Studying at IUEM
The ocean is at the heart of major issues facing mankind: climate change, management of the living and mineral resources in the oceans, protection of biodiversity, development of international transport, risk management in coastal zones, and so forth. IUEM, affiliated to the University of Brest, trains specialists in these fields. It offers masters and doctoral programmes in Marine Sciences.
In an exceptional scientific environment, focused on the study of the ocean, more than 300 French and foreign students get a high-level education within the framework of a multidisciplinary masters degree programme in Marine and Coastal Sciences and a doctoral programme in Marine Sciences.
Masters in Marine and Coastal Sciences
The masters programme, created in 2004 by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, provides all necessary teaching conditions to develop expertise in the field of marine science. There are six specialities, so-called Professional and Research Masters, focusing on either applied or fundamental research, and preparing the future professionals for the necessary collaboration between natural sciences (ecology, geochemistry, biology and geology) and social sciences (geography, law, economics). Such an interdisciplinary approach of marine and coastal activities seems only logical in view of the new professional perspectives that are opening up at the confluence of these disciplines.
Doctoral programme in Marine Sciences
The doctoral programme aims at training highly qualified specialists by means of high-level education (lectures, thematic courses, seminars, colloquiums, ...) and leading edge research in laboratories. All necessary means are used to open up new horizons in teaching the doctoral students: bridges between the different disciplines, optional teaching modules in bordering disciplines, exchange programmes with other French and foreign oceanographic research centres. IUEM leans on a network of roughly 30 departments, laboratories and research teams, that is to say more than 130 researchers authorized to supervise doctoral theses.
Other possibilities
Students at IUEM also have the possibility to participate in the MENTOR Network (Marine European Network for Training of Researchers), to join the masters programme “Marine Renewable Energy”, launched in 2010 in collaboration with the Engineering Schools in Brest, and to participate in exchanges outside Europe within the framework of joint masters programmes.
