PhD at FAUL | Part 1: Application process

Recently, I have started my PhD studies at FAUL (Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon). As I already knew the faculty with its education level and system and was aware of life in Lisbon the made decision was not difficult. In the following lines, I will describe the application process for PhD in detail. (Please, note that the information can be outdated(as changes may occur) and go for up to date info directly to the faculty website by clicking the button below).

FAUL website

Well, let's get started! For starting a PhD in Portugal you don't need to find a supervisor or have a properly defined dissertation topic as it is in some other countries, such as, for example, in Germany or Austria. The process is the following: collecting and preparing application documents, uploading them in the portal during the application period, paying the application fee (€100,00) and waiting for the results. Yes, that is it!

There are four programs that you can apply for in our faculty: Architecture, Urbanism, Design and e-Planning. The requirements for different courses can be different, but the general concept of the application is the same.

My program is PhD in Architecture, which respectively consists of five areas of specialisation from which you can choose:

• Theory and Practice of Architectural Design (TPAD)

• Theory and History (TH)

• Drawing and Computation (DC)

• Technology and Construction Management (TGC)

• Conservation and Rehabilitation (CR)

Investigation area also needs to be chosen upon the application process, mine is Drawing and Computation. The urbanism program is not divided into any specialisations to my knowledge.

There are three application phases where you can apply. For the year 2021/2022 they are the following:

1st phase: from 1 to 28 of February

2nd phase: from 1 to 30 of April

3rd phase: from 1 to 30 of June

The required application documents are normally a CV (can be in European format: https://europa.eu/europass/tr ), a motivation letter, diplomas and transcripts from previous education (translated into English or Portuguese, if I am not mistaken, the documents in Spanish and French were also acceptable), additional documents that you find important (certificates etc.), reference letters and maybe scan of ID. That was generally it, and yes, no language certificate was needed! Well, if you don't speak Portuguese or English you won't pass your classes so they don't care about it in the application period. The classes are taught in English, however, some professors are not very happy to do so. I managed to not take such classes and not be the only foreigner in the group so don't have any problem with that.

There are also other universities in Portugal that have architectural courses. I will share links for some of them that I have checked:

University of Minho: https://www.eaad.uminho.pt/pt. It is located in Guimaraes and has a pretty good education as appeared to me from my previous European master's with the second semester there.

University of Porto: https://sigarra.up.pt/faup/en/web_page.inicial. It is obviously in Porto, I haven't applied there as among the application requirements we needed to sign a declaration that we have a good level of Portuguese.

ISCTE: https://www.iscte-iul.pt/course/79/phd-program-in-architecture-of-contemporary-metropolitan-territories. It is in Lisbon, and they are good in research. I has a chance to receive a short therm scholarship and roined them for a research project. Was a quite nice experience. Let me know if you are interested in the research process in Portugal and I will write separately about it!

If you finish your application during the first phase you get more chances to receive a scholarship, but more detailed about it I will write in my next post :)