Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Galaxy

The “Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences” Graduate Programme is one of the 22 Graduate Programmes offered by the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences and it is hosted at the Globe Institute. The Globe Institute operates at the intersection of natural and medical sciences and the humanities. The “Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences” Graduate Programme aims to provide advanced, research-based interdisciplinary training on earth sciences, evolution, environment, and diseases studies.

 

So far, interdisciplinarity between natural and biomedical science has not been adequately supported by a dedicated training program to institutionalise the preparation of specialists with advanced competence spanning over multiple research fields. The Globe “Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences” Graduate Programme seeks to address this structural weakness within UCPH advanced educational offer by bringing in a single training environment world-leading research sections with diversified and complementary focus on earth sciences, evolution, environment, and diseases studies. The Globe Graduate Programme also guides the PhD fellows to develop the advanced interdisciplinary knowledge required to achieve seamless integration of earth sciences, ecology and evolution studies with disease studies and biomedical disciplines. Through the creation of a coherent and powerful training environment, and by empowering interdisciplinary knowledge, as well as specific research-related and transferable skills, the Globe Graduate Programme aims at scaffolding the Globe PhD fellows’ future professional thinking. The mindset (or “forma mentis”) the Globe Graduate Programme alumni will have acquired during their early-stage training experience will strongly affect all their future professional practicing, within and outside academia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professional networking activities 

Globe PhD Day 2025

To be announced.

Courses 

Courses on large-scale datasets analysis (at least one required)

A relevant competence common to all the GLOBE PhD fellows, independently from the section they are part of, is the ability to confidently treat large-scale dataset. For this reason, the “Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences” Graduate Programme offers two courses focused on the analysis of large-scale datasets. Based on their background knowledge, the attendance of at least one of the two courses is required to each Globe PhD fellow.

      
Title: Fundamentals in Computational Analysis of Large-Scale Datasets (required) 

Course director: Martin Sikora

Date: 03/03/2025 - 14/03/2025

Enrollment deadline: 31/01/2025

ECTS: 5

Title: Advanced topics in Data Analysis (required)

Course directors: Fernando Racimo and Shyam Gopalakrishnan

Date: 26/05/2025  –  06/06/2025

Enrollment deadline: 28/04/2025

ECTS: 5  

 


Research line-specific courses

To fulfil the training needs of each section, the “Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences” Graduate Programme also offers elective courses and summer schools focused on earth sciences, ecology and evolution.

Title: Computational Phage Genomics

Course director: Bent Petersen

Date: TBA

Enrollment deadline: TBA

ECTS: TBA

        

Title: Introduction to cosmochemistry and planet formation

Course director:  Michiel Lambrechts

Date: TBA

Enrollment deadline: TBA

ECTS: TBA

   

Title: Practical Palaeoproteomics Summer School

Course directors: Enrico Cappellini and Alberto Taurozzi

Date: 13/08/2025 - 22/08/2025

Enrollment deadline: 01/04/2025

ECTS: 6

   

Title: Lectures on Ancient Proteins

Course directors: Enrico Cappellini and Alberto Taurozzi

Date: 13/08/2025 - 15/08/2025

Enrollment deadline: 15/07/2025

ECTS: 2.2

   

Title: Evolutionary processes affecting health - Medical Geobiology

Course director: Karina Krarup Sand

Date: TBA

Enrollment deadline: TBA

ECTS: TBA

      

Title: Ancient Environmental Genomics

Course directors: Martin Sikora and Mikkel W. Pedersen

Date: 21/09/2025 - 26/09/2025

Enrollment deadline: 01/07/2025

ECTS: 5

     

Title: Introduction to study design. fieldwork and data collection

Course directors: Bo Dalsgaard and Ostaizka Aizpurua Arrieta

Date: TBA

Enrollment deadline: TBA

ECTS: TBA

 

 

Enrico Cappellini, Associate Professor, Head of Graduate Programme, Section for Geogenetics 

Martin Sikora, Associate Professor, PhD Coordinator, Section for Geogenetics

Jacob Helimann-Clausen, Associate Professor, Section for Biodiversity

Martin Schiller, Associate Professor, StarPlan (also representing the section for GeoBio)

Sandra Breum Andersen, Associate Professor, Section for Hologenomics

Bo Dalsgaard, Associate Professor, Section for Molecular Ecology and Evolution

Signe Klemm, Globe PhD fellow, Section for Geogenetics

Meng Zhao, Globe PhD fellow, Section for  Hologenomics

Oliver Alexander Tafdrup​​, Academic Officer, Globe Administration

Katrine Wulff Nikolajsen, Globe PhD Fellow, StarPlan

 

 

 

 

Here: https://healthsciences.ku.dk/phd/support-for-phd-students/, you can read more about the different kinds of support The Graduate School and The University of Copenhagen provide to PhD students enrolled at The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

Each Department or Institute at SUND has a PhD coordinator that can help you to navigate the PhD Program and other related issues. PhD coordinators act as advisers to PhD students on non-academic issues, help to facilitate the contact between you, the department, the graduate program and the Graduate School when necessary. PhD coordinators also foster a good academic and social environment for the PhD students, provide support for their well-being and foster a good academic and social environment for the PhD students, contribute to organize events for PhD students and collaborate with student organizations.

At Globe, we have a PhD coordinator for each of the sections. Please find here the details:

Geogenetics: Martin Sikora martin.sikora@sund.ku.dk (main PhD Coordinator)

Stars and Planets Formation and Geobiology: Martin Schiller schiller@sund.ku.dk

Biodiversity: Jacob Heilmann- Clausen jheilmann-clausen@sund.ku.dk

Evolutionary Hologenomics and Molecular Ecology and Evolution: Sandra B. Andersen sbandersen@sund.ku.dk

 

 

You can sign up for courses at the Science PhD School here.

You can sign up for courses at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences here.

For signing up for both Faculties you need to use your KU username.

  1. Click on the link “Login for PhD students at UCPH” at the top right-hand corner.
  2. Enter your UCPH Username (KU ID)(ex. abc123) and your password. If you don’t know or remember your password, use the “Forgot password”-function in the bottom left-hand corner. 

For both schools there is a “how to” in the left hand side at the course page.

Please be aware of the cancellation policy at SUND.

You can always contact the PhD school’s:

phd@science.ku.dk for Science courses

phdkursus@sund.ku.dk for SUND courses