From pattern and process to people and action - Landscape Perspectives in a Rapidly Changing World
Bratislava (Slovakia) / Lednice (Czechia)
1 and 5-10 September 2025
The next PhD Course Landscape Ecology - From Pattern and Process to People and Action will be organised on the occasion of the IALE 2025 European Landscape Ecology Congress in Bratislava (Slovakia).
The course will take place on the days before and after the European congress; participants of the course will also have to participate in the congress (2-5 September 2025, see iale2025.sav.sk). We will meet the days before the congress in Bratislava (SK) and afterwards move to Lednice (CZ):
- 1 September 2025 (Bratislava, Comenius University – Faculty of Natural Sciences)
- 5-10 September 2025 (Lednice, Mendel University of Brno – Faculty of Horticulture)
This PhD Course fits in the series of PhD Courses in Landscape Ecology facilitated by IALE-Europe. Previous editions were organised in 2012 (Évora), 2013 (Manchester), 2015 (Copenhagen), 2017 (Ghent), and 2019 (Milan), each in collaboration with a local university and with around 24 participating PhD researchers.
The course aims to set the stage for the participants to reflect on their PhD research within the wider landscape ecological thinking by interacting with young and notably senior researchers. It will consist of a mixture of lectures on scientific concepts and tools, coaching sessions in groups according to research topics, feedback sessions on students’ papers, discussion time as well as a field trip to explore the area of the PhD course.
Topic and Theme
Landscape Ecology is the discipline that studies the interaction between spatial patterns and processes in landscapes at various scales, integrating both biophysical and societal aspects of landscapes. The theoretical discourses and paradigms in landscape ecology link natural sciences with related human disciplines. It offers the opportunity to integrate the fundamental scientific approach of landscape ecology within planning and policy.
The focus of the course aligns with the baseline of IALE-Europe ‘From pattern & process to people & action’ and links with the congress theme ‘Landscape Perspectives in a Rapidly Changing World’.
Since the early stages of modern landscape ecology, there has been recognition that humans, in a broad sense, cannot be ignored in a landscape ecological approach that aims to be holistic and applied. Progress has been made in the integration of both the biophysical and the cultural perspectives in landscape ecology. Still, there is a gap between those focusing on “pattern and processes” and others on “people and action”. Merging the two is still a challenge ahead, especially when landscape perspectives are necessary to understand, for example, the drivers, pressures, impacts and responses in the rapidly changing world.
Bringing people from diverse disciplines together with differences in jargon, methods, and approaches creates the setting for emphasising the role of landscape ecology as a meeting point, where pattern and process meet people and action. Evolving towards inter- and transdisciplinary approaches is fundamental when dealing with culture-induced nature of European landscapes. This requires a true interaction between natural and social sciences and between science, policy and practice. This means that the course will address topics from both natural and social sciences – more specifically, focus on the integration of both – and how approaches, theories and tools of both can inspire a landscape approach to understand and answer the current changes in environment and society.
In this course, we want to capitalise on the variety of disciplinary backgrounds of PhD students, and the diversity of case studies to foster a discussion on clarifying the conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches to address the complexity of European changing landscapes today.
Targeted audience
The course is open to PhD researchers from all over the world who are in different stages of their PhD research. To create an open atmosphere and to increase interaction, the course is limited to a maximum of 24 students. All the students will have to participate in the European Congress with a poster or paper presentation. The course will be interesting for PhD students from geography, biology, environmental sciences, ecology and biosciences, but also from social sciences and planning with research or a clear link in their research to different aspects of landscape and landscape ecology. Feel free to contact the course organisation if you want to discuss in-depth if the course would fit into your PhD trajectory.
Course format
The course format is a combination of lectures, coaching sessions and group discussions, all set up in an interactive way. The participants are required to attend both the entire course and the IALE 2025 European Landscape Ecology Congress (www.iale2025.sav.sk). The course will start with a day introduction before the congress in Bratislava. After the congress, the course will be continued in Lednice.
Preliminary Program
- Monday 1 September – Welcome, getting to know each other, introduction to the course and congress program
- Tuesday 2 to Friday 5 September – Attending the IALE European Congress 2025
- Friday 5 September (after closing congress) – Transfer to Lednice
- Saturday 6 to Wednesday 10 September – Lectures, field visit, discussion sessions, paper discussions.
- Wednesday 10 September (before lunch) – Departure to Bratislava
First part (before the congress – Monday 1 September 2025 in Bratislava, SK):
The participants will be introduced to the objectives, theme and format of the course. They will present themselves and share their research topic with the course participants and lecturers. Moreover, they will be introduced in the congress program and guidance will be provided to take the best advantage of the event the purpose of their research, which includes also making directed contact networking activities.
Second part (after the congress – Friday 5 to Wednesday 10 September 2025 in Lednice, CZ):
The second part will take place at the Faculty of Horticulture of Mendel University in Lednice, where the participants and lecturers will reside at the campus facilities. The program is built around theoretical lectures focussing on different concepts, approaches and related applications in landscape ecology as well as sessions about specific research skills. One interactive workshop on paper writing and the publication process is planned, focussing on how to communicate scientific research to different publication formats. Besides these lectures, students will be expected to present their own research and engage in debates and discussions. The discussions during the course will contribute to the student’s critical reflection on their own research, their paper writing, their attitude as landscape researchers, and how they can position themselves within the landscape ecological thinking.
Assignments
For the PhD course, the students are expected to bring in (see deadlines at the end of this document):
(1) a poster presenting the overview of their PhD research;
(2) a paper (between 1000 and 3000 words) focussing on a part of the PhD to be discussed and improved during the course. It can be a paper you are working on at the moment (in draft version of to be submitted) where you would like to get feedback on. It can be also be a part of the PhD proposal in case you are still in the starting phase of the PhD. The aim is to discuss and improve the paper during the course for future submission for publication or improvement of the research proposal.
Furthermore, the students are asked to:
(3) have an active participation in the IALE2025 Congress by submitting and presenting a poster or a paper in the congress related to their PhD topic (depending on the stage of their PhD research).
Learning outcomes, number of contact & learning hours
Students can expect the following learning outcomes:
- Contribution to a solid and innovative conceptual framework as a base to research landscapes from a landscape ecological perspective;
- Insights into novel methodological approaches on the integration of natural and cultural dimensions;
- A critical view and comments on their research work;
- Contributions to a more coherent design of the presentation and publication of their research;
- Lively and participated discussions;
- An enduring network of international researchers.
The course is equal to 6 ECTS credits, including 40 contact hours and 110 hours of preparatory work. The latter includes reading tasks, preparing a poster and a paper, and further developing the paper after the course.
Organisation and practical aspects
Download the application form here: form
Lecturer team
- Isabel Loupa Ramos – Prof., Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Environment, University of Lisbon (Portugal)
- Veerle Van Eetvelde – Prof., Department of Geography, Ghent University (Belgium)
- Luis Inostroza – Senior scientist Faculty of regional development and international studies, Mendel University, Brno (Czechia)
- Additional international lecturers in landscape ecology will be added on due time.
The PhD course will be co-organised with the Faculty of Horticulture of Mendel University.
Fee
300€. This is covering the cost for the accommodation, breakfast, lunches and coffee breaks in Lednice, course materials, and travel from Bratislava to Lednice. The dinners in Lednice and travel out of Lednice on Wednesday 10 September are not included.
In case you are a member of IALE, you can contact your national chapter to ask for funding (https://iale-europe.eu/community).
Dates
- 21 July 2025 - Deadline for 1st stage registration: submission of the application form and abstract of a paper (max. 500 words) (download from https://iale-europe.eu). Applications should be sent to Isabel Loupa Ramos.
- 25 July 2025 – Final confirmation of acceptance/enrolment
- 15 August 2025 – Payment and payment confirmation to be sent to Veerle Van Eetvelde.
- 25 August 2025 – deadline for submission of final papers (3000 words)
- 1 September 2025 – arrival in Bratislava
Contact details and organising committee
For more information about the format and content of the PhD course:
Veerle Van Eetvelde – Ghent University and IALE-Europe – veerle.vaneetvelde@ugent.be
Isabel Loupa Ramos – University of Lisbon and IALE-Europe - isabel.ramos@tecnico.ulisboa.pt
Luis Inostroza - Mendel University, Brno - luis.inostroza@mendelu.cz
For more information about practical organisation:
Alena Salašová - Faculty of Horticulture of Mendel University
Marketa Santruckova – Czech Technical University