Graduate Programme for Environmental Stress Studies
The Graduate Programme for Environmental Stress Studies (GESS) aims to facilitate and enhance interdisciplinary study of the consequences of natural and anthropogenic stress on ecological systems and their component species. GESS’s mission is, furthermore, to produce professional scientists who have the necessary skills to perform high-level research on various problems related to environmental stress, and who can contribute to improving the scientific basis for environmental risk assessment and management.
The programme focuses on how impacts of human activities resulting in climate change, habitat fragmentation and degradation, and chemical contamination, contribute to increasing levels of stress affecting ecological systems. Organisms in their natural environment experience stress from a variety of biotic and abiotic agents and there is a pressing need for more integrated approaches that consider how combinations of natural (e.g., extremes of temperature and water availability) and anthropogenic (e.g., exposure to toxic chemicals, excess nutrients) stressors influence living systems at different levels of biological organization (from molecules to ecosystems). Mechanistic studies of stress responses across taxonomic groups, including humans, can provide important insights into key molecular, biochemical and physiological processes.
Students enrolled in GESS benefit from contact with leading researchers in a range of fields related to environmental stress, access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, and a stimulating internationally oriented environment. GESS’s primary activities have been organising courses and workshops, co-financing Ph.D. fellowships, and facilitating networking and information exchange among Ph.D. students.
