Junior Researcher

Deadline: 05/11/2026

Opening of an international selection procedure for the recruitment of 1 Junior Researcher

Under the terms of Order no. 13828/2025, of 20 November, by delegation of powers, the Director of the Faculty of Science and Technology of NOVA University Lisbon, Prof. Dr José Júlio Alves Alferes, hereby announces that, by order of 06/10/2026, is open for a period of 15 days, from the date of publication of the Notice (extract) in the Diário da República, an international call for tenders, with internal reference “Inv.Jun.19.2026-DQ”, for the recruitment of 1 Junior Researcher in the area of Recombinant Protein Engineering, subarea of Protein Engineering and Triple-Recombinant Mutants in Bacteria, with a focus on the expression of recombinant proteins and a direct progression towards the construction of mutant proteins, under an indefinite employment contract, pursuant to Decree-Law No. 57/2016, of 29 August, amended by Law No. 57/2017, of 19 July, within the scope of BIOMATFAB project – “Biological fabrication of cotton fibres with tailored properties”, funded by the European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (European Research Council, Grant Agreement No. 101045466), currently underway at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon.

In compliance with paragraph h) of Article 9 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, the New University of Lisbon, as an employer, actively promotes a policy of equal opportunities between men and women in access to employment and professional advancement, scrupulously ensuring to avoid any form of discrimination. In this sense, terms such as "candidate", "selected", "recruited", "hired", "author", "researcher", among others that refer to people applying for the competition, are not used in this Notice to refer to their gender.

I - Workplace

The place of work will be at the premises of the Faculty of Science and Technology of NOVA University, located on the Caparica Campus, at UCIBIO – the Applied Biomolecular Sciences Unit of the Department of Chemistry.

The employee will make all the journeys, in Portugal or abroad, inherent to their duties or necessary to carry out their activity.

II - Activities and function

The selected candidate will perform the duties of a Junior Researcher and will carry out research in the area of protein engineering, with a focus on the expression of recombinant proteins and mutants produced by mutagenesis in E. coli.

They will be responsible for bacterial culture and the production of proteins and mutants through random mutagenesis processes, as well as for the purification and characterisation of these, and for data processing.

They will also be responsible for supervising team members and the production line, and for ensuring the proper functioning of the materials produced.

The PhD Researcher will establish and facilitate contacts and collaboration with project partners, and ensure that the objectives required to fulfil the agreed deliverables are met.

III - Remuneration positioning:

The definition of the position is based on the remuneration levels of the categories listed in Decree-Law No. 57/2016 of 29 August, amended by Law No. 57/2017 of 19 July, and in accordance with Regulatory Decree No. 11-A/2017 of 29 December, corresponding to the 1st remuneration position, remuneration level 33, which corresponds to the amount of €2.408,11€.

IV - Modality and duration

1. The opening of this tender procedure is intended for the selection of a doctoral candidate to carry out scientific research activities under an uncertain fixed-term employment contract, the basis of the contract being the performance of a specific, precisely defined and non-durable service, the contract being compulsorily financed regardless of its origin;

2. The uncertain fixed-term contract will last for the time necessary to carry out the project, 24 months, or for as long as the respective justification persists, but may not exceed the maximum limit of 6 years, as provided for in article 6(3) of Decree-Law no. 57/2016 of 29 August.

V - Candidates Admission Criteria

• National, foreign and stateless candidates who hold a doctoral degree in the field of competition may apply. If their qualifications were obtained abroad, they must provide proof of the recognition, equivalence or registration of the degree, under the terms of the applicable legislation. This formality must be fulfilled by the date the contract is signed.
• To have a relevant scientific curriculum in the area of the call;
• Have professional experience (at least 3 years) in supervising teams in an academic setting;
• Be competent to teach Chemistry and Biochemistry courses to a high standard.

VI - Application Instruction

1. The application must be completed by filling in the respective application form, which is available at https://www.fct.unl.pt/en/faculdade/concursos/investigadores.

2. The application process must be instructed with the documentation in Portuguese or English.

3. The application should be submitted by e-mail, containing the following documents:

4. Certificate attesting to a PhD degree in scientific area to which the competition relates;

5. Curriculum vitae of the candidate, which must include:

i) “Researcher ID”, “Scopus Author ID” and “Google Scholar ID” identifications

ii) Research and development activities and other activities relevant for the present tender procedure, in concordance with the terms of the call.

3. Published works, mentioned in the curriculum vitae, namely the most representative ones, as regards their contribution to the development and evolution of the scientific area in which the procedure is open;

4. Declaration, under oath, that if the jury chooses to request the documentation indicated in the previous items or any other scientific documentation cited in the candidate's curriculum vitae, it will be delivered within 10 working days;

5. Other documents that the candidates may find relevant for the analysis of their application.

6. If a member of the jury is not fluent in Portuguese, the documents for the candidates' prior hearing and complaints are necessarily presented in English that will be assessed by the jury.

VII - Presentation of the application

1. The application documents must be submitted by the 15th working day counted from the day following the publication of the Notice (extract) in the Diário da República.

2. Candidates must submit their application documents, in a single file in PDF format, by e-mail to the following address: concursos.investigadores@fct.unl.pt, indicating in the subject the internal reference “Inv.Jun.19.2026-DQ”.

VIII - Interview

1. The Jury will deliberate at its first meeting whether an interview is necessary and whether to interview all or some of the candidates;

2. The interview if held, has a maximum weight of 10% of the total evaluation;

3. The interview aims at obtaining clarifications or clarifying the elements contained in the candidates Curriculum vitae, in case of need.

IX - Evaluation Criteria

1. The present procedure is designed to evaluate the candidate’s capacity and performance in the different parameters under the terms of article 5 of DL no. 57/2016;

2. The curricular evaluation of the various candidates in each of the areas described below must take into consideration the scientific area in which the call is open;

3. The criteria to be considered in the curricular evaluation of the candidates, in each of the aspects, are those listed below:

4. Scientific and Technological Production (STP);

5. Applied or Practice-Based Research Activities (APBRA):

6. Extension and Knowledge Dissemination Activities (EKDA);

7. Science, Technology and Innovation Program Management Activities (STIPMA);

X - Reasons for admission and exclusion

1. The following are grounds for exclusion from the competition:

a) Failure to fulfil the requirements referred to in point V;

b) Failure to submit the documents required in points a) to (d) of paragraph 3 of point VI, or submitting them in an illegible or invalid format.

c) Incorrectly formalizing of the application.

2. The jury will decide on the admissibility of candidates to the competition, in accordance with the established requirements;

3. The members of the jury will make a justified proposal for each candidate.

XI - Sorting and voting methodology

1. Once the approved candidates have been definitively identified in absolute merit, the jury proceed to their classification in relative merit;

2. Each member of the jury will perform a curricular evaluation of the candidates by presenting a written statement, which will later be included in the minute, in which it proposes the ranking of the candidates duly based on the evaluation criteria indicated in this notice, scoring each candidate against each criterion on a numerical scale from 0 to 100 points;

3. The evaluation criteria indicated should be weighted as follows:

Scientific and Technological Production (STP): 35%

Scientific output produced within the subject area of the competition or in a related field (book chapters, articles in scientific journals, conference papers and presentations, patents and other forms of scientific output deemed relevant by the selection panel), in terms of both quality and quantity, assessed on the basis of its impact and recognition within the scientific community. The impact and recognition of candidates’ scientific output may be assessed on the basis of the quality of the venues where their work has been published or presented, and by the references made to it by other authors.

Applied or Practice-Based Research Activities (APBRA): 25%

Research activities over the last six years in the subject area of the call for applications or in related fields. Particular weight will be given to participation in research projects and collaboration with national or international partners (academic and industrial), as well as the supervision of dissertations and theses that contribute to the development of new ideas or concepts in the subject area of the call for applications.

Extension and Knowledge Dissemination Activities (EKDA): 15%

Participation in and performance of university extension and scientific dissemination tasks. The diversity of dissemination activities and the target audience (academic and non-academic) should be taken into account.

The performance of tasks aimed at the economic and social valorisation of knowledge, notably through community service.

Science, Technology and Innovation Program Management Activities (STIPMA): 25%

Ability to organise and lead scientific teams in academic and industrial settings, as well as a proven track record in supervising postgraduate studies (Master’s and PhD programmes).

Ability to manage projects with national and international partners, including academic and industrial partners, as well as participation in projects funded by national and European bodies.

4. The ordering of the Approved candidates is done by vote of the members of the jury, respecting the ranking presented in the statement referred to in the previous number, under the following terms:

a) The first vote is intended to determine the candidate to be placed in first place;

b) In the voting referred to in the previous paragraph, if a candidate obtains more than half of the votes to be placed in first, he is ordained in this position;

c) If the situation referred to in the previous paragraph is not verified, a new vote is held, only among the candidates who obtained votes for 1st place, after withdrawing the lesser candidate voted for that seat in the previous voting;

d) If there is more than one candidate to be withdrawn, due to an equal number of votes, with a minimum of one vote each, a vote is held only on these to determine the candidate for withdraw from the next vote; in this vote, each member will vote, from among the candidates equally of votes, for the candidate occupying the lowest position in the ranking in his opinion;

e) If there is a tie, the tiebreaker is done through the tiebreaker vote or vote of quality of the president of the jury;

f) Voting shall be repeated until it is determined, by the process described above, which candidate is to be ranked first. If only two candidates remain and each of them obtains half of the votes, the tie shall be broken through the quality vote of the President of the jury;

g) Once the candidate for the first place is chosen, he/she is removed from the voting and the entire process is repeated for the second place and so on until the ordered list of all the candidates.

XII - Notifications and Hearing of Interested Parties

1. A prior hearing shall be held, under the terms of the Administrative Procedure Code, for those candidates who have been rejected, and of candidates who have been placed on the ranking list of the candidates who cannot be filled for the position in the competition. All candidates shall be notified of the ratification of the jury's final decision;

2. Notifications shall be made by email;

3. The tender dossier may be consulted by the candidates, in the Human Resources Division of FCT NOVA, under the terms indicated in the above-mentioned notification.

XIV - Jury Composition

President:

Doctor Filipe André da Silva Raminhos Natalio, Associate Professor, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon;

Efective Members:

Doctor José Ricardo Ramos Franco Tavares, Associate Professor with Aggregation, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon;

Doctor Arménio Jorge Moura Barbosa, Assistant Professor, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon;

Substitute Members:

Doctor Ana Cecília Afonso Roque, Full Professor, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon;

Doctor Maria Angelina de Sá Palma, Assistant Professor, NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon;

XV. Data Protection

In accordance with the RGPD - General Data Protection Regulation, the data collected will be processed exclusively for the processing of the application.

And for the record, this notice is published.

October 15, 2026 - Prof. Doctor José Alferes, Dean

Where to apply

E-mail: concursos.investigadores@fct.unl.pt

Requirements

Research Field: Chemistry » Biochemistry

Education Level: Master Degree or equivalent

Work Location(s)

Number of offers available: 1

Company/Institute: NOVA School of Science and Technology, NOVA University Lisbon

Country: Portugal

City: Caparica

Website: https://www.fct.unl.pt/

Street: Campus de Caparica

Postal Code: 2829-516