I applied for a FCT Phd grant in the "Concurso de Bolsas FCT 2011." The start of my FCT grant was delayed up to January 2013, because as all foreingers, we got discriminated in that call, where they wanted to introduce a rule that points should be different for foreign applicants. But luckily, ABIC got into this and helped us to fight this rule and we eventually got the grant. I am very grateful for this! But, because of this, I delayed my start of the grant, so my grant was between January 2013 and December 2016. At the time I applied to the grant, I was already enrolled in my University (Ljubljana in Slovenia) and I was all the time trying to delay my PhD defense to be able to finish the FCT grant but in 2016 my University gave me the ultimate date to defend in May 2016, even though we have not yet finished all the work of the PhD project. When we found out this, my supervisor decided to call FCT to explain this situation and asked if there is a possibility I continue with my work, which is going to be still in the scope of my Phd project until December 2016. He spoke with Dra. Catarina Almeida that ensured us that, provided that I would justify which were the aspects to complete the workplan, the student (me) could still develop the project until the end of the year and the student would receive her salary until December 2016 in order to accomplish the final objectives of the projects. We have followed that advice and I continued with my work until December when I submitted my final report of the grant. Despite this fact that we were guaranteed that I could continue my work until December, FCT sent me a generic email to return the salary in December 2016. To this, we replied and provided our justifications and clarifications written by my supervisor and signed by the institute director.
I did not get any reply from FCT for almost 2 years! Now I got an email that I should return the money for the period between May and December. I would really like to know if this is still the legal period for them to give a formal reply. But even more, if anyone can tell me if we can do something about this because an official employee of FCT gave apparently a wrong advise. If they told us we need to stop the grant at that moment, and there is no way to continue, we would already know and stop. But they told us the opposite and now they do not consider it anymore.
Time is flying very fast so I would be really happy and grateful if anyone has any advice about this situation or contact of a lawyer that could help us with writing a response before 2nd December.
Thanks!