Master's structure

If you are interested in the foundations of public governance within all levels of the Dutch government, the Dutch-taught profile Nederlands Openbaar Bestuur is right for you. It’s a cross-over profile in which you can deal with a lot of different topics within local, regional, and national governance. For example, how can the autonomy of local and regional governments (i.e. municipalities and provinces) be strengthened? How can you ensure good collaborations between the different levels of government? What does it take to manifest a new culture in Dutch politics and administrative organisations, such as the Dutch tax authority? What impact does algorithmic governance have? In essence, you will be prepared to work within the context of Dutch public governance.

How do you make sure that healthcare innovations work as expected and are properly implemented by health care professionals and patients? What does it take to launch a large-scale vaccination programme, and convince people to get vaccinated? How, as a government, do you address a national shortage of healthcare personnel? And how can you prevent inequality in access to health technologies? The healthcare profile will deepen your understanding of the dynamics behind healthcare governance.

The maintenance of public order and security is one of the fundamental responsibilities of the government. In this profile domain, you will focus on public safety governance, with special attention to public and private policing. How can you tackle organised (drug) crime across borders? Or effectively manage police resources to deal with violent protests? What technologies support such activities with what (un)intended effects on privacy? To what extent should we use digital technologies (e.g. cameras or internet tracking) for surveillance purposes – and how would mass surveillance harm society? But also, how can you design proper strategies for crisis prevention and management as a government?

Achieving the sustainable development goals is one of, if not, the most important topics on the public agenda nowadays. In the conversion to sustainable energy sources, how do you decide where to place windmills or solar parks and how do you involve citizens in the decision process? How to engage farmers and other stakeholders in the protection of nature? What alliances are needed if you want to ensure a constant supply of biokerosene to an airport like Schiphol? But also: how can you make a city more climate-resilient, protecting it against floods as well as heat waves that are becoming more frequent due to climate change? These are just a few illustrative questions you will come across within this profile domain.

To address societal problems, governments often focus on formal procedures and neglect deliberative policy development at a meta-level. For example, nuclear energy can be defined in terms of its problematic long-term waste, but also in terms of its contribution to energy production in the face of CO₂ emission reduction. To improve the substantive quality of policies, you can benefit from a deliberative approach and define a problem or situation thoughtfully, considering characteristics, values, and ethics. This profile helps you to gain a deeper understanding of decision-making processes and the process of policymaking on a metalevel. This profile is offered in collaboration with the Master’s in Philosophy of Science, Technology & Society (PSTS). You can even extend this profile into a unique, two-year double-degree programme in both Public Administration and PSTS.

In this profile, you combine insights from Public Administration and Communication Science, focusing on the interaction between governance and public discourse. You study contemporary issues such as media influence on democracy and communication in policy processes. This profile can be followed as a double degree programme, earning you two diplomas within 1.5 years.

After completing this Master’s, you:

• have in-depth knowledge in fields of policy, governance management and societal challenges;
• have relevant knowledge in related domains such as health, communication, safety and security, sustainability, city innovation, etc., and can incorporate this knowledge in the design of a solution or advice;
• understand the implications of today’s modern technological context in addressing societal challenges by public administrations.

After completing this Master’s, you:

• can identify, (re)define, and analyse a complex, ill-structured societal problem from a policy, governance and/or management perspective;
• are able to design a solution to or develop an advice about a societal challenge in terms of policy, governance and/or management;
• have academic reasoning skills and are able to advise a commissioning party in a convincing and goal-oriented way.

After completing this Master’s, you:

• are aware of and can reflect on the ethical, political and societal implication(s) of a solution;
• can exchange and justify arguments in a critical, open and constructive way;
• can identify gaps in your knowledge, and you have a mindset to improve and extend your knowledge in a goal-oriented way.