Five years of European Master in Animal Breeding and Genetics

29-04-2011, in the train from Vienna to Bratislava

Friday again and I am going home for the weekend. I decided to use my travel time a bit more productively and write something to the blog.

This week the central EMABG office submitted our application to the continuation of the European Master in Animal Breeding and Genetics project to the European Union. This was a final step in a process taking several months, starting in October 2010 in Uppsala, Sweden, continuing in January 2011 in Paris, France and ending with the final click in Wageningen, The Netherlands. Additionally sending lots of emails in between, with lots of people involved, of course. Now the usual procedure follows, so the peers can assess our and all other submitted projects, and decide which ones are the best. We wait and we hope to get through…

At this time the selected students of the fifth group are busy preparing their documents, group three and four is getting the “study within EMABG” experience and the guys from first and second group already utilizing their knowledge in various places of the World.

As always, pictures tell more than words, so I am attaching some screenshots of Google maps. A great thanks goes to Laura putting these maps together. First one showing the work places of group 1 and 2 students (already graduated), the second one the origin of students from all 5 groups.

From obvious reasons the names and exact places are omitted, but this helps to get the picture. I think the EMABG is a big success story, with applicants coming from all over the World, and with a perspective of continuing work in the field of animal breeding. It is a bit strange to me that we haven’t got any students from Australia, New Zealand or Japan, although the animal breeding should be very strong in these regions… Maybe there will be some in the next editions though :)

Also you can notice that the working place concentration for graduate students is in Europe at the moment. The reason for this one is the PhD studies that many of our former students are pursuing. Also one additional project (European Graduate School in Animal Breeding and Genetics) got approved, so the PhD possibilities in Europe in the field are enriched even more.

Edit: As for the most recent edition we got an Australian and a Japanese student as well :)