Exceptional requests to change the contractual duration at Studentships Research

The award of Studentships implies a commitment on the part of both contracting parties to the terms of the contract, namely: the type of Studentship; the host institution; the supervisor; the work plan; and the duration of the Studentship. Any change to these terms is exceptional (article 17 of the Research Fellows Regulations) and requires a strong scientific justification, not least because the definition of the period requested for Studentship in the application is the responsibility of the candidate and is one of the relevant elements in the application assessment process.

Such requests for changes of an exceptional nature do not imply the suspension of Studentships payments for the contracted period and conditions.

In recent years, these requests for changes have become very frequent, thus increasing the waiting time for a response, whose procedures were designed to be exceptional. In addition, many requests are made in the last quarter of the term of Studentship, which puts even more pressure on the process, creating situations of fragility for grant holders.

Thus, while in 2019 1100 requests were received to change the contracted conditions, in 2022 this number rose to 2500 and in 2023 the number will be identical. In terms of the volume of Studentships currently contracted - around 8000 - this means that in 2 years 62.5% of Studentships have been subject to requests for changes. The change requests arising from the pandemic period were answered in full.

The FCT has revised its procedures in order to speed things up as much as possible. Of the 2,500 exceptional amendment requests received in 2023, 85% have already been answered. Of the remainder, around 5% are at the dispatch stage and 10% are at the analysis stage. Of this universe, less than 2% (around 45) correspond to requests for extensions with the potential to have implications for the payment of a non-contractual period.

The FCT will continue to work to respond as quickly as possible to the growing number of requests and undertakes to respond to the missing requests within one month.

The FCT remains in direct and permanent contact with all grant holders and is sympathetic to the particular situations of each researcher, improving and speeding up ongoing processes.