Sumários

RMPP #8: Pre-award. Grantsmanship

25 Março 2026, 18:00 Ana Moutinho

Dear All,

Many thanks for attending our class yesterday.

Please find attached the presentation.

Next session, we will be going into post-award. That is the paradise of compliance with contractual, financial, and reporting requirements.

I starts with grant agreement preparation (remember AGA?), and goes into budget control, recruitment and procurement, reporting, risk and consortium coordination.

Have a nice Easter break,

Ana


RMPP #7: Research funding

18 Março 2026, 18:00 Ana Moutinho

Dear All,

Many thanks for attending our class yesterday.

Please find attached the presentation.

I mentioned a recent Nature article on the use of AI by PhD students. Please find it here:

AI and the PhD student: friend or foe?

Graduate students increasingly use artificial-intelligence tools to draft, code and search — but many fear it could erode the very skills a doctorate is meant to build.

 

Next session, we will be still dwelling on funding, but will also go into pre-award and grantsmanship – just in time for the deadline of FCT R&D Projects in All Scientific Domains.

Have a happy Spring opening (20th March),

Ana


RMPP #7: Research communities

11 Março 2026, 18:00 Ana Moutinho

Dear All,

Many thanks for attending our class yesterday.

Please find attached the presentation.

Regarding Ethics guidelines, please find attached an Ethics Self-Assessment Guide, so that you become more familiar with the kind of issues we should be aware of when designing research proposals. This is the guide available in the FCT Projects open call.

Also, on gender equality, it has been just published the OECD entry Women in research: Progress in education, persistent gaps in careers.

Next session, we will be finishing the debate on research communities, and dive into the big topic of funding.

As recommended reading, I suggest browsing the sample pages in Handbook of Public Funding of Research, namely the Introduction.

 Some of you asked me about the RMPP assignment and Policy Briefs.

My favourite benchmarks are Post notes, the short format policy briefs produced by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in the UK Parliament, which specializes in the analysis of emerging and complex research areas. You might browse POSTbriefs and POSTnotes.

The RMPP evaluation askes you to choose any give topic in research and innovation, as long as it is timely and relevant, and produce a policy brief aimed to help decision makers to get quality information. Imagine you are an aide to a parliamentarian and the topic is on the legislative agenda. What would be the basics on which to have an informed opinion?

The assignment has 3 phases:

  1. You choose the topic and send me an exec summary until the 26th April;
  2. You will be asked to pitch it during the last session of the semester (29th April). It is a moment to shortly present its relevance and angle, collect feedback and fine tune your approach. You can use a couple of slides.
  3. You hand in the final version, in pdf format, by email, until the exam date/hour = 1st Season: 07th May 2024, 18:00 – 20:00.

Please respect the following structure:

Title

Executive Summary

Intro + Problem Statement

Benchmark + Analysis

Recommendations

References


For reference, please find attached an AI-prompted factsheet about Policy Briefs, edited and revised by me.

Best,

Ana


RMPP #5: Evaluation Frameworks fos Responsible Research and Innovation. The rise of Impact.

4 Março 2026, 18:00 Ana Moutinho

Dear All,

Many thanks for attending our class yesterday.

Please find attached the presentation.

Next session, we will be finishing the debate and best practices in Open Science, and start our discussion about the people in research.

Please bring your best thought on equity, diversity, and …meritocracy.

In case you are interested, there is a very interesting long read from The Guardian, that still resonates a lot:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/19/the-myth-of-meritocracy-who-really-gets-what-they-deserve

(Michael Young is the founder of The Young Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation, working with communities, organisations and policymakers in the area of social innovation.)

Best,

Ana


RMPP #4: Research and innovation services

25 Fevereiro 2026, 18:00 Ana Moutinho

Dear All,

Many thanks for attending our class yesterday. We have covered research offices, the project life cycle, and the potential use of AI in research management.

Please find attached the presentation.

Next session, we will be discussing evaluation frameworks, impact and open science.

As prep I strongly recommend that you go through the manifesto that has since become a classic:

The Leiden Manifestohttp://www.leidenmanifesto.org/

Please check the video – https://vimeo.com/133683418

On impact, I suggest you browse through Taylor and Francis Research impact ebook

Best,

Ana