PhD in Innovative Technologies and Sustainable Use of Mediterranean Sea Fishery and Biological Resources (FishMed-PhD)

• Marine microbial metagenomes: study of microbial metagenomes from marine organisms (holobionts) and environments as indicators of ecosystems and organism health and functionalities
• Marine environment: relationship between environment and organisms; autecology and synecology, biological cycles of the species being harvested, and food webs
• Modeling gene regulation, biomineralization, growth, and population dynamics in marine calcifiers and fish species
• Genomic methods and life history traits as tools for fisheries management
• Fishery stock assessment methods
• Fishing innovative techniques and Technologies
• Marine microbial food webs, and food security
• Influence of contaminants (chemical and microbiological) on reproductive cycles, on food quality and on human biodiversity
• Bioremediation of impacted marine ecosystems (surface and subsurface water and sediments)
• Aquaculture, restocking and relative environmental impact
• Human genetic and epigenetic variability of genes involved in lipid metabolic and pollutant detoxification pathways in Italy and the Mediterranean area: a focus on nutrition and health
• Natural resources and environmental economics
• Evaluation of natural resources and ecosystem services
• Protection of the environment and resources: legal bases, organizational, and innovative elements and tools for ecosystem-based fishery management
• Community legislation on fisheries, national rules in the Mediterranean countries and EUSAIR
• International Fisheries Organizations operating in the Mediterranean: objectives and functioning
• Sustainable exploitation of marine bio-resources (microbes, biomass and fish processing by-products and wastes)
• Citizen Science: communication, volunteer involvement, spatial and temporal large-scale monitoring, dissemination, environmental education

Appointed by RD n. 709/2023 Prot n. 149534 on Jun 02, 2023

Confirmed for Call for further PhD Positions
Rectoral Decree n. 1066/2023 Prot. n. 0226313 of 04/08/2023

Despite the fact that the fisheries issue is one of the priorities of the European agenda, this topic has never been supported by high level dedicated education. FishMed-PhD will focus predominantly on Mediterranean fisheries, both in terms of understanding the impact that fishing pressure can have on ecosystems, but also how fisheries are interconnected with the marine environment and are themselves impacted by other drivers of change (e.g., climate change, alien species). FishMed-PhD will train a new generation of managers, not only on innovative Technologies, the biology of the harvested species and biotechnologies, but also on the importance of limiting the anthropic impacts while maintaining the economic performances. Students will carry out interdisciplinary, state-of-the-art research and complement their training through specialized courses. Students will also learn to implement environmental awareness and to deliver scientific knowledge to policy makers, and the general public.

Individual PhD research projects will merge the limited available knowledge with new insights generated by FishMed-PhD to assess fishery and ecosystem status and integrate this knowledge into a wider policy and social matrix of transparent and usable outputs that are urgently needed by policymakers, managers, and stakeholders. FishMed-PhD program will combine interdisciplinary approaches in novel ways, envisaging four research work packages. WP1: Organism Biology & Physiology. Students will investigate ecosystem responses to drivers of change (e.g climate change) using a multi-scale approach from organism to population scales, by conducting studies (molecular, physiological, macroscopic growth) under controlled conditions and in situ. WP2: Environmental Monitoring & Conservation. Students will use remote sensing, species distribution modelling, and citizen science approaches to assess Mediterranean Sea biodiversity status and stressors. Moreover, students will learn to assess hydrocarbon pollution and state-of-the-art bioremediation techniques, and to investigate the impact of microplastics on Mediterranean ecosystems. WP3: Ecosystem & Socioeconomic Modelling. Students will use physiological and autoecological descriptors, as well as long-term robust time-series analysis to simulate alternative environments and human use scenarios (e.g., fishery regulations, coastal development) in an ecosystem model. This model will be coupled with ecosystem services (e.g. fisheries, tourism, ecosystem resilience), to evaluate the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of the different scenarios. WP 4: Risks Assessment & Integration Into Policy and Society. Students will investigate the interactions among economic activities, and assess risks to ecosystem services. Students will contribute to decision support tools that can help policymakers choose the most sustainable scenarios and communicate the impact of these scenarios to different stakeholders and the public at large.

Course title / Teacher / Number of hours
First year

• Marine metagenomics / Marco Candela / 8 hours;
• Biomineralization; origin, evolution and diagenetic processes / Frédéric Marin / 8 hours;
• Electron microscopy / Giovanni Valdrè / 8 hours;
• Growth and population dynamics models / Stefano Goffredo / 8 hours;
• Introduction to computational biology / Jaap Kaandorp / 8 hours;
• Comparative genomics and evolutionary applications / Andrea Luchetti / 8 hours;
• Marine physiology / Silvia Franzellitti / 8 hours;
• Animal-microbiota interactions / Antton Alberdi / 8 hours;
• Crystallization in biomineralization and the environment / Damir Kralj / 8 hours;
• Oceanography and biogeochemistry / Jonathan Erez / 8 hours.

Second year

• Fluctuations of fish populations / Stylianos Somarakis / 8 hours;
• Trophic networks, climate change and resource management in Northern Europe / Michele Casini / 8 hours;
• Safety of fish products; microbial food webs and teleost microbiome / Gian Marco Luna / 8 hours;
• Chemical contaminants and quality of fish products / Mauro Marini / 8 hours;
• Marine biological resources in the Adriatic / Jakov Dulcic / 8 hours;
• Indicators for sustainable fisheries / Fabio Fiorentino / 8 hours;
• Ecological engineering for marine productivity / Gianna Fabi / 8 hours.
• Fishing technology / Alessandro Lucchetti / 8 hours
• Human population dynamics in traditional fishing communities; genetics, nutrition, health / Donata Luiselli / 8 hours;
• Genetics and genomics for resource management / Alessia Cariani / 8 hours.

Third year

• Blue Growth and ecosystem services / Giulio Malorgio / 8 hours;
• Valorization of fish and mariculture waste materials / Giuseppe Falini / 8 hours;
• Principles of fisheries economics and politics / Felice Adinolfi / 8 hours;
• Algal mariculture in the context of climate change / Zvy Dubinsky / 8 hours;
• Bioremediation / Giulio Zanaroli / 8 hours.

FishMed-PhD program is international. At least 25% of its Academic Board is made up of professors and researchers belonging to qualified foreign universities or research centers: Bar-Ilan University (Israel), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (Croatia), University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), University of Burgundy (France), Hellenic Center for Marine Research (Greece), University of Copenhagen (Denmark) and Ruder Boškovic Institute (Croatia). The selection process also takes on an international character, positively evaluating the scientific excellence of candidates, such as scientific publications in journals with Impact Factor, participation in international conferences, and reference letters for any research periods spent in abroad institutes. In addition, young high-profile graduates are selected through networks that promote employment growth in the Mediterranean region. In addition to Euraxess, open positions are published on specific websites that improve the development of employment in the southern Mediterranean countries (eg HOMERe - High Opportunity for Mediterranean Executives Recruitment). FishMed-PhD program requires a compulsory research period abroad, of at least three months, to promote a better understanding of the existing realities and of the ways of managing marine resources at an international level.

Training and research performance of FishMed-PhD students will be monitored by supervisors who will ensure that fellows obtain sufficient intersectoral/iterdisciplinary skills to increase employability, as well as research skills. The supervisors will report/advise students during both training and research activities envisaged in the FishMed-PhD programme. At the end of the first year, the student’s participation in training activities and the experimental design and methodology to be applied during their research project will be evaluated. At the end of the second year, students will provide an overview of training and research activities conducted in the previous 24 months, showing preliminary results and statistical analysis. At the end of the third year, to be admitted to the PhD defence, students must have: i) at least two publications in Impact Factor journals, of which at least one as first author, ii) participated in at least one international conference, iii) performed a period abroad of at least three months,  iv) completed a final draft of the PhD thesis and of a 30 minutes oral presentation. These mandatory criteria will be evaluated by the FishMed-PhD Academic Board and after approval, the students will be admitted to the PhD defence.