Master in Fungal Microbiome Engineering & Climate Solutions

This frontier master programme explores how engineered fungal communities might increase soil carbon, strengthen crop resilience and break down persistent pollutants. It begins with the soil and plant microbiome, fungal community ecology and assembly rules, and multi-omics methods for microbiome research. Students then study the design of synthetic communities and consortia, before applying these ideas to three challenges: fungal pathways to soil carbon persistence, microbiomes for drought and heat tolerance, and fungi against emerging pollutants and plastics.

Many of these approaches are still at an early stage, and the programme treats them as research questions rather than ready-made solutions. It suits researchers, agri-biotech professionals and climate innovators with prior training in biology, ecology or a related field. Further modules cover global mapping of below-ground biodiversity, modelling and machine learning for microbiomes, biosafety, regulation and ecological risk, and scaling, verification and climate finance. The programme ends with a frontier research project, in which each student develops a rigorous research proposal or pilot study on an engineered fungal solution, including hypotheses, methods, risk assessment and a verification plan.