Courses with reduced fee for PE&RC PhDs

We are very excited to announce the first edition of the Grounding carbon farming course which will take place from 14-20 September on site on a dairy farm in France. This is an all-included, immersive course where fundamental issues around carbon sequestration in agricultural lands are treated from different perspectives, including that of farmers. Highly relevant to anyone working from close or far with soil carbon and land-based climate change mitigation, from biological, environmental, social, or economic perspectives!

he course will include a general introduction to the MoBPS framework and breeding programs, as well as a series of exercises on how to use MoBPSweb (www.mobps.de) and the MoBPS R-package. In addition, there will be room for open discussion and specific questions regarding own breeding programs. After completion of the course, participants should be able to simulate common breeding programs in both plant and animal breeding.

Within the framework of the EU project RUMIGEN (https://www.rumigen.eu/), we offer a 5-day course on “Genetics of resilience and trade-offs” with hands-on training, at Wageningen Campus. The course will review state-of-the-art theory and application of the concepts of resilience, robustness and trade-offs, with a focus on their implementation in breeding programs. Experts in animal breeding and systemic modelling and guest speakers will teach the latest theory and examples related to the concepts of resilience, robustness and trade-offs. Implementation of related traits in breeding programs and important challenges faced in these processes, will be discussed based on real use cases.

As a future scientist in the life sciences, it is important that PhD students have an insight into the debates around the relationship between human beings, animals, and nature, to understand their meaning and to learn to participate in these debates. This course will provide students with a systematic overview of the key topics of animal and environmental ethics. NOTE: For the online version of the course, priority will be given to participants that are not based on the Wageningen campus. If you are based in Wageningen, we strongly advise you to apply for the in-person version of the course.

How do I write an appealing news article? How do I get my research in the spotlights? How do I tell a broader audience than my own peer group about my work? And how do I deal with possible discussions that may arise from my research? These, and other important questions about animal science and society will be addressed during the training course ‘Societal Impact of your research’. The course is meant for PhD candidates and postdocs who want to get tips and tricks for communicating their research to non-colleagues including journalists, companies, farmers, policymakers, politicians, NGOs or students.