The aim of the programme is to enable students to reach the degree of doctor in the area of biodiversity and evolutionary biology thus being able to, within this domain of knowledge, develop autonomously advanced research and technological activities, both state institutions of higher education and research as well as public and private companies. The doctoral studies shall, at minimum, guarantee the acquisition by the doctoral students of the basic competencies which are in the Spanish Qualifications Framework for Higher Education, specifically: systematic understanding of a field of study of legal sciences, and mastery of its skills and methods of research; ability to conceive, design or create, implement and adapt a substantial process of research and creation; ability to make a critical and assessment analysis, and synthesis of new and complex ideas, as well as communication with the academic and scientific community and society in general about their fields of knowledge; and and ability to promote, within academic and professional contexts, scientific, technological, social, artistic or cultural advance in a knowledge-based society.

This doctoral programme offers an advanced training around biodiversity’s nature: its types, origin, fluctuations, threats, its systemic and evolutionary aspects and its methods and techniques for a better management and conservation of resources. Due to the fact that the concept of biodiversity encompasses several aspects in several biological scales, the aim of the following proposal is to study this subject from different perspectives, providing high-level cross-disciplinary knowledge to the students with the objective of initiating them in advanced and applied research, prepare them for university teaching and, hence, face the political and social demands of the experts on the area. In this sense, this programme grants conceptual knowledge on systematic, classification and phylogeny in different groups of organisms; population’s genetics; autoecology, and structure and functioning of ecosystems (considered in a environmental context), among others. It also provides procedural knowledge: assess and inventory techniques and methods of biodiversity; assessment techniques on singularity, degree of threat and impact in biological populations and communities. Lastly, this offer does not forget about the necessary competencies and abilities that this training requires: from the acquisition of skills for cross-disciplinary work with other professional collectives to the diffusion capacity in the social context of the researching activity or the ability to resolve conflicts in the professional activity.