If you searched for Plataforma Carlos Chagas, you are almost certainly trying to do one specific thing: log in, submit a proposal, accept an award, or file a report before a deadline. The official platform itself will not help much with that in the moment — its homepage is a bare, image-heavy navigation shell with no descriptive text for search engines or first-time users to work from, and CNPq’s own explanations of how the system works live scattered across separate help pages, PDFs and university-published tutorials rather than on the platform itself. This guide brings the operational essentials together in one place, in English, with the Portuguese interface labels alongside so you can match what is actually on your screen.
What the Plataforma Carlos Chagas Is
The Plataforma Integrada Carlos Chagas (“Carlos Chagas Integrated Platform”) is the online system Brazil’s CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico — the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, the federal science-funding agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, MCTI) uses to manage the full life cycle of its scholarships (bolsas) and research grants (auxilios). Through it, researchers and students submit proposals and scholarship requests, reviewers issue opinions on those proposals (emitir pareceres), award recipients sign grant terms (assinar termos de concessao), and everyone involved files the technical and financial reports CNPq requires during and after a funded project. It was introduced to complement the Lattes Platform, which handles the standardized researcher CV rather than the application and reporting workflow itself.
Access is free — there is no fee to register, apply, or use the platform. Processing time for any given request depends entirely on the specific chamada (call for proposals, also called an edital) you are responding to, since each call sets its own timeline.
How Carlos Chagas Relates to the Curriculo Lattes
This is the single most useful thing to understand before you try to use the platform: Plataforma Carlos Chagas does not have its own separate identity system. Your account is your CNPq/Lattes identity. Before you can submit anything on Carlos Chagas, you need an existing Curriculo Lattes (Lattes CV) — the standardized academic CV CNPq maintains for Brazilian and Brazil-affiliated researchers. If you don’t have one yet, creating your Lattes CV is the actual first step, not something you do in parallel.
Once your Lattes CV exists, the same credentials that unlock it — commonly referred to as your Senha CNPq or Senha Lattes (“CNPq password” / “Lattes password”) — are what get you into Carlos Chagas, the Research Groups Directory, and CNPq’s other restricted online services. There is no separate “Carlos Chagas account” to register for on top of that.
How to Log In
According to CNPq’s own guidance, there are two ways into the platform:
- CPF + Senha CNPq/Lattes. Sign in with your Brazilian taxpayer ID (CPF) and the CNPq/Lattes password tied to your researcher account.
- Unified gov.br login (or the CAFe federated academic network). CNPq has consolidated sign-in for Lattes and Carlos Chagas behind Brazil’s unified government single-sign-on service, gov.br, with the CAFe (Comunidade Academica Federada) institutional-federation login offered as an alternative route for users at participating universities.
If you forget your password, CNPq’s recovery flow sends a time-limited reset link to the email address registered on your Curriculo Lattes — which is another reason to keep that email current even when you’re not actively updating your CV.
What commonly breaks the login: the most frequent cause of “I can’t get in” is not a platform bug but a mismatched identity — typing a CPF that doesn’t match the one on your Lattes record, trying to reset a password to an old email address no longer registered on that record, or assuming gov.br login is required when your institution actually routes through CAFe (or vice versa). Confirm the CPF and email on your Lattes CV are current before troubleshooting anything else.
Bolsista vs. Coordinator: What Each Role Sees
Carlos Chagas is used by more than one kind of user, and the menu you see depends on which role you’re logged in as for a given proposal or award:
- Proponente / Coordenador (Proposal coordinator / Principal investigator) — submits the project proposal in response to a chamada, nominates scholarship holders on the project (indicar bolsistas), signs the grant term, and is responsible for submitting the project’s technical reports and consolidated prestacao de contas.
- Bolsista (Scholarship holder / grantee) — the individual student or researcher receiving the scholarship. A bolsista typically needs to actively accept or “activate” the award once nominated, keep their bank details current on the platform (alterar dados bancarios) so payments are deposited correctly, and submit any individual reporting their scholarship modality requires.
- Consultor / Parecerista (Ad hoc reviewer) — evaluates submitted proposals and issues a formal opinion (parecer) that feeds into CNPq’s award decision.
If you were invited onto a project as a bolsista, you generally will not see the proposal-submission menus a coordinator sees — your view is scoped to your own award, its terms, and your own reporting obligations.
The Main Flows on the Platform
Applying to a Call (Chamada / Edital)
You apply to a specific chamada or edital, not to CNPq in the abstract — each call defines its own eligibility rules, deadline, knowledge-area categories, and required attachments, so check the individual call’s text rather than assuming a standard document set applies everywhere. In general, applying involves: identifying an open call in your research area, completing the electronic proposal form (which typically asks you to select a knowledge area and link the proposal to your Curriculo Lattes), attaching the documents that specific call requires, and submitting. The system generates a receipt confirming your proposal was received, and you track its status afterward from the platform’s proposals/requests area.
Accepting and Activating an Award (Termo de Concessao / Ativacao de Bolsa)
If a proposal or nomination is approved, the next step is not automatic disbursement. The coordinator (for a grant) or the bolsista (for a scholarship) generally must review and sign the termo de concessao (grant/award term — the formal agreement setting out the conditions of the award) on the platform. Many CNPq scholarship modalities also require the bolsista to separately “activate” the award (ativacao de bolsa) — confirming acceptance and start date, and entering or confirming bank details — before the first payment is released. Because the exact activation steps vary by scholarship modality and by chamada, check the specific instructions attached to your award rather than assuming every modality works identically.
Reporting: Relatorio Tecnico and Prestacao de Contas
Ongoing and closing reports are filed through Carlos Chagas, not by email or on paper. Depending on the award, this includes a relatorio tecnico (technical/progress report describing the work carried out) and, at the end of the funding period, a prestacao de contas (financial and technical accountability report). Submitting the final prestacao de contas is what formally closes out an award. Failing to file it when due is treated by CNPq as a compliance failure — the resulting inadimplencia (default/non-compliant) status on your CNPq record can block you from receiving further CNPq funding until it’s resolved, so this is not a step to let lapse even after a project has effectively ended.
What Commonly Goes Wrong
- Login credential mismatch. As above — by far the most common access problem, and it’s fixed on your Lattes record, not on Carlos Chagas itself.
- Trying to use Carlos Chagas before Lattes exists. If you don’t already have a Curriculo Lattes, you cannot meaningfully use Carlos Chagas — register the Lattes CV first.
- Platform downtime. The system has had documented outages in the past; Brazil’s official Agencia Brasil news service reported CNPq restoring the platform after an outage in August 2021. If the platform appears to be down rather than rejecting your specific login, check CNPq’s official channels for a service-status notice before assuming the fault is on your end.
- Missing the prestacao de contas deadline. This is the error with the most lasting consequence — it can put you in inadimplencia and affect eligibility for future CNPq funding, so track this deadline as carefully as the application deadline itself.
- Outdated bank or email details. Because payments and password-reset links both depend on data stored against your Lattes/CNPq record, an old bank account or a mailbox you no longer check can silently stall a disbursement or lock you out of password recovery.
Portuguese-English Label Glossary
| Portuguese (on the platform) | English |
|---|---|
| Bolsa | Scholarship / stipend |
| Bolsista | Scholarship holder / grantee |
| Auxilio | Research grant / financial aid (project-level, not individual stipend) |
| Chamada / Edital | Call for proposals |
| Proponente / Coordenador | Proposal coordinator / Principal investigator |
| Indicar bolsista | Nominate a scholarship holder |
| Termo de concessao | Grant/award term (the signed agreement) |
| Ativacao de bolsa | Scholarship activation |
| Relatorio tecnico | Technical/progress report |
| Prestacao de contas | Financial and technical accountability report |
| Inadimplencia | Default / non-compliant status |
| Parecer / Parecerista | Review opinion / reviewer |
| Dados bancarios | Bank details |
| Senha CNPq / Senha Lattes | CNPq password / Lattes password (shared login credential) |
| Curriculo Lattes | Lattes CV |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Plataforma Carlos Chagas the same as the Lattes Platform?
No, but they’re tightly linked. Lattes is CNPq’s standardized researcher-CV system; Carlos Chagas is the separate system built to handle proposal submission, award terms, and reporting. Your Carlos Chagas access depends on already having a Curriculo Lattes, and Carlos Chagas uses the same CNPq/Lattes login credentials.
Do I need a CPF to use the platform?
Standard login is by CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID) plus your CNPq/Lattes password, so a CPF is the expected identifier for the primary login route. If you are a non-Brazilian researcher without a CPF, check the specific chamada’s instructions or CNPq’s help channels for how international applicants are handled, since this guide cannot verify a general exception.
What happens if I miss my prestacao de contas deadline?
CNPq treats a missing or overdue prestacao de contas as a compliance failure, which can result in inadimplencia (default status) on your CNPq record and affect your eligibility for future CNPq funding until it’s resolved.
Why does the platform look broken or hard to navigate?
The public-facing homepage is an older, largely image-based design without much descriptive text, which is part of why it’s hard to search for help directly on the site. CNPq’s help documentation for specific modules (like prestacao de contas) is published as separate pages and PDFs rather than integrated into the main site.
Is there a fee to apply?
No. Applying through Plataforma Carlos Chagas is free; the only real cost is the time needed to prepare the specific documents a given chamada requires.
