By decision of the Board of Directors, NOVA.id.FCT - Associação para a Inovação e Desenvolvimento da FCT (“NOVA.id.FCT”) opens an international call to hire a Research Technician, holding a Master’s Degree, with the internal reference #NOVAID250, under a fixed term employment contract to conduct research activities in the field of Environmental Engineering or similar in the scope of the project “Characterization of planktonic and benthic communities along the Portuguese coast” (ref. contract number 8/2025), funded by IPMA.

1. Type of contract and applicable legislation

   The hiring of the Research Technician (Master’s Degree) shall be made by means of an fixed Term Employment Contract entered into in accordance with the Portuguese Labour Code approved by the Law no. 7/2009 of February 12th, as amended. The contract should have a duration of 15 months, and should not be extended further than the project duration. The contract should begin in April of 2025.

2. Main attributions and activities and exclusivity

   The Research Technician will (i) participate in campaigns aboard research vessels in the areas established for the installation of offshore wind energy generation infrastructures under the Ocean Renewable Energy Allocation Plan (PAER) in Mainland Portugal; (ii) identify benthic macroinvertebrates from sedimentary bottoms collected during geophysical and geotechnical prospecting campaigns and/or campaigns from the PNAB‐DCF Series using image/video; (iii) identify samples collected from rocky substrates under a magnifying glass; (iv) analyze sediments to determine granulometry and organic matter; v) prepare samples and develop laboratory procedures for molecular analyses through high-throughput sequencing; (vi) molecularly identify marine biodiversity of benthic macroinvertebrate communities through high-throughput sequencing (metabarcoding); (vii) perform bioinformatic processing of raw data; (viii) prepare the obtained results for publication in technical reports that constitute the project's deliverables.

3. Place of work

   The Research Technician (Master’s Degree) working place shall be at the premises of Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Laboratory MARLab - Marine Research and Environmental Risk Lab, at NOVA School of Science and Technolgy - University NOVA Lisbon, regularly commuting to the Instituto Português do Mar e Atmosfera, I.P. located in Av. Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho, 6, 1495-165 Algés, and he/she shall travel, in Portugal or abroad, as required by his/her attributions or as necessary for his/her activity.

4. Monthly remuneration

   The Research Technician shall earn a monthly remuneration in the gross amount of €1495,20.

5. Admission Requirements

   National, foreign, and stateless candidates holding a Master's degree in Environmental Engineering or related areas and preference will be given to whom has some of the requirements:

   
   a. Hold a MSc degree within at least 5 years
   b. R&D activities in the laboratory, including the identification of marine biodiversity, especially benthic macroinvertebrates, through integrative taxonomy and high-throughput sequencing;
   c. Experience in metabarcoding data analysis and bioinformatics pipelines;
   d. Experience in determining the physicochemical parameters of sediments;
   e. Proficiency in using QGIS and RStudio, Fortran, and Python;
   f. Previous professional and/or academic experience in organizing and performing exploratory data analyses;
   g. Proven experience in participating in research vessel campaigns and Field experience in collecting benthic macroinvertebrates and sediments;
   h. Fluency in English.

6. Evaluation of the Applications and Composition of the Jury

   Applications shall be subject to evaluation by a jury.

   The jury is composed of the following members:

   - Chairwoman: Marta Martins, Ph.D. (NOVA FCT)
   - Member: Catarina Churro, Ph.D. (IPMA)
   - Member: Carlos David Santos, Ph.D. (NOVA FCT)
   - Substitute Member: Gonçalo Silva, Ph.D. (NOVA FCT)
   - Substitute Member: Alexandra Silva, Ph.D. (IPMA)

7. Selection criteria

   The selection of the successful candidate will be carried out through the evaluation of the scientific and curricular achievements and the selection criteria and their respective weighting shall be as follows, evaluated in a scale of 0 a 20:

   
   a) Curriculum Vitae (50 %) - Rating for 0 to 20;
   b) Professional experience relevant to the project (50 %) - Rating for 0 to 20.
    

   The interview will be held only to break ties in the final ranking of the candidates with the highest ranking. If the interview is successful, the weighting will be:
    

   a) Curriculum Vitae (50%) - rating from 0 to 20;
   b) Professional experience relevant to the project (30 %) - Rating from 0 to 20;
   c) Interview (20%) – Rate from 0 to 20.

8. Final Decision

   The final deliberation of the jury shall be homologated by the ultimate governing body of NOVA.id.FCT that is also responsible for the decision of hiring.

   The list of admitted and excluded candidates and the final list of classification will be publicised on the website of NOVA.id.FCT (www.novaidfct.pt) and sent by electronic mail with receipt of delivery to all candidates.

9. Submission of Applications

   Applications must be submitted between 01/04/2025 and 14/04/2025, by email, addressed to Prof. Marta Martins, marta.martins@fct.unl.pt and containing a single PDF file with the following documents in Portuguese or English languages:

   
   • Cover letter (2 pages maximum);
   • Copy of the candidate's Bachelor's and Master’s degree certificates;
          - In case the certificate is awarded by a foreign institution, candidates shall send together with their application the certificate of Degree recognition in Portugal. Otherwise, the application will be excluded.
   • Curriculum Vitae of the candidate (up to 5 pages maximum);
   • 2 Reference letter(s)
    

   The subject of the e-mail should contain "Application to BENTEOLIC project".

10. Non-discrimination and equal access policy

    NOVA.id.FCT actively promotes a non-discrimination and equal access policy, reason for which no candidate can be benefited, prejudiced or deprived of any duty, namely age, sex, disability, sexual orientation, chronic illness, nationality, ethnic origin or race, religion or political beliefs.