General Information on the PhD Programme

General Information on the PhD Programme

The PhD course represents a full-time commitment and essentially consists of conducting original research work, under the supervision of a professor, and writing a thesis on one of the following general topics:

  • food science and technology;
  • genomics, proteomics and metabolomics of species of agricultural interest;
  • multifunctional agriculture;
  • plant and animal production systems, even in urban environment;
  • plant physiology, ecology and biochemistry;
  • plant, animal and microbial biotechnologies;
  • technologies for plant and soil protection and environmental bioremediation.

Currently, over 50 students are attending the doctorate or are waiting for the final exam; eight of them come from foreign universities. Each PhD student is supported by two supervisors, at least one of whom belongs to DiSAAA-a. The official language of the PhD course is English.

PhD Board

The PhD Board comprises 20 professors from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Pisa and three scientists working at other institutions in Italy or abroad.

The PhD Board for the 2025–2028 period is coordinated by Prof. Daniele Antichi and is composed as follows:

Name Telephone Email Position Academic Field
Monica Agnolucci 050 2216647 monica.agnolucci@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-08/A
Luciana G. Angelini 050 2218901 luciana.angelini@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-02/A
Daniele Antichi 050 2218962 daniele.antichi@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-02/A
Iduna Arduini 050 2218902 iduna.arduini@unipi.it Associate Professor BIOS-01/C
Giovanni Benelli 050 2216141 giovanni.benelli@unipi.it Associate Professor AGRI-05/A
Gianluca Brunori 050 2218979 gianluca.brunori@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-01/A
Angelo Canale 050 2216116 angelo.canale@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-05/A
Andrea Cavallini 050 2216663 andrea.cavallini@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-06/A
Riccardo Gucci 050 2216138 riccardo.gucci@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-03/A
Lorenzo Guglielminetti 050 2216543 lorenzo.guglielminetti@unipi.it Associate Professor BIOS-02/A
Lucia Guidi 050 2216613 lucia.guidi@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-06/B
Marcello Mele 050 2218938 marcello.mele@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-09/C
Cristina Nali 050 2210552 cristina.nali@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-05/B
Lucia Natali 050 2216665 lucia.natali@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-06/A
Alberto Pardossi 050 2216526 alberto.pardossi@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-02/B
Elisa Pellegrini 050 2210562 elisa.pellegrini@unipi.it Associate Professor AGRI-05/B
Laura Pistelli 050 2216536 laura.pistelli@unipi.it Associate Professor BIOS-02/A
Michele Raffaelli 050 2218947 michele.raffaelli@unipi.it Full Professor AGRI-04/B
Andrea Serra 050 2218949 andrea.serra@unipi.it Associate Professor AGRI-09/A
Angela Zinnai 050 2216627 angela.zinnai@unipi.it Associate Professor AGRI-07/A
Allison M. Loconto INRA, France allison-marie.loconto@inrae.fr Researcher AGRI-01/A
Beatrice Pezzarossa ISE-CNR, Pisa beatrice.pezzarossa@cnr.it Researcher AGRI-02/B
Andrea Scartazza IRET-CNR, Pisa andrea.scartazza@cnr.it Researcher BIOS-02/A

The PhD student representatives on the PhD Board for the 2025–2027 period are Dr Gemma Bianchi (40th cycle, gemma.bianchi@phd.unipi.it) and Dr Filippo Giuseppe Marino (40th cycle, filippogiuseppe.marino@phd.unipi.it).

 

Training Activities Planned During the PhD Course (2025/2028, XLI cycle)

2025–2028, 41st Cycle

PhD students participate in educational activities such as courses, seminars, summer schools and conferences organized by the University of Pisa or other institutions in Italy or abroad, with a tailor-made teaching plan which aims to enable the PhD student to achieve in-depth knowledge of specific scientific questions and an improvement of his general skills.

In particular, during the first year and the second year, PhD students attend courses and seminars organized partly by the University of Pisa for all its PhD students and partly by this PhD Programme, which offers specific courses for its students.

Pending the transition to a teaching activity organized in training credits, currently being studied by the Doctoral Quality Commission, the following courses are planned for the 2025/26 academic year (mandatory for first or second year doctoral students):

Course Hours* Semester Course Coordinator / Lecturer Final Assessment
English for Research Publication and Presentation Purposes 32 First University of Pisa Interdepartmental Language Centre YES
Fundamentals of Statistics for Agricultural Research 24 First Prof. Giuseppe Conte / Dr Michele Moretti NO
Scientific Writing for Early-Career Researchers – Part 1 (Theory) 8 First Prof. Giovanni Benelli / Dr Giacomo Palai NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Experimental Design and Analysis of Results 8 First Prof. Marco Landi NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Ecological Principles of Agroforestry Systems 8 First Dr Alberto Mantino, Prof. Daniele Antichi NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Precision Feeding and Digitalization 8 First Prof. Marcello Mele, Dr Alberto Mantino NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Principles of Precision Fruit Growing 8 First Prof. Giovanni Caruso NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Optical Sensors for Phytopathological Diagnosis 8 First Prof. Lorenzo Cotrozzi NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Soilless Culture – Growing Techniques and Management 8 First Prof. Luca Incrocci NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Theory and Methods for Food System Research 8 First Prof. Gianluca Brunori NO
*Advances in Agriculture: Plant Cells for Sustainable Food Alternatives 8 First Prof. Laura Pistelli NO
English for Research Purposes for 2nd-Year PhD Candidates 32 Second External lecturer YES
Scientific Writing for Early-Career Researchers – Part 2 (Hands-on) 8 Second Dr Silvia Pampana NO

* PhD students must select 3 courses out of the 8 offered, for a total of 24 hours of teaching.

Click here for the full course calendar.

Moreover, the PhD students attend the so-called “Cross-cutting teaching activities”, organized by the University of Pisa for all its PhD students (see more at this link). The courses are being held approximately in the period January-June 2026. These teaching activities include seminars, laboratory and research activities, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary training. In this context, the courses recommended for PhD students in Agriculture, Food and Environment are:

Type of Activity Course / Activity Year Format
Cross-cutting teaching activity Responsible Research and Innovation First 3 modules (8 + 8 + 4 hours)
Cross-cutting teaching activity Career Labs for Doc First 4 workshops of 3 hours each
Cross-cutting teaching activity PhD+ First Groups of lectures and seminars
Cross-cutting teaching activity Contamination Lab First Groups of lectures and seminars
Cross-cutting teaching activity Seminars on the Promotion of Research Outputs First Groups of lectures and seminars
Cross-cutting teaching activity Valorisation of Research Results and Intellectual Property First Groups of lectures and seminars
Cross-cutting teaching activity Fundamental Principles of Ethics, Gender Equality and Research Integrity First Groups of lectures and seminars

All PhD students are invited to spend at least six months at high-level research institutions abroad during the second and/or third year of the course. During the internship abroad, a 50% increase in the PhD scholarship is expected.

At the end of each year, each PhD student prepares a report on his research activities and holds a public seminar, in English, which must be evaluated and approved by the PhD Board.

To obtain the title, the candidate must have published at least one article in an indexed scientific journal. At the end of the course the thesis (in English) will be preliminarily evaluated by two external reviewers belonging to other Italian or foreign universities. From 2023 to 2025, DiSAAA-a PhD students have published over 300 research or review articles in scientific journals or conference proceedings. In total, these works have reported over 800 citations to date.

The title of Philosophiae Doctor is awarded after a public examination by a Commission of professors appointed by the PhD Board.

linkare a calendario didattico

Services for the PhD Students

Operational and Scientific Facilities

Service Description
Laboratories Laboratories for agricultural chemical analysis, agronomy, seed analysis and research, biochemistry, molecular biology, botany and applied botany, plant physiology, agricultural entomology, genetics and genomics, agricultural microbiology, optical and electron microscopy, plant pathology, food technology, sensory analysis, in vitro cultures, food quality analysis, and an intelligent laboratory for agri-food monitoring. A mechanical workshop is also available.
Library Holdings The University library collection includes 1,413,516 volumes listed in the University’s online catalogue and searchable at any time from both within and outside the University. The collection covers all subject areas represented in the University’s educational programmes; the agricultural sciences collection includes 55,257 volumes. The holdings are distributed across 15 libraries and are almost entirely available on open shelves for direct consultation and borrowing.
Journals The collection of discipline-specific journals includes 31,577 titles. All journals are listed in the Italian national ACNP periodicals catalogue and can be searched online at any time from both inside and outside the University network. For the agricultural sciences disciplines offered by the University of Pisa, the collection includes 3,135 titles, of which 51 are currently active, covering 44,811 annual volumes.
E-resources In addition to discipline-specific journals, campus-wide access is available to numerous bibliographic and full-text databases, as well as collections of e-books and electronic journal packages. Online resources include 409,415 e-books and 4,066 electronic journals, some of which were available only until December 2024.
Spaces and Computing Resources for PhD Students PhD students have free access to all facilities and resources associated with the Programme, including Polo 1 – Area Piagge of the Departmental IT System, which manages and provides IT and network services supporting teaching and research activities. Library spaces available to PhD students in agricultural disciplines include 45 study places.
Multidisciplinary Agreements with International Scientific Publishers The University of Pisa has multidisciplinary agreements with numerous international scientific publishers, including Brill, De Gruyter, Cambridge University Press Journals, JSTOR, Nature, Oxford University Press Journals, Science, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis Journals and Wiley Online Journals. Bibliographic databases such as Web of Knowledge and Scopus are also available for literature searches and research evaluation.
Other Services Access to Web of Knowledge and Scopus for bibliographic searches and research assessment; Office 365; possibility of purchasing three-year ChatGPT Pro licences.

Quality Management

Since 2024, PhD programmes have been subject to formal quality assessment.

A PhD Quality Management Committee has been appointed, consisting of the Coordinator and Deputy Coordinator, respectively Prof. Daniele Antichi and Prof. Andrea Serra, together with Prof. Marco Landi, Prof. Elisa Pellegrini and Prof. Giovanni Benelli, as well as one of the two PhD student representatives.

Student Orientation

The PhD Programme is presented to Master’s degree students of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment during orientation events organised by the Department or by individual degree programmes.

Regulation of the PhD Programme

Link to the Pisa University general PhD regulation

Link to the PhD Programme in Agriculture, Food and Environment regulation