The Education, Science, Youth and Sports Committee unanimously approved this PCP request to hear the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education in Parliament regarding the difficulties faced by the Research Fellows.

An urgent hearing request was proposed by the PCP after a protest by scholarship holders in LisbonOn April 16, when Minister Manuel Hitor guaranteed the extension of research grants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the Communist Parliamentary Group says that since then researchers’ expectations have been disappointed, justifying the necessity to listen to the ruler, in an attempt to clarify the situation.

No date for the hearing, Manuel Hitor should go to Parliament after the Association of Scientific Research Fellows (ABIC) and the National Union of Teachers (Fenprof), Which will be heard first in a joint hearing on the same topic, also at the request of the PCP.

In the application, the PCP states that it intends to address issues such as “extension of all research grants” due to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, “final letter delivery fees,” and “compliance with extended deadlines for submission of“ dissertation ”and the opening of new editions of calls to encourage individual scientific employment (CEEC) and Scientific Research and Technology Development Projects (IC & DT) in 2021.

These are the claims of the beneficiaries, Who demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education in Lisbon, on April 16, and which the Communists now want to deal with in the hearings.

At the protest, the Minister received representatives of ABIC and Fenprof, who expressed his openness to “the negotiation process to reach a compromise mainly in relation to the investment programming in research and development (research and development), but also in the review of scientific research and employment situation”.