SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SUSTAINABILITY TRACK
From 2025-2026 onward, students in the PSTS programme can choose to enter a special one-year Science, Technology and Sustainability track at the end of their first year. This is an interdisciplinary one-year track consisting of 25 EC of specialized sustainability-focused courses and a master’s thesis in this domain. This track equips you with the knowledge and analytical skills to critically engage in debates about societal transformation – whether as academics, activists, policy advisors, or policymakers. Students taking the STS track graduate as regular PSTS students but with the distinction of having taken the track. Note that the STS track, the AI in Science and Society track, and the 4TU.Ethics Ethics and Technology track are mutually exclusive. However, it is possible to include an internship (10 EC) and a shortened thesis (20 EC) in this track, which is not the case for 4TU.Ethics Ethics and Technology track.
The track spans across Environmental Science and Technology Studies and Humanities disciplines, and covers critical aspects of sustainability including decolonisation, political economy, global history, technology, justice, and future visions. The track is taught by excellent teaching staff with experience in cutting-edge research as well as in policy and societal engagement. Students will participate in diverse analytical, creative, collaborative, and solution-focused teaching activities that use real-life cases and examples. They will develop new understandings of social environmental challenges and innovative ways to address them to ensure just and sustainable futures. Environmental problems, including how to understand and tackle them, are at the heart of contemporary controversies. The track offers s students relevant expertise to analyze and address such controversies. Courses cover the political, historical, decolonial and justice-related dimensions of sustainability transformations. Academic job opportunities, especially at the level of PhD positions in both Philosophy and STS, are also increasing due to the increasing allocation of grant funding to sustainability-related projects, especially in the Netherlands.
Courses in this track will address the following topics:
Sustainability, decolonisation, and transformative change, including the underlying historical, cultural, and political-economic patterns and paradigms that perpetuate interlinked social-ecological crises and how to address these.
The role of scientific and computational technologies in representing nature and environment and how these shape sustainability policies and outcomes.
Methodologies and approaches to imagine and anticipate sustainable and just futures and develop alternative pathways and options towards these.Assessing the sustainability dimensions of technologies in use and exploring practices such as repair and phase out.
Curriculum
1st semester
Block 1A (Q1) courses:
- Technologies and Sustainable Use - 5 EC (obligatory)
- Sustainability and Decolonisation - 5 EC (obligatory)
- Transformations of Knowledge in a Digital Age - 5 EC (elective, choose two)
- Good Technology for Users and Society - 5 EC (elective, choose two)
- (2026-2027) Environment and Computation - 5 EC (obligatory)
Block 1B (Q2) courses:
- Anticipation and Evaluation of Emerging Technologies - 5 EC (obligatory)
- Rethinking Science-Technology Relations - 5 EC (elective, choose two)
- Minds, Bodies and Technologies - 5 EC (elective, choose two)
- Ethics and Epistemology of AI and Robotics - 5 EC (elective, choose two)
2nd semester
Block 2A (Q3) + Block 2B (Q4)
- Master’s Thesis related to sustainability - 30 EC (or 20 EC in the case of combining the line with a shortened thesis and 10 EC internship)
Throughout the entire 2nd year:
- MasterLab - 5 EC (obligatory)
The STS track thus consists of three 5 EC obligatory courses and two 5 EC elective courses (in 2026-2027 it will be four 5 EC obligatory courses and one 5 EC elective course. Students admitted to the track may replace up to two elective courses by choosing suitable 5 EC courses from other MSc programmes. The obligatory courses and MasterLab cannot be replaced. Both the programme director and track coordinator must approve these replacement courses.
If a course provides a specific STS track assignment, students in this track must take that particular assignment.
Admission criteria
The track has no special admission requirements.
However, students who want to participate in the track must register by emailing the track coordinator, Prof. Esther Turnhout (with CC to the PSTS study adviser), before 15 June 2025. The registration allows the section to plan ahead, for instance, to anticipate the number of thesis supervisors needed.