The Regional Secretary for the Sea, Science and Technology announced today the opening of a public tender to support scientific publications, with a budget of 15 thousand Euros.
 
"In science, the number of publications and the type of journal articles where [scientific] articles are published is extraordinarily important for scientists, individually, and for the assessment of research centres," said Fausto Brito e Abreu.
 
The Regional Secretary spoke at the end of a visit to the newly created Humanistic Studies Centre (Cehu), a new research unit of the University of the Azores that comprises several fields in humanities.
 
Brito e Abreu mentioned that the tender is "a measure of the Regional Government that aims to stimulate the publication of the works by Azorean researchers in scientific journals," stressing the importance of "disseminating the science produced in the Azores at international level."
 
"One of the indicators of the success of science policies is the number of publications and the quality of publications demonstrated by Azorean researchers," said the government official. According to him, the "Regional Government wants to encourage this number, which will endow them with autonomy and provide their access to other funding sources outside the Region, either at national or at European level."
 
The tender announced today covers publications by researchers working at the University of the Azores and scientific research bodies of the Scientific and Technological System of the Azores in the context of the publication of scientific papers in national and international peer-reviewed journals.
 
Interested researchers may apply to this support measure until September 16, 2016 at http://idia.azores.gov.pt platform. Each application is entitled to maximum amount of 800 Euros per article.
 
During the visit to the Humanistic Studies Centre, the Regional Secretary for Science praised the creation of this new centre, "which could provide a new impetus to the development of the human sciences" in the Azores, highlighting its relevance as a "unifying hub" of research conducted at different centres of the University of the Azores.
 
Brito e Abreu stressed the gains in terms of "critical mass" the new "multidisciplinary centre" will generate. It comprises the areas of Philosophy, Political Science, Literature, Linguistics, History and Cultural Anthropology.