than 15 points are ranked in descending order according to the score obtained in the Curricular Evaluation.

6.7 — The candidates whose average score in the Curricular Evaluation is lower than 15 points are considered excluded from the competition.

7 — Public presentation session:

This evaluation method is intended exclusively for the clarification of aspects related to the results of the candidate’s research, and may or may not be applied by the selection board when the results of the evaluation of this method are not likely to alter the final ranking of the candidates, considering the weighting factor of this evaluation element. When this method is applied, the weightings in point 8.1 shall be considered. Otherwise, the weightings in point 8.2 shall be considered.

7.1 — In this session the candidates make a public presentation on a topic of their choice with a duration of up to 30 minutes, which will be followed by a discussion that will have a maximum duration of 60 minutes.

7.2 — The evaluation of the session is expressed on a numerical scale of 0 to 20, taking into account the candidate's scientific knowledge and ability to communicate, as well as the answers to the questions put by the jury and their development perspectives in the unit for which they are applying.

7.3 — The jury deliberates by roll call voting, not permitting abstentions.

7.4 — The classification of each candidate is also obtained by the average of the scores of the members of the jury.

8 — Ordering of candidates

8.1 — The final score of each candidate is obtained through a weighted average, by assigning a weighting factor of 90% to the curricular review score and a weighting factor of 10% to the score of the session. In case of a tie, the decision of the tie-breaker shall be the responsibility of the president of the jury.

8.2 — If, by the decision of the jury, it deliberates not to apply the method of selection of the session, the Curricular Evaluation will have a weight of 100%. In case of a tie, the decision of the tie-breaker shall be the responsibility of the president of the jury.

9 — Participation of the parties and decision:

9.1 — The final ordering project is communicated to candidates by e-mail for their hearing.

9.2 — At the hearing of the interested parties, the jury appreciates the allegations offered and approves the final ordering list of candidates.

10 — Publication of Competition Notice

In addition to being published in Series 2 of Diário da República, the present notice is also published:

a) On the Public Employment Pool;

b) On the website of the University of Aveiro, in Portuguese and English;

c) In a national newspaper.

11 — This tender is exclusively destined to fill this specific vacancy and can be terminated at any time until approval of the final ranking list of candidates. It shall remain valid for a period of 24 months from the date of approval of the final ranking list for this procedure.

12 — In compliance with paragraph h) of Article 9 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, the Government, as the employing entity, actively promotes a policy of equal opportunities between men and women in access to employment and professional advancement, scrupulously taking measures to avoid any form of discrimination.

11 of July, 2026 — The Rector, Professor Doutor Artur Manuel Soares da Silva.

Where to apply

E-mail: sgrh-concursosdl57-2016@ua.pt

Requirements

• Research Field: Psychological sciences » Psychology
• Education Level: PhD or equivalent

Additional Information

Work Location(s)

• Number of offers available: 1
• Company/Institute: University of Aveiro
• Country: Portugal

Contact

• City: Aveiro
• Website: https://www.ua.pt
• Street: Campus Universitário de Santiago