In the 2022 edition of the Verão Com Ciência initiative, MARE - Center for Marine and Environmental Sciences presented a proposal, coordinated by the Regional Research Unit (RRI) of the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (IPL), which was approved by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The success of this application represented a funding of around 11 088.00 euros, equivalent to the monthly subsidy for a Research Initiation Scholarship for a period of one month, for a total of 23 young scholarship holders.
The competition to select candidates and fill these vacancies took place during the months of July and August, with 38 applications,. After a selection process coordinated by the IPL's RRI, 22 of the 23 vacancies were filled. The selected candidates carried out their research initiation tasks during August and September 2022 at several of MARE's URIs, and the whole process was completed during this period.
In the opinion of Carlos Alexandre, member of MARE's Board of Directors and responsible for Recruitment, "this initiative was a success and is something that should be replicated, whenever possible, in the future. It is perfectly aligned with [...] MARE's recruitment policy, namely the focus on the integration of young researchers in the MARE environment."
The initiative "Verão com Ciência" is a special support granted by FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, for the implementation of scientific and technological research activities in R&D units, which has as main objective to stimulate the initiation to scientific activity thus contributing to the promotion of scientific and technological culture and the dissemination and dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge among higher education students.