FCT away illegalities with doctoral grant from the Minister of Education – publico

 
         

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
 

The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) ensures “no illegality of evidence” with doctoral grant received by the now Minister of Education, Tiago Rodrigues Brandão, from 2001. A former employee of his project, who is a professor at the University of Coimbra (UC), where the doctorate was made, accuses him of fraud, but whether the public body or the research adviser and then director of the Biochemistry department exonerated the governor.

at issue is a charge made to the journal Saturday by Rui Carvalho, a professor at UC, which at the time was beginning his research career and helped Brandão Rodrigues in the first phase of your project. One academic said the education minister committed “a crime” and was “unduly” money to finance the tuition fees of your stay at the University of Texas, although this institution of higher education do not charge.

James Brandão Rodrigues had a mixed bag of higher value than regular bags, which is paid to researchers who wish to make a part of their work outside of Portugal. In this case, the partner institution was the University of Texas, where the now minister spent three months in the first year of PhD. In the case of applicants that are part of their research abroad, which FCT finances are no tuition fees, but called bench fees , to cover expenses in the laboratory.

this is one of the funds that Brandão Rodrigues is prepared to return to that public body by the fact that they were never “truly transferred to the university.” In a letter at the time and that the public had access, then fellow said he wanted to “make your refund.” In the same letter, he speaks of “various and serious incompatibilities” with Rui Carvalho, who was not her supervisor, but one of the researchers from the UC that helped the doctoral work.

This same is recalled to PUBLIC by Carlos Geraldes, who directed the PhD “. There was a dispute, but not well know its contours” This professor remembers Brandão Rodrigues to have sought to say that “could not stand” working with Rui Carvalho. “At the time it was understood that the best solution was to reformulate the PhD project,” he explains. In this sense, the fellow contacted FCT requesting the temporary suspension of the scholarship to “equate the new doctoral conditions.”

James Brandão Rodrigues left the initial work plan, which meant that part of their work laboratory were done in the uS, and changed his research to the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he eventually complete the project. It even realized a letter sent in late October, which would eventually be approved by the FCT.

In a clarification made public on Wednesday, FCT confirms this version. The government agency says it has received a letter from Brandão Rodrigues September 25, 2002, in which it informs the “reduction of overseas stay period and that there was no need to pay lab fees”. The first letter of Rui Carvalho alleging irregularities now minister was received by the FCT five days later.

Following that complaint, the FTC opened an internal investigation, under which “all the issues raised” by Carvalho “were clarified.” That organization found that “never existed overlap between the doctoral grant from FCT and any other stock exchange,” concluding, still in 2002, “no illegality of evidence, and given the case closed”.

Louis Martin Rosario was the head height of the Biochemistry department of UC and recalls have been contacted to clarify what happened. “I could only say the best about the fellow,” said classifying Brandão Rodrigues as “a generator of solutions, not problems.”

The excess funds received by Tiago Brandão Rodrigues were restored on its own initiative 21 October 2002, less than a month after his first letter addressed to the FCT and two weeks after that organization had communicated what was the amount in question: 18,089.33 euros. The first check made by Brandão Rodrigues to FCT was that amount, but it was returned to him, according to the information of the services contained in its process, the PUBLIC had access. The grantee delivered on the same date, new check of 6329.33 euros, which was the value determined in accordance with the reactivation of the bag, from the following month.