Corta-fitas

"The comments provided by FCT were factually incorrect, and pathetically bad from a scientific standpoint.
– claims made in direct contradition to the project’s abstract
– claimed I was “too junior” to be the PI (no rules placed any age constrait, and my CV is top compared with any full professor in Portugal; so this is an example of Portugal gerontocracy, and probably illegal)

The History panel was in fact mainly composed of archeologists (this is public information) and funded instead of mine, projects such as (again this is public information which ca be found online):

“A aldeia histórica de Idanha-a-Velha: cidade, território e população na antiguidade (séc. I a.C. – XII d.C.) – The historical village of Idanha-a-Velha: city, territory and population in ancient times (first century BC. – twelfth century AC)”

“O Percurso Cromático do Azulejo Português – The Chromatic Journey of the Portuguese Azulejo”

“Pensa em grande sobre as pequenas vilas de fronteira: Alto Alentejo e Alta Extremadura leonesa (séculos XIII – XVI) – Think big on small frontier towns: Alto Alentejo and Alta Extremadura leonesa (13th – 16th centuries)”

“Na espessura das paredes e na profundidade do solo – In the width of the walls, in the depth of the soil”

Undeterred, I tried FCT again the following year. To avoid the History panel, I tried Economics, and got these comments:
– contributions the proposal not clear
– only one study country (Mozambique) fits into East Africa (!!)
– The PI (…) has insufficient expertise and the team isn’t sufficenyl international

In fact, the proposed team was composed of the PI, me (having my main affiliation abroad) and only two other Portuguese scholars with affiliations in Portugal; the latter two were experts in the sources, located in Portugal. All the other 4 proposed team members are nationals of other countries with affiliations in foreign institutions and all were experts in these types of sources.

To be fair, you sometimes get idiotic comments from referees at good journals too. But FCT does this far too consistently. A key source of criticism to FCT concerns not only the bad scientific quality of the comments one gets but also the fact that one does not have a chance to respond. In ESRC, I got 4 referee assessements of my project, and had a chance to respond to clarify any misunderstanding. Two of those 4 classified this project as “outstanding” along all categories and there was really nothing to respond to; while the other two had minor criticisms, and I got a chance to clarify whether these were misunderstandings. This led to much more transparency of the process. By contrast, FCT hires supposedly “international” experts – but really most are substandard researchers – perhaps because it pays them badly, so no one better wants to do the work. The result is what it is. They send their assessment, and if you raise issues, it goes to the same people again (so they just repeat the same)."

Nuno Palma, a propósito da aprovação de um projecto que nos interessa, cujo financiamento foi chumbado pela FCT em Portugal, aprovado pela FCT do Reino Unido.