I have been receiving several international inquiries about the status of the FCT assessment of Portuguese science. Now is official: not only half of the Portuguese units condemned to death in the first round have presented appeals, but also a large number of those which entered in the second round have also protested. The article of Nicolau Ferreira published in "Público" offers a good update on the disastrous "evaluation" of the Portuguese science units.
"Only 1 of the 50 centers that appealed,
in the preliminary hearing of the second stage of the assessment of
research units, had a positive response. The Institute of
Nanostructures, Nanomodelling and Nanofabrication (I3N) of the
University of Minho had its annual funds increased by 232,000 euros
(from 1,684 to 1.916 million euros), as announced on Thursday (May,
12) by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). The
assessment impacts the funding of the units between 2015 and 2020.
This preliminary hearing only concerns
the amount of funding awarded to each unit and not the assessment
results. In all, 123 units have made a claim after the results of
assessment in December 2014.
The appeals by this 50 centers were
only regarding "administrative matters". They are “called
“preliminary hearing” and only are referred to the amount of
funding provided by FCT. Other requests, still unanswered, are of
"scientific matters" - refers to the assessment itself - or
are both"scientific" and "administrative". These
cases are still being analyzed by the evaluation panels and the
results will not be known until May.
Since last Thursday, the units that
have completed preliminary hearing or that have not made requests,
have available the terms of acceptance of the contract, which will
allow the beginning of financing. For the other, "terms of
provisional acceptance will be made available," explains the
Ministry for Science and Education.
Units not be happy with the FCT
response can present, after May, a complaint that will be reviewed by
independent panels. These panels "are being finalized with the
participation of the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities
(CRUP)," the statement said.
There were 322 research units that have
applied to the evaluation process done in two stages by the European
Science Foundation (ESF), hired by FCT. In the first phase there was
no facility visits - a group of evaluators reviewed the nominations
by examining documents. Units classified as “Good”, “Fair” or
“Poor” didn't proceed to the second phase, which gave access to
greater funding.
The first-phase results were announced
in late June. About half of the units have not passed to the second
round. Units that had “Fair” and “Poor” are not eligible for
any funding. The ones classified has “Good” receive only the
annual core funding, between 5000 and 40,000 euros. Criticism of the
evaluation process was immediate after the release of the first stage
results and has escalated when it was known (in early July) that the
contract between the FCT and the ESF was stated that only half of the
units could pass to the second phase.
Between September and November, 178
units were visited by the assessment panels. In the final result,
which also had quotas for the highest grades, 11 units were
classified as “Exceptional” (and became eligible for a EUR 13
million total funding), 52 had “Excellent” (dividing 34 million),
had 104 “Very Good” (dividing 23 million) 90 had “Good” (and
divide one million euros), 33 had “Fair” and 32 had “Poor”
(no funding). I3N, the only center that saw its funding rise as a
result of the second stage preliminary hearing, had “Exceptional”
(the hearing didn't affected the classification, only the amount of
funding).
There are 52 units classified as “Good”
that may apply to the Strategic Restructuring Fund, of 6.7 million
euros, awarded before the mid-term review in 2017."
Nicolau Ferreira / Público
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