Master's Programme in Evolutionary Biology - MEME

The Master's Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME) is an Erasmus Mundus programme. It involves studies at four leading universities in Europe and Harvard University in the US. This ensures you a first-class education and you can tailor your programme according to your career plan.

Why this programme?

The Erasmus Mundus Master's Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME) is a two-year research-oriented programme aimed for talented and motivated students who are interested in understanding evolution in all its facets. The focus is on the modern evolutionary theory where the interactions between organisms and their environment - biotic and abiotic - are studied. The evolutionary patterns and processes we see today are addressed to understand the origin and evolution of life.

The subject is of interest to many other fields. To understand most biological processes, it has become increasingly clear that we need to place them in an evolutionary context. Therefore, evolutionary thinking has come into focus also for subjects such as ecology, developmental biology, biogeography, phylogenetics and, more recently, epidemiology, immunology, genomics, bioinformatics, and systems biology. In addition, evolutionary thinking is gaining a strong foothold in non-biological disciplines such as economics, informatics, robotics, medicine, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, psychology and even philosophy.

It is a joint project among four European partner universities (University of Groningen, Netherlands; Ludwig Maximillian's University of Munich, Germany; University of Montpellier, France; and Uppsala University, Sweden) with opportunities for an exchange semester at Harvard University, USA, or Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.

During the programme, you can expect to

• work at two universities in two different countries (at least)
• develop a large international network with researchers and fellow students
• come close to and work with advanced-level research.

Degree

The programme leads to a Master of Science (120 credits) with Biology as the main field of study and, in addition, an equivalent degree from one of the partner universities.