Portal:Complex Systems Digital Campus/E-Laboratory MGM

Master Geographical Modelling (MGM) Representative: Céline Rozenblat Co-Representative: François-Pierre Tourneux

URL of the external e-lab website
External e-lab website.

Scientific description of the e-lab
This collaboration was initiated by a network of teacher-researchers and researchers in theoretical and quantitative geography, united by the scientific relationships between their laboratories. Their competencies are highly complementary and they can all together offer a large panel of contemporary theories and methods. The issue existing in each university is the minority of this community of Theoretical and quantitative geography, in each department of geography and in each master. Their meeting allows to make economies of scales and to be more robust and visible in each University and beyond.

This network has got a long history. For more than 30 years, a network of European geographers organizes every 2 years in different European centers the “European Colloquium of Theoretical and Quantitative Geography” (ECTQG). This network enabled the large diffusion of new technics and knowledge in Europe, contributing to create different schools on different technics and thematic, but linked with the same paradigm. This generation on geographers is now retiring and their students inherited of their specialized fields, which become even more specialized, need always more specific skills and technics. A general view on the field of “Geographical modelling” cannot absolutely be offered by a single university.

The Intensive Program of Master "Geographical modelling" is based on a 10 days workshop organized in one common place. The workshop will gather the forces of different masters of geography in Europe. The meeting of the group in one place during 10 days, will allow more exchanges between teachers, and between students, around the share of specialized spatial analysis methods that are developed in each center. Thus, it will allow develop collaborations and diffuse the knowledge of Geographical Modelling between different specialized centers of such scientific fields. It aims also to improve the quality and increase the volume of student and teaching staff mobility throughout Europe.

The annual workshop planned allows the students to complete their knowledge on geographical modeling offering a larger panel of types of researches. The extent of the fields covered by geography and especially by geographical modeling is large and therefore crosses very different fields from physics, and mathematics, to social science and planning. In this way, master students who will benefit from the IP often come from different backgrounds such as physics, computer science, sociology, history, economy or geography.

The Program of Master "Geographical modelling" is constructed as a common M1 (1st year of Master) Workshop composed from different masters of Geography in Europe and which focus on the areas of theoretical and quantitative geography, spatial analysis, statistical analysis and modelling. This multidisciplinary workshop will allow the students to complete their knowledge and get familiar with different approaches. The IP will increase student and teaching staff mobility throughout Europe. It will also allow developing collaboration and diffuse the knowledge of specific domains between different specialized centers of such scientific fields.

•	Learning outcomes The common workshop will improve the knowledge of students thanks to the discovery of the diversity of approaches developed by the different centers.

•	Expected outputs
 * 1) 	More competencies for students in different technics of spatial modeling
 * 2) 	More scientific and pedagogic exchanges between universities in terms of modeling, social knowledge, and pedagogic tools
 * 3) 	Transfer of knowledge between countries
 * 4) 	New co-directed PhDs mixing different competencies and following emerging fields
 * 5) 	More Erasmus exchanges between Universities at Master level

•	Website

A General website has been prepared in Lausanne in consultation with the other partner universities. This website will include both a public access and a private Moodle platform for participants.

1- The Website increases the visibility of the common program http://www.unil.ch/mastergeographie/home/menuinst/ateliers-master--stages/intensive-program---mgm.html

2- A Moodle platform is accessible (with registration) from the Website. This platform will allow collaborative work, exchanges, sharing and discussions:
 * Archive of courses and of different materials (maps, data, documents free of rights), links, bibliography
 * Collaborative tools between teachers
 * Collaborative tools between students
 * Collaborative tools between teachers and students
 * Evaluations of students
 * Evaluations of courses
 * Forms from different universities

List of keywords
Modelling, Geography, Training

Links with other public and private institutions

 * Université de Lausanne : Master de Géographie- Option Geographie urbaine – filière Système de villes et analyse spatiale
 * Universités de Franche-Comté (UFC ) et de Bourgogne (UB) : Master UFC-UB Mention Géographie – Aménagement – Environnement
 * Université Catholique de Louvain
 * Université de Luxembourg : Master in spatial development and analysis
 * Universités de Paris 1 et Paris 7 : Master « Géographie et Sciences des territoires – Spécialité recherche Géoprisme »
 * Master « Géographie et Sciences des territoires – Spécialité Professionnelle CARTHAGEO»
 * Université de Rouen :  Master « Géographie, Information Spatiale et Territoire spécialité recherche Modèles en géographie ».
 * University of Manchester

Members of the e-lab Scientific Committee:

 * Martin Charlton, martin.charlton@nuim.ie, Univ. Maynooth IRELAND, http://ncg.nuim.ie/redir.php?action=staff/staff/mcharlton
 * Michael Batty, m.batty@ucl.ac.uk, University College London, CASA, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/people/?school=casa&upi=JMBAT23
 * Beniamino Murgante, murgante@gmail.com, Università degli Studi della Basilicata - Potenza, http://oldwww.unibas.it/utenti/murgante/Contacts.html