A final mark in the range 1 to 5 will be attributed to each applicant, and a ranking established. A cut-off mark will be set, and it can vary from one year to the other. Only candidates considered to be of high quality will be admitted into the programme with a maximum of 10-12 PhD students per year.

The Selection Committee grades the candidates, taking into account two possible situations:

A) A supervisor has been identified, and the candidate is presenting a working plan for their research programme. In this case the ranking will be made considering the merit of the candidate (5 points), the merit of the work programme (3 points), and the merit of the host institutions and supervisors (2 points).  All candidates will be ranked according to the weighted average of these three criteria. 

For the merit of the candidate please see table 1 for the classification based on the master degree score and table 2 for the guide-lines for the bonus based on the CV, particularly publications. 

For the merit of the work programme, the items to be graded are: the advancement of knowledge, innovation, the team, the infrastructure, and overall clarity of design. Bonus: international involvement, the intiation of new research area and/or the revival of important research. 

The merit of the host institutions and supervisors, weight factors of 50% for the supervisor, 50% for the host institutions   (classification made according with the FCT ranking)

B) A supervisor has yet to be identified and the working plan is not in place. In this case the rank will consider the merit of the candidate (50%), the recommendation letters, a motivation letter and an interview (50%).

Table 1: Ranking according to final marks achieved for undergraduate and graduate courses or equivalent (bonus marks may be added, see below)

4,2 - 16/20 for the diplomas: Master, Bachelor+Master, "Mestrado integrado", 5 years "Licenciatura"
4,0 -  15/20 for the diplomas: Master, Bachelor+Master, "Mestrado integrado", 5 years "Licenciatura"
3,5 - 14/20 for the diplomas: Master, Bachelor+Master, "Mestrado integrado", 5 years "Licenciatura"
3,0 - <14/20 for the diplomas: Master, Bachelor+Master, "Mestrado integrado", 5 years "Licenciatura"

Table 2: Guide-lines for bonus marks 

0,5 is attributed to 1 paper (oral communication) in the Proceedings of the ICOM-CC Working Groups, or to a book or catalogue chapter; published or accepted
1 is attributed to 1 paper (SCI); or to 1 paper (oral communication) in the Proceedings of the General Meetings of ICOM-CC, ICROM, IIC; or to 2 papers (oral communication) in the Proceedings of the ICOM-CC Working Groups; published or accepted 
1,5 is attributed to 2 papers (SCI) published or accepted
2 is attributed to 3 or more papers (SCI) published or accepted

note: these are guidelines for the bonus classification, the Selection Committee may choose otherwise based on the candidate’s CV, but the maximum bonus points are 2.