Syllabus and study guide

The programme is structured in two parts. The first part (60 ECTS) has a professional orientation and covers lectures and practicals, individual and team study and work, and technical visits. This part is delivered by UdL lecturers and guest lecturers of renowned experience from international institutions and universities, research centres and companies from various countries. The second part (60 ECTS) focuses on the introduction to research, critically applying the knowledge, skills and competences acquired in the first part of the programme to real problems related to plant breeding. This part of the Master is carried out in the UdL or in other universities, research centres or companies of acknowledged prestige, usually in Spain or in the country of origin of the student, under the supervision of a Practicum tutor and a director for the research project, who should be a PhD with experience and prestige in the subject of the research.

All the units included in the programme correspond to a postgraduate level second-cycle, according to the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE) and are delivered in a face-to-face mode. The units for each part of the programme are shown below. The Study guide for each Unit provides detailed information on contents, competences, learning activities, learning assessment, etc.

First part of the Master (60 ECTS)

• Unit 1 – Agricultural Systems and Plant Breeding (4.5 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, first semester)
• Unit 2 – Plant Genetics (6 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, first semester)
• Unit 3 – Structural and Functional Genomics (3 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, first semester)
• Unit 4 – Introduction to Data Science for Plant Breeding (7.5 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, first semester)
• Unit 5 – Bioinformatic (3 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, first semester)
• Unit 6 – Breeding Methods and Variety Development (12 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, second semester)
• Unit 7 – Marker enabled prediction and selection (6 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, second semester)
• Unit 8 – Phenomics and Analysis on Omics data (3 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, second semester)
• Unit 9 – Applied Breeding Programmes (9 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, second semester)
• Unit 10 – Individual Project: Design of Plant Breeding Programmes (6 ECTS) (Compulsory) (first year, course)

Second part of the Master (60 ECTS)

• Unit 11 – Introduction to research (30 ECTS) (Compulsory) (second year, third semester)

  Soft skills (6 ECTS)
  Practicum on Plant Breeding (24 ECTS)

• Unit 12 – Master’s final work (Master Thesis) (30 ECTS) (Master’s final work) (second year, fourth semester)