BIODAQUA Meetings
- Official Agenda for BIODAQUA Startup Meeting, Athens February 2002
- 2nd project meeting, 17-19 February 2002, Athens, Greece
- BIODAQUA Partners Ancona Meeting
Student Exchange
University of Cork
Cork to Canada
Dr Burnell reported for both the Canadian exchanges to Ireland and the University of Cork exchanges to Canada. He had held a successful Information Evening using the recruitment materials prepared by HMSC. Cork had sent 3 students to the HMSC in 2002, and a further 3 in 2003. There were 2 more projected exchanges for the summer of 2004. All the Cork students were undergraduates carrying out short research studies as part of their final examination requirements. Project titles had been cleared with the HMSC supervisor well in advance of the exchanges, and the students had carried out the work on the research projects under the supervision at HMSC or DFO by the relevant staff. The research projects (halibut rearing at HMSC; marine mapping project with Quoddy Link Marine; impact of anti sealice chemicals on lobster moulting at DFO; arctic char genetics; marine fish parasites; physiological adaptation of Arctic char to seawater) were completed and graded at the home university, thus obviating the need for transfer of credits, which had been regarded from the first as a problem area for the project.
Canada to Cork
The University of Cork, in collaboration with UNB had created a specially designed course (Biology 4483 Applied Ecology and environmental monitoring in Irish Ecosystems) to meet the requirements of the large number of Canadian applicants who wished to carry out an exchange in Ireland. However, the course had to be limited to the departmental time available (both in terms of length and seasonality) as well as of numbers. In addition, because a part of the course concerned field and lab work which required a high degree of supervision and initiation into the techniques and sampling methods, which were perhaps new to the transatlantic students, it was also necessary to curtail the numbers as well as the duration. It was not possible for more than 21 to take this specially created course at any one time. The students were mostly 3 rd and 4 th year from the University of New Brunswick, Dalhousie University, University of Guelph and St. Mary’s University. Though the length of the course was rather short in terms of the overall thrust of the BIODAQUA project requirements, it had been agreed, in the light of the above comments, that it could be regarded as very relevant to the aims and objectives of the BIODAQUA programme. Subsequently, the course was given credits in Canada, varying from 5 credits to 0,5 credit, depending on each individual Canadian university system.
However, Dr Burnell reported that this had been a very successful exchange and circulated a letter from Dr.R. Allen Curry, University of New Brunswick, in support of this view.
University of Gent
Gent to Canada
Dr A.Vanreusel had used the poster and PowerPoint material prepared by HMSC and had held a successful Information Evening which had aroused some interest and more applicants than the existing places. She had already sent 5 students to Canada in 2003, 3 to Dalhousie, 1 to UNB St John and 1 to HMSC. All had carried out excellent research projects, which she had brought as hard copies for inspection and evaluation. (Intertidal ecotoxicology with applications to marine management, development of a GIS to map marine diversity and contaminants(2); Biology of marine mammals course, project –Mathematical Modelling of predator-prey interactions (M.Sc.level); Relation of fish size to time of spawning for different species of fish (M.Sc.level); cuttlefish ( sepia apama ) behaviour (M.Sc.level); reproductive ecology of capelin Mallotus villosus. Three more exchanges are planned for summer 2004 (July-Sept) that will include projects and field courses on marine mammals and seabirds, taxonomy of shrimp, harbour porpoise, bycatch data analysis, and marine parasites). Phyllis Power indicated that one of the Ghent BIODAQUA students (Frederick Vandeperre) and one former BIODAQUA Irish exchange student (Briefny Buckley) had assisted the UNBSJ international office in giving pre-departure information sessions to other students who were planning to travel abroad.
Canada to Gent
The University of Gent had received 2 Canadian students, one in 2003 and the other for the spring semester Feb-June 2004. The first carried out a research project on Cryptid speciation within the mysid Mesopodupsis slabberi . The second followed 5 courses: CSMALAO1K00009-Coastal systems; ISMISAO1K-Environmental Impact of Global Change; CSMALAO1K00008 – Extreme Environments; CSMOB101OOOO4 – GMO Directives and IP Regulations;
IAMISAO1K000001 –Soil pollution and Soil Protection
This student passed all the courses, gaining a total of 24 ECTS credits. She had negotiated with Dalhousie University faculty and registrar to have the ECTS credits accepted as part of her Canadian degree.
Dr. Vanreusel wished to know whether she could send more than 8 students to Canada, as she had been obliged to turn down more than one good candidate.
University of Ancona
Ancona to Canada
Dr Danovaro reported that Ancona had sent only one graduate student in 2003, but that exchange had been of top quality and that this project on Elasmobranch fishing, effects on population structure and behaviour, had resulted in his being accepted and funded as a Ph.D. candidate in the internationally renowned laboratory of Prof.Ransom Myers (Killiam Chair of Ocean Studies).
In addition, as a direct result of this exchange, Professor Myers came to Ancona and gave a seminar and initiated a bi-lateral agreement of cooperation between the two universities.
There had been about 10 more applications from Ancona for exchanges in 2004, from which 7 had been selected. However, there was a difficulty with arranging mutually suitable dates since BIODAQUA is due to finish on 30 th September. As the Italian university years runs until November, at least one very suitable candidate would like to postpone departure until then. Therefore Prof. Danovaro would like to request an extension of the European project to 31 December, which would harmonise with the Canadian end of project date.
Canada to Ancona
Although there had been prolonged negotiations, the only proposed exchange had finally fallen through.
Agricultural University of Athens/Greece
Athens to Canada
Mrs Eleftheriou reported on behalf of Prof. Papoutsoglou who sent his apologies. There had been a great deal of correspondence between the AUA and the University of Guelph in 2002. Then, 4 Greek students had been ready to go but the university of Guelph could accept only 2. Unfortunately, at that point it became too difficult to select which two should be turned down and so the exchange fell through. One student carried out a research project with the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in late 2003 (Short Nose sturgeon aquaculture and development of sturgeon aquaculture reference database). There have been 10 applications for exchanges to be carried out during summer 2004, of which 7 have finally been selected.
Canada to Greece
One M.Sc. student from UNB, Saint John, is spending a calendar year at the Institute of Marine Biology of Crete, working on the Impact of consecutive trawling on fisheries under Dr. C. Smith’s supervision.
Joint Course curricula and accreditation issues
The Commission representatives had raised these matters as a specific area of concern on March 17.
Each student exchange has been arranged within the precise limits of the courses selected by each partner university as relevant to the BIODAQUA joint course curriculum (Part A of Proposal)(Addressing the decline of fisheries; environmentally sustainable aquaculture; maintaining biodiverse ecosystems). All these relevant courses have been disseminated via www.biodaqua.org for at least 18 months and each student research project, or thesis, carried out, is demonstrably part of this agreed joint curriculum ( Annex 5 ). In addition, Canadian students have chosen to register for actual European courses (University of Gent) and have passed with flying colours, having negotiated the acceptance of the ECTS credits by the home university. This is no mean achievement given that one of the difficulties of constructing a joint curriculum lies in the fact that Canada has no generally accepted accreditation system even for its own university courses, as can be seen from the varying values of the credits given (from 5 credits to 0.5 credit) for the same work carried out in Ireland by students from 4 different Canadian universities. The module rates 5 ECTS credits in Europe. This is one reason why European students have chosen to carry out research projects in their exchanges, as all work has been evaluated by the home supervisor. The work carried out in Canada in this way has been almost uniformly excellent, with two 1 st class degrees in Cork, deriving in part at least, from the excellent project work carried out in Canada.
In addition, the BIODAQUA project partners in Cork and UNB have created a specially designed joint course as part of the project ( Annex 6 ). The course was very successful and both EU and Canadian partners wish to run it again.
It is clear however, that accreditation remains a major stumbling block which must be resolved at national level if any progress is to be made in the creation of joint EU/Canada curricula.
