Welcome to the self evaluation of the programme European Studies, ISAT 69303.
Find the basic facts here:
Introduction
Scholars in the field of European Studies live in exciting and challenging times. Grand societal and technological challenges have emerged with a high sense of urgency. Europe is rapidly transforming with the rise of novel (disruptive) technologies, which are partly shaped and regulated by the European Union via its politics of technology. The grand challenges manifest themselves increasingly in a series of transboundary crises, which appear to have grown into a ‘new normal’. Market-based approaches to (social) innovation are no longer perceived as the exclusive key to attaining public values. In the news media and among opinion leaders, there is a plea for stronger government intervention, coupled with a more central role of the European Union, to address the challenges.
At the same time, the legitimacy of the EU is contested: Eurosceptic citizens’ trust in the EU may be relatively low and we observe a rise in autocratic regimes across the globe, including within the EU. European societies have become polarized and (scientific) facts have become contested. The EU and global governance actors like the UN appear to be inept in coherently responding to ever-occurring crises (like migration crises and ecological crises). As the nature of our future is unknown, our graduates are confronted with fundamental ambiguities about values, goals, solutions, and (contested) facts. In this contemporary context, a master’s programme in European Studies can make a difference.
Our contemporary European society requires the building of human capacity to address complex societal and technological challenges from the perspective of European Studies. Our master’s programme in European Studies —with a social sciences orientation to societal and technological transformations—has a unique place. Through its focus on a ‘high tech’-‘human touch’ approach to modern technology, and encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit among students, University of Twente and the Faculty of Behavioural, Management, and Social Sciences (BMS) provide an excellent environment.
The programme addresses the urgent need to integrate classical academic knowledge in European Studies with contemporary institutional changes in the EU after Brexit, and with societal and technological transformations in which the EU plays a leading role. Current societal transformations require the development of novel insights about the essence of political-administrative institutions in transforming societies across the world, including in the Global South. Thus, the programme fills a gap in the necessary specialized knowledge and competences of professionals who will work for—or with— the EU and global governance organizations in our contemporary and future, turbulent, European and global context.