Assistant Professor - field of Physics, subarea of Astrophysics and Cosmology Coimbra

Assistant Professor - field of Physics, subarea of Astrophysics and Cosmology
Coimbra
Coimbra, Coimbra District, Portugal

Organisation/Company: Universidade de Coimbra

Department: SGRH - DRGC

Research Field: Other

Researcher Profile: Other Profession Positions

Ph
D Positions

Country: Portugal

Application Deadline: 7 Apr 2025 - 23:59 (Europe/Lisbon)

Type of Contract: Permanent

Job Status: Full-time

Hours Per Week: 35

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme

Reference Number: IT136-25-14989

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

Offer Description

PUBLIC NOTICE

I publicly announce that, by my order issued at the date of signature of this notice, an international tender for one position of teaching career statute in the category of Assistant Professor in the field of Physics, subarea of Astrophysics and Cosmology, is hereby open for 30 working days following the publication of the present notice in Diário da República [Official Journal of the Portuguese Republic]. The stated position will be held under a public service employment contract of unspecified duration at the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Coimbra.

This international tender shall be conducted pursuant to the Estatuto da Carreira Docente Universitária [University Teaching Career Statute] in its latest version, hereinafter referred to as ECDU, and the Regulamento de Recrutamento e Contratação de Pessoal Docente da Universidade de Coimbra [Regulation on the Recruitment and Hiring of Teaching Staff of the University of Coimbra] hereinafter referred to as RRCPDUC, Regulation Nr. 330/2016, of 29 March, as well as further applicable legislation.

I – Reference and Place of Work:

I. 1. Public tender reference: IT136-25-14989.

I. 2. Place of work: University of Coimbra, Department of Physics of the Faculty of Science and Technology.

II – Admission Requirements:

II. 1. Applicants shall be at least 18 years old, not be inhibited to holding a job in the public sector, nor forbidden to perform the intended position; applicants shall also be in good health and possess the psychological profile required for the job and shall meet the compulsory vaccination requirements.

II. 2. To be, on the date of the deadline for submitting applications, holder of a doctorate degree, in the area or in any of the disciplinary areas for which the tender is open, or in a related area that, complemented with the scientific path, show the ability to work centrally the tender is open.

III – Application

III. 1. Submission: Candidates must access and register on the electronic platform apply. uc. pt, to submit the application, selecting the procedure to which they intend to apply.

The documents included in the application are exclusively in digital portable document format (pdf), with the exception of the documents referred in III. 2. 4. and III. 2. 6. , which can be delivered in other digital formats.

The application submission is carried out by completing the sections available on the Apply UC electronic platform, under “My application”.

If any of the works/papers submitted contains classified information, revealing trade or industrial secrets or literary, artistic or scientific property secrets, candidates must select that option, available on the platform for each document; otherwise, those works/papers can be freely accessed by any of the other applicants when consulting the tender records.

Candidates can highlight in their CV periods of suspension of professional activity for socially protected reasons, namely, for reasons of parental leave, prolonged serious illness, and other legally protected situations of unavailability for work, always attaching supporting documents, and the jury must ensure that their evaluative judgment is not influenced by these pauses.

III. 2. Mandatory documents:

III. 2. 1. Curriculum Vitae, duly dated and signed, either in Portuguese or English language. Personal data, worthy of protection under the General Data Protection Regulation, must appear on a separate page from the rest of the information in the Curriculum Vitae.

The Curriculum Vitae shall include a foreword with the description, if any, of all the candidate's employment relationships with higher education institutions up to the date of the application and the respective periods, identifying the category held, the nature of the employment relationship, the subject area(s) and the higher education institutions where the candidate has worked, explaining precisely the employment relationship held at the date of the application. It must also include a reasoned synopsis demonstrating that the candidate has the appropriate expertise to the subject subarea(s) for which the tender is open.

The candidate’s Curriculum Vitae shall be structured in order to separately respond to the different items listed below in IV. 2.

III. 2. 3. Copy of qualification certificates. Opponents of the tender who are selected for the position(s) to be filled and hold a doctoral degree obtained abroad must present recognition or registration (as applicable) of their degree at the time of signing the contract, under the terms of Decree-Law no. 66/2018, of August 16, under penalty of exclusion.

The failure to present the recognition of the degree at the time of contracting, under the terms of Decree-Law nr. 66/2018 of August 16th, is ground for exclusion.

The candidates who hold a public service employment contract with the University of Coimbra may be exempt from the qualification certificates submission. To this end, they must select this option on the platform, stating that they are already in their individual process.

III. 2. 4. Document in which the candidate identifies the 5 scientific results or activities that they consider to represent their most significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the disciplinary subarea(s) the tender is open to.

III. 2. 5. Separate copy of the documents proving the contributions referred to in the previous point (one PDF file per document).

III. 2. 6. Copy of other works that the candidate considers relevant.

III. 2. 7. Any other elements that the candidate considers relevant.

III. 3. All application documents above indicated in III. 2. shall be submitted in either Portuguese or English, exception made to those mentioned in III. 2. 6. and III. 2. 7. , which may be submitted in a different language. If the original documents mentioned under III. 2. 3. and III. 2. 5. are written in a language other than Portuguese or English, candidates are required to include a version in one of those languages.

Exception is made to Diplomas, when written in Latin, in which case no translation is required.

III. 4. Applications that do not comply with the instructions or that fail to meet the tender’s formal requirements, pursuant to the applicable laws and to this Public Notice, shall not be accepted.

The impossibility to comply with the language requirements defined in points III. 2. and III. 3. of this Public Notice, must be duly substantiated, in a separate document presented by the candidates, under the terms of point III. 1. of the Notice.

Applicants who are
- native speakers of either Portuguese or English, shall attest their proficiency at level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in, at least, one of those languages.

IV – Selection methods and criteria

IV. 1. Selection Methods: CV Assessment (50%) + Public Hearing (50%) + Approval on Absolute Merit (qualification criterion), with the assessment being given, in the Curricular Assessment and Public Hearing, on a scale of 0 to 100 points.

IV. 1. 1. If the Selection Committee exceptionally decides, in the first meeting, not to apply the Public Hearing, the CV Assessment shall have a weight of 100% of the score, followed by the Approval on Absolute Merit (qualification criterion).

IV. 2. Selection criteria for both CV Assessment and Public Hearing are scientific performance and pedagogical skills of the candidates, as well as other activities deemed relevant with regard to the mission of a global university, in accordance with the assessment of the parameters mentioned below.

IV. 2. 1. Scientific performance of the candidate, with special emphasis on the work of the last five years, in the disciplinary subarea(s) for which the tender is open, with an assessment of up to 80 points being awarded, considering the following assessment parameters:

IV. 2. 1. 1. Scientific production and its impact and national and international recognition – 30 points: the relevance of the results obtained by the candidates will be considered, with great emphasis on the 5 scientific results or scientific activities indicated by the candidates as their most significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the disciplinary in the subareas of the area or areas for which the tender is open, with preference given to the topics: neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, cosmology of the early universe, as well as recognition by the scientific community of the results obtained.

IV. 2. 1. 2. Future scientific prospects – 10 points: the ability of the candidates to show that, in the future, they can have a very relevant scientific production in the University of Coimbra, namely based on the submitted career development plans.

IV. 2. 1. 3. Coordination and participation in scientific projects – 15 points: previous experience of candidates and their potential for beneficially and successfully coordinating and participating in nationally and internationally funded projects in the scientific field(s) for which the tender is open.

IV. 2. 1. 4. Active participation in the community within and outside the university – 25 points: active participation in the community, namely through organizational and management duties in scientific activities, transfer of knowledge to society and participation in assessment tasks and, in general, all activities pursued by the candidates that demonstrate the skills to develop, with great quality, the activities of a global, extremely productive and scientifically recognised university.

IV. 2. 2. Pedagogical skills of the candidate, with an assessment of up to 20 points, being awarded, considering the following assessment parameters:

IV. 2. 2. 1. Teaching activity – 10 points: if existing, previous teaching activity, as well as evidence of the skills to successfully carry out teaching. This will be based on the available pedagogical assessment tools, namely pedagogical surveys, the results of which candidates are required to include in their CV, and other relevant indicators, such as awards and other prizes.

IV. 2. 2. 2. Pedagogical materials produced and supervision and guidance activities – 5 points: the quality and quantity of the pedagogical material produced by the candidate, the relevance and impact of pedagogical publications and the guidance, tutoring and monitoring activities of students will be assessed.

IV. 2. 2. 3. Pedagogical projects and active participation in the community within and outsider the University – 5 points: the coordination, participation and dynamization of new pedagogical projects will be assessed (example: creation of new subject programs, participation in the creation of new courses or study programs) or reformulation and improvement of existing projects, the implementation of projects with an impact on the process of teaching/learning, as well as the intervention of candidates in the community, namely in organizational and management tasks related to pedagogical activity and dissemination of knowledge, and in general all activities of candidates that have skills to perform with quality the tasks necessary for a pedagogically very effective global university.

IV. 2. 3. Development, by the candidate, of other activities relevant for the mission of a global university may justifiably enhance the assessment of the parameters mentioned above under IV. 2. 1. and IV. 2. 2. , whenever the scope of such activities is considered to influence the performance of the candidate in relation to those parameters and the results of these activities are considered to possess the required quality to justify this enhancement.

IV. 3. Each member of the jury assigns, in each of the selection methods, Curricular Assessment and Public Hearing, to each candidate admitted and who meets the minimum requirement of absolute merit, a score in accordance with what is defined in IV. 2, either for the parameters for evaluating scientific performance and pedagogical capacity.

The partial classification of each of the selection criteria (scientific performance and pedagogical capacity) results from the sum of the classifications awarded in each of the parameters indicated in IV. 2.

In both the Curricular Assessment and the Public Hearing, the overall classification corresponds to the sum of the partial classifications awarded in each of the selection criteria.

The final classification that each member of the jury assigns to each candidate is the weighted average of the overall classification given in each of the selection methods (Curriculum Assessment and Public Hearing).

Candidates are then subject to approval on Absolute Merit and subsequent ordination under the terms of point VI. of this Public Notice. If there is no Public Hearing, the final classification will be given in the Curriculum Assessment, with candidates then subject to approval on Absolute Merit and subsequent ranking in accordance with point VI. of this Public Notice.

IV. 4. All candidates complying with the application requirements and who meet the minimum requirement of absolute merit are subject to the Curricular Assessment to be carried out in accordance with the criteria defined in IV. 2. However, only the five candidates best positioned in the Curricular Assessment will be admitted to the Public Hearing, if any.

IV. 5. Candidates who can contribute to the UC having a global level activity are approved on Absolute Merit, under the terms set out in article 19 of the RRCPDUC and taking into account the category and the disciplinary subarea for which the tender is open, taking into account the selection criteria and evaluation parameters indicated in point IV. 2. , considered qualitatively, and provided that they meet the following minimum requirement:

Hired candidates that do not master Portuguese and English will be required to learn the language up to CEFR level C1, which allows them to teach in Portuguese and in English, in order to maintain their contract after the probationary period.

V – Selection Process

V. 1. Preliminary meeting

In the first meeting, which is always preparatory, the jury decides on the admission of applications and on whether or not to hold a Public Hearing, in the latter case justifying its decision in accordance with paragraph 2 of article 27 of the RRCPDUC.

If any of the admitted candidates do not meet the minimum requirements of absolute merit, the jury decides to exclude them, refraining from submitting them to the Curricular Assessment.

If the decision is to hold a Public Hearing the Jury must then apply the CV Assessment selection method to all candidates admitted to the