Program
EESLMU stands for the Munich Graduate School for Evolution, Ecology and Systematics. It is a collaboration between the Faculties of Biology and Geosciences, the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence and the Bavarian Natural History Collections (i.e. Zoological State Collections, Botanical State Collections). It is an accreditated international master program.
The program is strongly research-oriented, taught in English and offers many innovative elements, such as a mentoring program, integrated skills courses and individual research training. Every semester is closed by a conference in which all participants present their research to the students of all cohorts and faculty of the EESLMU master. You will gain not only extensive research experience that will prepare you for a PhD program, but also valuable technical and communication skills that will prepare you for a career outside of academia (see here for a seminar series with alumni from the EES@LMU Master).
Program overview
The EESLMU Master's program will provide you with a broad biological background in the three main areas (Ecology, Evolution and Systematics) and will train you to become a critically thinking scientist. During the program, you will become familiar with the many techniques and approaches that are used in the disciplines of evolution, ecology and systematics. These include modern field experiments, the use of natural history collections, mathematical modeling, data management and modern genetic/genomic methods.
Main courses
During the first semester, students take courses in the main areas of the program - evolution, ecology and systematic data and evidence, as well as working on their first research project (Individual Research Project, IRT) and learning how to present (Skills II) and write up (Skills I) scientific results. In the first interdisciplinary seminar, the focus will be on "Species Concepts, Adaptation and Speciation".
In the second semester, students will move on to their second individual research project, as well as learning how to design effective posters (Skills III). The seminar here focuses on "Global Change". In addition, students will be taking part in a statistics course and an excursion, which is mainly organised by ecology labs.
In the third semester, students will have their last set of required courses, before moving on to their Master's thesis. They will be working on their final individual research project and the skills course here focuses on how to write a successful grant application (Skills IV). The final seminar will be on "Hot Topics in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics".
Elective courses
From the fist semester onwards, students can take 12-30 ECTS credits per semester in elective courses. You can check the university's online course list (click link to "Course catalogue", then choose "Faculty of Biology", then "Courses of the faculty" and "Master Evolution, Ecology and Systematics").