First and second year

In this module you will dive into the world of computer security and cybercrime. You will understand how hacking technologies work and you will get an introduction in modern public administration.

You learn how:

• to protect ourselves against cybercrime through technological solutions and human responses.
• governments and international institutions are legally and politically organized.
• to apply your knowledge on the (inter)national fight against cybercrime.

Your project assignment is to map out the high-tech challenges of cybercrime and how these are addressed over the world.

You will look at one of the biggest societal challenges of our time: mass immigration. The module introduces you to the politics of problem framing and agenda-setting theory in public administration.

You will understand how:

• modern technologies affect migration towards “high-tech fortress Europe” together with social, economic, political, and physical factors.
• social media, for example, inform potential immigrants about the promised land.
• modern technologies enable immigration officers to authenticate the identity of immigrants.

You learn to use descriptive data analysis and data visualization for your project assignment: describe an aspect of the complex immigration challenge.

This module gives you an introduction to policy-making theory in public administration. By exploring how a wearable device may change your own behaviors, you get engaged with the world of wearable technologies in the domain of health promotion.

You learn how

• e-health interventions and smart policies can promote health.
• algorithms can covertly affect our behavior.
• to design effective policies that are based on solid evidence.
• You learn to study scientific evidence through coursework in research methods and statistics.

Your project assignment is to design a smart health policy that will likely work in practice.

You will explore the challenges cities face these days: climate change, energy supplies and housing shortages are examples. 

You will understand how:

• to involve all sorts of stakeholders in making decisions aimed at creating more liveable cities
• modern technologies increase well-being in large agglomerations over the world; for example by creating new infrastructures for public transport.
• to bring together the interests of multiple scales of governments and stakeholders. Who makes the authoritative and legitimate decisions that help cities to become “smarter”?
• qualitative research and interviewing techniques work.

Your project assignment is to design a governance structure for a technology-driven city project.

Have you ever wondered why ICT projects often fail? This module introduces you to modern theories of public management and program implementation while studying the digital government.

You will learn:

• that the organization of government rapidly changes under new technologies. Think, for example, about the digital processing of service requests (passports), or the information exchange between government departments and units to protect our safety.
• to understand how such information technologies in government work.
• to interpret inferential statistics and data analytics.

Your project assignment is to study the large-scale implementation of an ICT application in a network of government organizations.

This module closes the circle of six core modules by focusing on evaluation. Using these evaluation outcomes and understanding trends helps you to get a well-informed perspective on the future. For example, the future of work is heavily influenced by the implementation speed of the use of robots.

In your project you will interpret advanced multivariate statistics to get a better insight in the future of work under the influence of robotisation and automation.

The specialization Systems Analysis and Data Science offers students the opportunity to use their interests in mathematical analysis to better tackle complex social systems. One module focuses on systems analysis. You build a simulation model for a complex societal challenge, such as the optimization of evacuations in emergency situations. The other module focuses on data science. You learn to analyze patterns in big data to get new insights in complex phenomena, such as the spread of fake news in social media.

The specialization Public Administration offers students the opportunity to specialize in top-down and bottom-up decision-making. One module focuses on complex collective decision-making. You use rational choice models to forecast the outcomes of collective decision-making by many stakeholders. You learn how to influence these outcomes. The other module focuses on citizen involvement in public organizations. You study how the collaboration between professionals and citizens affects the quality of public services.

The specialization Global and European Studies offers students the opportunity to focus on the international and European dimensions of societal challenges. One module focuses on current European crises, such as Brexit. The other module focuses on the position of Europe in the world. You learn how the European Union operates as one international institution among the big powers in the world, such as China or the U.S.