SEA-LEARN: Strengthening and Sustaining Education for Marine Environmental Awareness and Resource Conservation

The SEA-LEARN project is a continuation of our recently finished UTF-2017/10053 project that was effective at providing a platform for better interactions, mobilities and exchange between Brazil and Norway, with the intent to further innovate within the training program offered and to ensure the long-term partnerships. Partner institutions in this project are the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), University of Oslo (UiO), and Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). UFPA and UiO already have longstanding and ongoing collaborations. Through gender-balanced twoway student and staff mobilities, our vision in the SEA-LEARN project is to develop sustainable courses and student exchanges at the partner universities to better understanding the health and sustainability of marine fisheries and fish farms through the use of environmental DNA methods. This educational infrastructure will have meaningful, long-term societal impact on the partner countries since participants will learn the necessary competencies to evaluate the organisms that are effecting, and are affected by, aquaculture in the open oceans and along coastal areas. The PhD students will also learn theoretical and empirical approaches to research supervision and assessment, and the MSc students will also learn how to present their work not only to other researchers but to school-age children as well. As project stakeholders, representatives from marine- and fish-health companies will give talks to the students about what they and their organization do, as well as discuss the sought-after competences and skills that they are looking for when recruiting new staff scientists. SEA-LEARN will result in the training and exchanges of 64 MSc students, 24 PhD students, numerous local school children, and multiple staff members. As an equal cooperation between Brazil and Norway whereby we will establish the complementary exchange of ideas and training in addition to the planned physical mobility, SEA-LEARN supports UN Sustainability Goals aimed at good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), life below water (SDG 14), and strengthens the implementation of revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development goals (SDG 17).