Whatever your goals, our wide range of short courses equip you with the mindset, capabilities, and networking opprtunities to enhance your future. 

Current Short Courses

AUR & UNICRI: Specialized course on Cultural Heritage, Crime, and Security.

Protecting heritage from deliberate attack and theft is the topic of a new joint venture by AUR and UNICRI, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. In December a short online course will focus on ways to combat the threat and understand the global networks that are often behind such attacks.

In recent years cultural sites and heritage locations have become targets for political opponents, extremists, terrorists, opportunists and criminals, people who want to exploit them in order to make a symbolic statement or simply to make money. Such attacks endanger life, damage important symbols of cultural identity and economically undermine the tourism industry of many countries.

With these considerations in mind, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), in cooperation with the Graduate School at The American University of Rome (AUR), delivered the online course Specialized Course on Cultural Heritage, Crime and Security - Protecting our Past to Invest in our Future in November 2022.

Find out more about this program.

Geographic Information Systems for Food and Agriculture

This course is part of the M.A. in Food Studies but is also open for attendance by students and professionals, proficient in English, who are interested in GIS and their applications.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are computer-based tools that analyze, store, manipulate and visualize geographic information, usually on a map.
With increased awareness of geospatial technologies and their role in society, agriculture and food studies continue to embrace GIS to enable the examination of spatial and socio-economic features for food security and food access as well as for an understanding of the local food environments in urban, suburban and rural communities.

This course uses case-studies from different contexts allowing participants to gain hands-on experience and knowledge of the potential of GIS as tools to manage programs that support farmers and the environment as well as decision-making for food processing and distribution. The program covers a general introduction to GIS (using a free and open-source QGIS software package). Students will critically asses the contribution of GIS to the theoretical and methodological development of food studies and agriculture worldwide. 

Find out more about this program

*Please note that non-degree programs such as these are not eligible for US federal loans administered by AUR.