Research Grant (Bachelor's Degree) in Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence

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

Offer Description

Call open for applications for 1 research grant (Bachelor’s Degree), enrolled in Master Degree, within the framework of project with the reference UID/00144/2025, financed by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through National Funds, under the following conditions:

Scientific Area: Mathematics and Artifitial Inteligence

Admission requirements:

• To have a Bachelor degree in Artifitial Inteligence, Mathematics or related areas
• To be enrolled in a Master Program in Computer Science, Mathematical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or Mathematics.

Although the recipients must be enrolled in a cycle of studies leading to the attribution of an academic degree, at the time of application it is not necessary for the candidate to have made such an enrollment, and proof of enrollment must be presented until the fellowship is contractualized. Candidates are only required to meet the requirements to enroll in the training offer. If there are candidates already enrolled (including attending a course), they compete on an equal footing with those who are not enrolled.

Hiring Requirements: If the qualification has been granted by a foreign higher education institution, it will have to be recognized by a Portuguese higher education institution, pursuant to article 25 of Decree-Law No. 66/2018, of 16 August, which approves the regime legal recognition of academic degrees and diplomas in Higher Education, arising from foreign higher education institutions, and paragraph e) of paragraph 2 of article 4 of Decree-Law No. 60/2018, of August 3, all of which the formalities must be fulfilled there until the contracting act.

Activity Outline: The objective of this dissertation is to develop and mathematically formalize a multimodal AI framework for simultaneous ocular and systemic disease detection. This will be achieved by designing a fusion architecture that harmonizes disparate clinical data (imaging, text, and tabular) and integrates a novel "symptom-bottleneck" layer to map mathematical embeddings directly to explicit, human-understandable symptoms. The project aims to deliver a benchmarked, generalizable methodology that enhances both predictive accuracy and clinical trust, establishing a domain-agnostic foundation adaptable to other medical datasets.

Legislation and regulations: Law no. 40/2004, updated by Decree-Law no. 123/2019, of 28 August (Statute of Scientific Research Grant Holder); Regulation no. 950/2019 of 16 December (Regulation of Research Grants of the Foundation for Science and Technology), in its current wording; Research Studentship Regulation of the University of Porto – approved by Regulation 582/2026, published in Diário da República, 2nd Series, no. 96, of 19 May and Decree-Law no.66/2018 of 16 August (Legal Regime of Recognition of academic degrees and diplomas of Higher Education awarded by Foreign Higher Education Institutions)

Work place: The work will be developed in the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), under the guidance of João Pedro Pedroso and co-supervision of Nguyen Tien Zung. The scholarship includes work trips to France for direct scientific work with Nguyen Tien Zung.

Grant duration: Initial duration of 6 months, with beginning on 01/11/2026, eventually renewable up, but not exceeding the end date of the project. The period of work abroad may not exceed 3 months of the fellowship.

Maintenance allowance amount: The grant stipend amounts to 1090,98€ according to the table of values of the grants awarded directly by FCT, I.P. in the Country (https://www.fct.pt/apoios/bolsas/valores). During the period the scholarship is in effect abroad, the monthly living allowance will be 1,852.52€. The one-time travel allowance will be paid as a single payment of 300.00€. The payment will be made by bank transfer.

Voluntary Social Insurance: As long as the grant lasts 6 months or more, and in compliance with the provisions of the current version of the Grant Holder Statute, the grant holder will be entitled to have FCUP support the costs resulting from the contributions that fall into the first of the tax brackets. The grant holder will be responsible for contributions beyond the first tax bracket, should the grant holder opt for a higher coverage.

Personal Accident Insurance: During the grant period, the grant holder will be covered by a personal accident insurance policy.

Selection procedure: The selection methods to be used are as follows:

Applications considered admissible will be scored on a scale from zero (0—minimum score) to two hundred (200—maximum score) for each of the following evaluation criteria:

• Criterion 1 (C1): Curriculum Evaluation;
• Criterion 2 (C2): Specific skills for the work plan.

The rating for this method (AC) will be calculated using the following formula:

AC=C1*0.6 +C2*0.4

An Interview will be held with the four best-ranked candidates. The Interview will be ranked as well in a scale of 0-200 and it will have a weight of 10%. The final classification (FC) will then be translated into the following formula:

FC=PC*90%+E*10%

The candidate who has a foreign academic degree or diploma whose final classification is expressed on a different classification scale from the Portuguese one or does not have a classification, for evaluation purposes, must present a document proving the recognition of the foreign degree or diploma and the conversion of the classification for the Portuguese classification scale until the closing date of applications for the competition. If the documents attesting the degree submitted by the candidates do not present the final classification of the degree required in this notice with the respective grade converted to the Portuguese classification scale, the jury will consider, for evaluation purposes, that the candidate has the minimum classification (10 points) of a maximum of 20 points) required to obtain a degree in Portugal.

Candidates whose application has been assessed with a final classification less than 150 points are not eligible to sign the contract of the fellowship

Selection committee:

• President – João Pedro Pedroso Ramos dos Santos, Associate Professor with Aggregation, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto;
• 1.º member – Nguyen Tien Zung, Full Professor do Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse, da Université Toulouse III; Company Founder Torus AI;
• 2.º member – Helena Maria Monteiro Moreira Oliveira dos Reis, Associate Professor with Aggregation, Faculty of Economics of University of Porto;
• 1.º alternate member – André Gama Oliveira, Assistant Researcher with Aggregation, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto;
• 2.º alternate member – Ana Cristina Moreira Freitas, Associate Professor with Aggregation, Faculty of Economics of University of Porto;

Advertisement of final decision: The final results of the evaluation will be published through a list ordered by final classification, sent to candidates by email. It is further informed that, pursuant to the provisions of articles 121 et seq. of the Code of Administrative Procedure, it has a legal period of 10 working days from the day immediately following the notification, to make a decision, if it so wishes. A complaint may be filed against this decision within 15 working days or, alternatively, an appeal may be filed within 30 working days, addressed to the Director of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, pursuant to article 191 et seq. of the Code of Administrative Procedure.

The host entity may use the final ranking list to replace the selected grantee in case he/she gives up the position, up to one year.

Deadline for applications and form of presentation of the applications: The deadline for submitting applications will be 15 days from the date of publication of the Research Grant Announcement. Applications must be formalized, mandatorily, through the web page of Infociências of this opening (https://info.fc.up.pt/fcup/pedidos/users/novo.php?f_id=1291&formulario=810) accompanied by the following documents:

1. Motivation letter;
2. Detailed Curriculum Vitae;
3. Certificate of academic qualifications;
4. Declaration of eligibility (in attached);
5. Other relevant documents;
6. Up to three letters of recommendation, one is mandatory. The candidate should access to the link: https://info.fc.up.pt/fcup/recursos_humanos/cartas_recomendacao/index.php?f_id=1351, where he/she has to select the recruitment is applying, identify his/her name, email, identification number (citizen card or passport), and subsequently indicate the name(s) of the person(s), email address(es) of the persons that will write the recommendation letter. These persons will be notified by email, where a link will be sent to make the upload of the letter, by the end of the last day of application, 23:59 h - mainland Portugal time. The candidates will be notified when the letter has been submitted.

The documents indicated in points a) to e) must be submitted in a single file in zip format on the tender page.

Supporting documents for the contract: At the time of signing the contract, the grant holder must provide the following documents:

• Biographic form;
• Photocopy of Passport and/or residency permit (if applicable);
• Photocopy of Portuguese IBAN/NIB;
• proof of enrolment in Master in Computer Science, Mathematical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or Mathematics.
• Foreign academic degree recognition (if applicable);
• Exclusivity declaration;
• Ciência ID and ORCID ID.

Commitment

In compliance with paragraph h) of Article 9 of the Constitution, the University of Porto, as an employer, actively promotes a policy of equal opportunities between men and women in access to employment and professional advancement, scrupulously avoiding any form of discrimination. In this spirit, terms such as “candidate,” “author,” or “teacher,” among others that refer to the people who apply for this recruitment tender are used as gender neutral.

In addition, no candidate may be privileged, benefited, impaired or deprived of any right or exempt from any duty on grounds of ancestry, age, sexual orientation, marital status, family situation, economic situation, education, origin or social status, genetic heritage, reduced working capacity, disability, chronic illness, nationality, ethnic origin or race, territory of origin, language, religion, political or ideological convictions and trade union membership.

The call is open from 28/09/2026 to 19/10/2026.

Where to apply

Website: https://info.fc.up.pt/fcup/pedidos/users/novo.php?f_id=1291&formulario=810

Requirements

• Research Field: Mathematics » Other
• Education Level: Bachelor Degree or equivalent

Additional Information

Website for additional job details: https://sigarra.up.pt/fcup/pt/noticias_geral.ver_noticia?p_nr=141923

Work Location(s)

• Number of offers available: 1
• Company/Institute: Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto
• Country: Portugal

Contact

• City: Porto
• Website: https://sigarra.up.pt/fcup/pt/web_page.inicial
• Street: University of Porto – Pólo do Campo Alegre