Addressing the rapid loss of biodiversity at the global scale counts as one of the key challenges of our time. Detailed knowledge of species and their environment is
urgently needed; however, universities increasingly lack resources and expertise to provide specialist teaching on species‘ taxonomy. To address this, IHI Zittau joined forces with Senckenberg, a large natural history research institute (part of the German Leibniz Association), and established a novel research-oriented MSc course.