Education

MSc Level Courses

Oceans & Human Health is a part of the major Environmental Health and Technology for marine ecosystems within the MSc program Environmental Science & Technology and elective course in a number of MSc programs. The course is taught in a blended learning format including traditional lectures, thematic discussion sessions and an individual project assignment. It focusses on insights, fundamental science and applications to elucidate and understand how marine ecosystems impact human health and vice versa. It aims to build interdisciplinary competences by including multi-stakeholder perspectives on key marine topics.

Aquaculture Environmental impact is a core course of the MSc Aquaculture. The course focusses on both positive and negative impacts of marine aquaculture, both on- and offshore, on their respective environments. It addresses recent insights and innovations in aquaculture applications, including recirculated automated systems and multi-species/multi-trophic aquaculture. It includes traditional lectures, environmental assessments of case studies, including a case study developed in small groups. 

Applied Marine Ecology is a core course of the MSc Bioscience Engineering: Environmental Technology. The course focusses on describing and illustrating the fundamental and applied concepts of marine processes and ecosystems. In contrast with classic marine ecology, the modern human relation with the marine environment is incorporated in this course. Students learn how to convert theoretical marine processes and concepts into quantitative estimations. As such, students calculate for a few different problems how anthropogenic interactions influence marine ecosystems. It includes theory lectures, field excursions and practical classes.

Environmental Risk Assessment is a core course of the MSc Bioscience Engineering: Environmental Technology. The course addresses fundamental and applied concepts of environmental risk assessment. The lab is responsible for molecular ecotoxicology within the course.

Lifelong Learning

The Blue Growth Lab is dedicated to lifelong learning. It coordinates and participates in numerous courses, workshops and summer schools that align with its research themes. A brief overview of its past and current participations:

  • The Blue Science & Technology summer school introduces key concepts of the blue sustainable economy. It is organized bi-annually by Marine@UGent at its home base Ostend Science Park. 
  • SETAC short courses on epigenomics in environmental risk assessment during the yearly SETAC Europe conferences.
  • BelTox courses on risk assessment, where Prof. Jana Asselman teaches the fundamentals of environmental effect assessment.
  • UGain course Environment Coordinator, where the lab takes responsibility for the environmental risk assessment lectures.