Sustainable Forest and Nature Management – (M.Sc.)

Contents

The overall objective of the SUFONAMA Programme is to provide a top-level education programme that qualifies graduates to deal with the huge challenges in Europe’s pursuit of an evermore sustainable management of its natural resources, namely that the management of forest and nature areas must be seen in an integrated landscape context.

By joining the teaching and research experiences of the five consortium universities, this unique course constitutes an in-depth educational programme with inherent impetus to stay at the forefront of research-based teaching strongly linked to the realities in many European and non-European countries.
The specific objective of the SUFONAMA Consortium, through implementation of the SUFONAMA Programme and modalities of work, is to become a Centre of Excellence in the field of holistic forest and nature management. The Consortium will thus work to:

• realise synergy in forest and nature management teaching by closer co-ordination and collaboration between the top universities in Europe in the field of forest and nature management
• increase transparency, for students as well as faculty, and enable comparison between modules and programme specifications in forest and nature management teaching across universities and institutions in Europe
• increase the global visibility and accessibility of higher education in forest and nature management in Europe and contribute towards university excellence and European competitiveness

The MSc Course Sustainable Forest and Nature Management (SUFONAMA) consists of a 2-year programme. Students have to acquire 120 ECTS credits by studying at 2 different Consortium universities, acquiring at least 60 ECTS credits at each.

The first year of study can take place only in three of the five universities: Copenhagen, Bangor or Göttingen. The second year of study is offered at all five SUFONAMA universities. However, students cannot complete first and second year at the same university.

The choice of first year institution is made at the time of application. The final choice of second year university is made in the early spring of the first year of study.

At all universities the language of instruction is English.

The aim of the first year is to provide a thorough and broad introduction to sustainable forest and nature management. This allows students to choose freely among the five specialisations in the second year. The first year ends with the mandatory Joint Summer Module including fieldwork in a variety of sites, which demonstrates a range of forest and nature types, as well as diverse conservation and sustainability issues. The two-week Joint Summer Module field course alternates between the consortium countries.

The second year of the SUFONAMA programme gives the students the opportunity to specialise in one of five well-defined fields in which a research-based thesis is written.