Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Viikki Campus, University of Helsinki, Finland

Course term: 5 May - 9 June 2025

Online participation period: 12 May - 9 June 2025 (There will not be teaching every day during the online part of the course. This time will be used for individual work assignments.)

Sustainability transitions is a multifaceted field of studies. While rural sustainability policies often focus on practical, scalable solutions and economic viability, the scientific discourse emphasizes, e.g., ecological integrity, social equity, and the complexity of rural systems. This multiplicity and the open-ended multidisciplinary ethos of sustainability transitions both present challenges for understanding complexities and intersectionalities, and encourage novel combinations, models, and theoretical approaches.

Balancing such multiplicity of perspectives may lead to more effective and inclusive personal strategies for studying rural sustainability transitions. Being familiar not only with a group of sustainability transition theories but also ontological and methodological assumptions of different views provide the students means with which to carry out coherent research and understand possibilities and also potential pitfalls of multidisciplinary research.

Course concept

The course provides a focused view on rural sustainability transformation policies and practices, as well as theoretical, methodological, and empirical research insights on sustainability transitions. The course comprises individual work assignments, an intensive week in-person in Helsinki with an excursion, and a joint online seminar. Personal work focuses on theoretical and methodological knowledge and research skills, while group work emphasizes dialogues, mutual learning and interdisciplinarity.

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

Course form: Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Alnarp (Sweden) and Copenhagen (Denmark)

Course term: 5 - 23 May 2025 (on site); 5-9 + 12 May (online)

Application deadline: 01 April 2025; applications by email; see instructions:

To apply, each student need to submit the following (to thomas.randrup@slu.se):

• The candidate's name and contact information.
• PhD start date, title of the research project, name of supervisor(s), and home institution.
• A statement of interest with motivation for participating in this course.
• A one page description of their PhD project, emphasizing the relation to landscape governance & management.

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Tvärminne Zoological Station, Finland (23-28 June, 2025)

Online (15th April -10th June)

Plants, including forest trees, are exposed to pathogens at every stage in their life cycle. To survive, they have been forced to develop strategies and evolved diverse mechanisms to resist pathogen attacks, as well as ways to minimize the damage if their defences should fail. They are continually faced with environmental challenges but are unable to respond by physically escaping the attack, and consequently, they rely on biochemical, genetic, molecular and structural defences to resist predators and parasites.

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Petkeljärvi National Park, Finland

Course term: 08 - 13 June 2025

Application deadline: 13 April 2025; Application form

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Alnarp, Sweden

Course term: 15 April - 15 June 2025

Application deadline: 15 April 2025; applications by email to
 raj.chongtham@slu.se (one page describing your current PhD/Post doc project, in which year of the PhD you are and your experience/knowledge in crop diversification.)

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

Course form: Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Hafjell Øyer, Norway

Course term: 18 - 22 August 2025 (on site); online from 01 June 2025

Application deadline: 01 May 2025; APPLICATION FORM for PhD STUDENTS

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

This course is offered in collaboration with BOVA.

ECTS: 3
Venue: NMBU, Ås, Norway

Course term: 19 - 23 May 2025 (in person only)

Application deadline: 14 April 2025; APPLICATION FORM for PhD STUDENTS

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

ECTS: 5
Venue: Skálholt, Biskupstungur, Iceland

Course term: 05 - 10 October 2025

Online participation period: 16 September 2025

Agriculture must meet large challenges in the coming decades. Crops must be adapted to severe challenges caused by climate change and calls from society for sustainable agricultural practices. With increased temperatures and changing weather patterns, crops must adapt to new conditions, in some cases extreme conditions such as water shortages, water lodging, high temperatures and wind. In other cases, crops must be adapted to new environments, for example arctic agriculture. New methods in plant breeding, including genomic and molecular genetic techniques are essential tools to address these challenges. This course will give doctoral students a broad insight to essential plant breeding techniques to face current and future challenges.

Application period: 01 March - 01 July 2025; APPLICATION FORM

Course level: Postgraduate level / Doctoral or equivalent third cycle (EQF level 8)

ECTS: 3
Course format: online only, ZOOM

Course term: 13 - 24 October 2025

Maximum number of participants: 20

Application period: 25 March - 21 September 2025; APPLICATION FORM