The rector of the University of Algarve expects that the situation of precarious workers at the institution has been resolved or is about to be resolved “by the end of the year”. In an interview with Sul Informação, Paulo Águas said that the PREVPAP program to regularize precarious bonds is “one of the greatest difficulties” he has felt throughout his term, but that he hopes to resolve it soon.
“We still haven't managed to regularize the contracts of people who have their situations approved. We have already opened some regularization processes and we would like, by the end of the year, to have, I will not say everything regularized, but the open tenders and everything started», said the dean of UAlg.
In all, there are 50 employees of the University of Algarve who have fixed-term contracts, despite carrying out functions corresponding to general careers, whose connection to the institution will have to be made permanent, under the Program for the Extraordinary Regularization of Precarious Links in Public Administration ( PREVPAP).
This is, according to Paulo Águas, the great challenge that he still has to face in this term. “We managed to resolve the issue of scientific employment and I think we resolved it well. They are complex processes. There was dispute, at certain timesSuch as Sul Informação you know and reported it», he recalled.
In the case of fellow researchers, the University of Algarve it ended up hiring only 3 of the 19 scientists in a precarious situation on a permanent basis.. This despite, at first, having admitted to integrating them all into the university's staff..
At the request of the rectory, the case of the 19 scholarship holders was re-evaluated by a Bipartite Evaluation Committee (CAB), which decided that only three of these researchers were able to be admitted permanently.
“We are always concerned about our situations, but we also look to know what others are doing. If the problem is ours, or if it's not ours alone. In this case, the problem was not ours alone and we resolved it to our satisfaction», believes Paulo Águas.
«In scientific employment we have 41 hired researchers. We also managed to get more projects from the Foundation for Science and Technology, which will allow us to hire more researchers. There is on our part, the university and the dean, the greatest appreciation for researchers. The point is, if there is no funding, then we are not able to have them. And I can't be transferring to research the funds we receive for teaching, which are already insufficient», added the dean of the University of Algarve.
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