The continuous urban development associated with the growth of the world population has become one of the most important challenges of the present time. Today, cities accommodate more than 54% of the world's population, a proportion that is expected to increase to 70% by 2050. Trends in urbanization show that cities are becoming more complex and heterogeneous social-ecological systems with growing demand for natural resources mainly for infrastructure, housing, food, water, and energy.

On completion of the course, the students shall have acquired the following knowledge and understanding:

Lack of fertile land to feed the exponentially growing population, insufficient water availability and quality, changes in the flow of nutrients through the bio-geo-cycles (especially N and P) and climate and land use changes are impacting ecosystems and their capacity to deliver goods and services for humans. It is striking that all these issues interact around one common resource - SOIL and its biodiversity.

Phylogenetics is one of the scientific areas of Biology that has grown fast and evolved in methodological terms in the last years. Its applications go from the studies of the evolution of species and populations to the least expected, as the study of the origin of the AIDS virus or seasonal cycles of the flu. The course is aimed at students and professionals that intend to get started in phylogenetic analysis as well as researchers already with some experience wanting to deepen or update their knowledge in the field.

The objective of this course is to introduce participants to the details of communication and writing scientific publications. The main emphasis is on the most common form, the “primary scientific paper”, but other forms will be covered. Matters related to oral presentations, poster preparation and proposal writing will also be discussed. Thus participants will become familiar with the forms of presenting new findings to various scientific forums.

During recent decades we have witnessed a great development of bioinformatics that has led to the accumulation of a huge amount of biological information. The Bioinformatics and computational Biology aim at dealing with this large volume of data so that biological information can be extracted, generating scientific knowledge. Handling and mining big data is currently a subject of great interest and importance.

Under the general framework of Global Change Ecology, the goal of this course is to provide the participants with the most recent and practical knowledge on the use of Functional Diversity. This includes the selection of functional traits and calculation of Functional Diversity Indexes. Examples of the application of this knowledge will be given regarding Ecological Indicators and Ecosystem Services.

Date: January 15th, 2018 to January 19th, 2018
Deadline for Applications: December 15th, 2017

Evolutionary theory provides a framework for understanding all living systems. Nevertheless, throughout the 20th century, with a few exceptions, evolutionary biologists have “avoided” using evolution to address problems related to our own species. EvoS is a program created by David Sloan Wilson at the University of Binghamton, and later adopted at other faculties that have joined into the EvoS international consortium. EvoS aims at turning evolutionary theory into a common language to areas that pertain to the natural world, including human affairs.

Objectives: To introduce participants to the details of communicating science to non-specialized audiences, including, but not exclusive to, public and private stakeholders, students and teachers, and media professionals. The course will particularly address the design, organisation, implementation and impact assessment of public engagement activities such as exhibitions, science festivals or games. At the end of the course, students should be able to develop and produce small-budget events or products to communicate scientific results and ideas.