Seventeen PhD students from five continents gathered in the Italian town of Volterra for the second ENDURE Summer School, which was dedicated to 'Modelling approaches to support Integrated Pest Management (IPM)'.
Organised by ENDURE partner Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa (SSSUP) and based at SIAF, an International School of Advanced Education recently established by SSSUP and the Foundation of the Cassa di Risparmio di Volterra, June’s school was designed to give students an overview of a wide range of modelling approaches (and their pros and cons) that can be applied to develop or test innovative IPM strategies. The week-long school also gave students the chance to work with experts of some of these models on a case study in order to widen their view on modelling approaches for IPM.
The format of the week proved a success with both lecturers and students as ENDURE found out when it asked all participants to give their feedback about the school.
Lecturer Philippe Tixier, a specialist in ecological modelling and agronomy from CIRAD, France, praised the good contacts made. “I think some contacts will be sustainable and participate to the construction of a real network,” he reported. “The organisation of the teamwork around a given model allowed us to go into details of the use of models and tackle practical issues. It was a very good choice of students - very serious - and their broad origins facilitated the interdisciplinarity of the exchanges.”
Similarly fellow lecturer Daniel Wallach, a research director at INRA, France, was impressed by the students. For him the highlight was “seeing how students appropriated the models as their own and projected themselves into the position of the model developer.”
Students came from a wide range of countries and backgrounds, which helped expand their horizons during the week. Alireza Taab, a PhD student in weed science is originally from Iran, and now studying at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala.
“It was a good opportunity to learn about different modelling tools and the process of modelling considering different conditions,” he reported. “And also get to know about people who work with different models. I’ll use this experience for teaching and developing research projects on weeds. I’ll probably make contact with people who I got to know about during this week for further collaboration.”
Fellow weed science student Donato Loddo, from Italy’s University of Padova, said: “I’m going to analyse my PhD project according to the latest information I received. I am also thinking to include some other analyses and modelling in my research project.”
Other expert lecturers included Ed Luschei, from the University of Wisconsin, USA, Jean-Noël Aubertot, from INRA, France, Niels Holst, from the University of Aarhus, Denmark and Wil Hennen, from the Agricultural Economics Research Institute, Netherlands, and it was clear from student feedback that having such a range of expertise on hand proved valuable.
Andrea Porro, a PhD student from Italy’s University of Milan, said: “I’ve learned to shift from field scale to farm to landscape scale, and to integrate knowledge from different backgrounds in order to move from farming system management to IPM.” He now plans to “incorporate some of the concepts learned, especially the idea of logic framework and spatial modelling, into my PhD project.”
For Chandra Ramasamy, a PhD student at SSSUP, who previously spent almost three years promoting ecological and sustainable agriculture in her home country of India, the highlight was being to interact with the modelling experts and other students. “I have learnt to approach an issue systematically, to conceptualise things in a system and link them,” she added.
Last update: 24/05/2023 - ENDURE © 2009 - Contact ENDURE - Disclaimer