Deadline: 29 January 2026
The eighth edition of the CEEC Individual funded by FCT is now opened. Similar to the last edition, there are no applications for the Principal Investigator category (only Junior and Assistant Researcher), and the contract will be for a maximum period of 3 consecutive or interpolated years up to a maximum of 6 years.
Categories
a) Junior researcher – holders of a doctorate degree for 5 years or less, counted at the closing date of the application submission period, with reduced post-doctoral research experience in the scientific area to which they are applying.
b) Assistant researcher – PhD holders at the closing date of the application submission period, with a relevant curriculum in the scientific area to which they are applying.
The following suspensions or interruptions in research activity may be taken into account when counting time after obtaining the doctoral degree, provided they are duly documented:
i) Due to maternity (reduction of 18 months for each child before or after obtaining the degree);
ii) For paternity reasons (reduction in parental leave time for each child before or after obtaining the degree;
iii) Due to prolonged illness (more than 90 days; reduction in the number of years after obtaining the degree).
Eligibility
PhD holders of any nationality, or stateless, with a background in any scientific area who wish to carry on scientific research or technological development activity in Portugal may apply for this call, as long as they do not hold a work contract of indefinite duration with any institution of the Portuguese System of Science and Technology (contrato sem termo or contrato por tempo indeterminado).
Funding
Junior researcher is funded at the level 33 of tabela remuneratória única (check here the table for 2025). Assistant researcher is funded at the 1st stage of the assistant researcher category of the scientific research career, in accordance with Annex I of Decree-Law No. 55/2025, of 28 April, on a full-time basis.
Duration
In this edition, the contract will be for a maximum of 3 consecutive or interpolated years up to a maximum of 6 years. The researcher will be able to take advantage of periods at institutions outside the host institution, namely national or foreign academic or non-academic institutions, or take advantage of other sources of funding at the same host institution.
How to apply
Applications will be done through the myFCT platform.
Each application must be accompanied by the following mandatory elements:
a) Certificate of completion of the doctorate, or, if this is not possible, a declaration from the institution that awarded the degree attesting to the fact that it was obtained and the respective date. The presentation of the doctoral certificate during the contracting phase will be mandatory. In the case of a doctorate obtained abroad, the candidate must submit a copy of the recognition of the doctorate degree in Portugal when submitting the application. Failure to submit the degree recognition will result in the application being admitted conditionally, and it will be mandatory to submit the document at the contracting stage;
b) Scientific and curricular career (in the form of a narrative CV), highlighting the main activities and results obtained in the last 5 years or less in the case of junior researchers;
c) Career development plan, framing this application and emphasising its impact on career objectives and the scientific goals to be achieved;
e) Research plan, defining and contextualising the scientific objectives and questions, activities to be carried out, expected results and identifying the mission and scientific challenge to be framed within the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals;
f) A summary of the hosting conditions and how the candidate considers that the proposed research plan fits into the strategy of the associated host institution.
After submission (30 January to 13 February), the host institution’s declaration of acceptance must be submitted by the institution on the platform when the association is made with the application. This document considers:
i) the technical and logistical conditions made available by the host institution necessary for the candidate to carry out their activities under the scientific research plan;
ii) the guarantee of their scientific and technical autonomy to carry out the research plan.
Evaluation
The assessment of the candidate focuses on two assessment criteria: A) merit of the candidate; and B) merit of the research plan.
Only applications with a final classification equal to or higher than 7 (seven) on a scale of 1 (one) to 10 (ten) will be considered eligible for funding.
Disclosure of results
Provisional results will be released within 6 months of the closing date of the call (i.e. August 2026) but this deadline is often not always met. As an example, in the previous edition (2024), the provisional results were released 10 months after the closing data, and in the edition before (2023) it was 7 months. Moreover, the contracting phase can take more than a year. Regarding the edition of 2023, the final results were released a year after the closing date and contracts started more than 2 months after the final results.
Supporting material
CESAM is preparing an info session to support applications. It will be on the 20th January 2026 (10h00) online – Soon you will receive information on how to register and participate in this session. All the official supporting documents on the call are available here. CESAM produced an annotated template already available at the Library at CESAM Sharepoint (Library > Useful documents tailored by us > FCT > CEEC). Here you can see the template of the call enriched with tips. Briefly, CESAM will also prepare a checklist to help you with the application procedure.
Internal Procedures
As CESAM needs to accept your proposal after the closing of the applications, it is important that you send an email to cesam-gesciencia@ua.pt informing us that you are going to apply. If you are a candidate external to CESAM you should send either the name of the CESAM researcher who is going to support your application, or, if any:
- A summary of the proposed work plan (max. 2500 characters);
- A narrative CV synopsis (max. 500 characters), along with a link to your CienciaVitae profile;
- A motivation letter outlining your career trajectory over the past five years and the relevance of your achievements to CESAM’s Thematic Lines and overall mission (max. 2000 characters).