The research centres funded by FCT are almost equally distributed among fields of science, except for medical sciences (11%) and agriculture sciences (4%) (Table 9.2). However, researchers in the CoEs are concentrated in three domains: engineering and technology, with the highest number of researchers per CoE, medical sciences and natural sciences. The fields with the greatest number of CoEs (not ALs) are social sciences (17), natural sciences (16) and humanities (14) (Figure 9.1).
Agricultural sciences have no ALs or CoEs, and the humanities have no ALs.
Table 9.2. Distribution of CoEs by scientific field in 2010
Scientific field
Number of researchers per CoE
CoEs
Total number of research centres
CoEs (not ALs)
ALs
Mean
Min
Max
a
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Natural sciences
120
15
215
51
16
28
6
23
76
24
Engineering and technology
169
14
312
96
8
14
13
50
65
20
Medical sciences
128
14
229
68
3
5
5
19
34
11
Social sciences
84
8
102
29
17
29
2
8
69
22
Humanities
49
13
81
19
14
24
0
0
62
19
Agricultural
sciences
---
---
---
---
0
0
0
0
12
4
|Total
141
8
312
67
58
100
26
100
318
100
Source: Foundation for Science and Technology internal data, multi-year funding programme.
Figure 9.1. CoEs by number of researchers and scientific fields in comparison with the total number of centres funded by FCT and total number of researchers in Portugal, 2010
Source: Foundation for Science and Technology internal data.
The CoEs with the highest amounts of FCT funding are in natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities (Figure 9.2), while the ALs with the highest amounts are in engineering and technology (52%), medical sciences (24%) and natural sciences (18%); this funding rose steeply in 2006 (Figure 9.3). In parallel, the number of researchers in ALs grew steadily until 2010, when it increased significantly (Figure 9.4).
Figure 9.2. Number of CoEs and funding by scientific field, 2010
Source: Foundation for Science and Technology internal data.
Figure 9.3. Evolution of funding to ALs by scientific field, 2003-10
Euro
Source: Foundation for Science and Technology internal data.
Figure 9.4. Evolution of researchers (FTE) in ALs by scientific field, 2003-11
Source: Foundation for Science and Technology internal data.