Courses Islands and Sustainability (EM)

Islands and Sustainability an Earasmus Mundus master programme. It combines thorough training in scientific research with a specialization on Islands and Sustainability.

What will you learn?

The programme of the master Islands & Sustainability consists of the following courses. Click on the course title to go to the full course description, information about lecturers, literature and time period.

Year 1

Joint Multidisciplinary Research Project (5 EC)

In the Joint Multidisciplinary Project, student team from different disciplinary backgrounds within the Spatial Sciences work together to tackle research problems that local and regional governments, firms or organisations have identified. The teams work on well-defined assignments that challenge students to apply their knowledge and skills in real-world settings. The end result of the project is a report that is presented to the client at the end of the semester. In Joint Multidisciplinary Research Project, students work on an Islands and Sustainability project in the Wadden area.

Scientific Reading, Debating and Reflecting (5 EC)

The course Scientific Reading, Debating and Reflection has as its purpose to fuel scientific curiosity and to create a stimulating atmosphere of academic freedom with room for everyday scientific observations as well as deep-digging questions. In the course students read, discuss, write and present about famous scientifically inspiring books, documentaries, and articles; also relating to the philosophy of science. Furthermore, all students keep a personal scientific diary to track and develop their scientific expertise, discoveries, problems, observations, and thoughts throughout the year.

Advanced and Specialized Research Methods and Techniques (10 EC)

The aim of this course is to learn advanced and specialized research methods and techniques relevant for research in human geography, demography and spatial planning. You can take different modules within and outside the faculty, ranging from fieldwork to advances statistical analysis. This course consists of modules worth a total of 15 ECTS focus on advanced and specialized research methods and techniques, which are relevant for research in human geography, demography, and spatial planning. Students can choose 15 EC from a list of courses that range from fieldwork to advanced statistical analysis. In the first year, you take 10EC worth of modules and the second year 5EC.

Thematic Theoretical Specialization (10 EC)

You should be involved in acquiring a rich and diverse set of knowledge and competencies regarding regional studies. The theoretical and thematic specialization is the portfolio of modules focused on theory and contents that you are required to fulfil during your research master in Spatial Sciences. Students can take modules at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Philosophy, and also at Utrecht University, Wageningen University and the University of Amsterdam in the past. You can do 15 EC instead of 20 EC. You will then do an extra 5 EC of the Research Internship. This course also takes place in the second year (10 EC).

Islands, Insularity and Islanders (5EC)

This course introduces islands and islandness, including the geography of islands, their physical, economic, societal and symbolic characteristics, including (but not limited to) issues of place and cultural identity, geographical specificities and geographical handicap and local and regional population dynamics of island regions. In particular, the course addresses basic conceptual issues about islands and their place in current global socioeconomic developments, by exploring their place on maps, economic geography and imagination.

Individual Research Training (10 EC)

The Individual Research training (IRT) module is focused on facilitating your awareness of the process of doing research, its methods and the reporting of research outcomes. You will do active research (or research activities), while being supervised by a URSI/Nether researcher in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences. The students can choose an IRT project from a list of projects offered by URSI/Nethur researchers or propose a project themselves. The outcome of the IRT is a scientific end product e.g. research article, conference paper, essay or scientific report.

Research Internship (10 EC)

One of the key objectives of the Research Master Degree in Spatial Sciences is to train students to be good researcher in different settings at an international level. This module is an important part of the degree programme, in which students conduct research in another institutional setting: that of a renowned professional research institute. The Research Internship is followed at one of the Island and Sustainability partner institutes/universities abroad.

Year 2

Scientific Reading, Debating and Reflecting (5 EC)

In the course students read, discuss, write and present about famous scientifically inspiring books, documentaries, and articles; also relating to the philosophy of science. Furthermore, all students keep a personal scientific diary to track and develop their scientific expertise, discoveries, problems, observations, and thoughts throughout the year.

Thematic Theoretical Specialization (10 EC)

Students learn to apply a rich and diverse set of theoretical and thematic knowledge. The theoretical and thematic specialization is the portfolio of courses focused on theory and contents that you are required to fulfil during your research master in regional studies. You can take different modules within and outside the faculty.

Advanced Research Skills (5 EC)

The course runs on two tracks. The first track trains a multitude of high-level cutting-edge research methods, research software and data use in a practical way. Different PhD students will largely give this part of the course, basically one PhD for every week. Every week then, a PhD student gives a start and end workshop introducing in a hands-on way an interesting research method, a piece of software, a nice dataset etc. In the second track of the course, the students write a paper which can be seen as a synthesis of all their (20 ECTS) methods courses. Students explore the methods in a practical way.

Advanced and Specialized Research Methods and Techniques (5 EC)

Apply advanced and specialized research methods and techniques relevant for research in the spatial sciences. You can take different modules within and outside the faculty, ranging from fieldwork to advances statistical analysis. This course consists of modules worth a total of 15 ECTS focus on advanced and specialized research methods and techniques, which are relevant for research in human geography, demography, and spatial planning. Students can choose 15 EC from a list of courses that range from fieldwork to advanced statistical analysis. It is complemented with the obligatory final 5EC course 'Advanced Research Skills' to make up 20 EC of methodological training.

Research Process and Proposal Writing (5 EC)

In the course, students learn to go through the research process, i.e. from addressing ontological and epistemological questions, situating oneself in a paradigm, to formulation of objective and research questions, to the application of theory and conceptual models, to the definition of concepts, and selection and description of an appropriate study design. Students go through these parts of the research process by writing a research proposal for their Master’s thesis.

Individual Master's Thesis (30 EC)

The Individual Master’s thesis is the final product of the program, including and reflecting all that has been learned in the programme. The topic should be embedded in the Faculty Research Program towards Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation (tWIST). The Master's thesis is devoted to an Islands and Sustainability subject - preferably also involving (another) one of the Island and Sustainability partner institutes/universities.