Program Overview

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Environment and Resource Management Master's Programme

The Environment and Resource Management Master's programme is a one-year programme that recognises that environmental problems and sustainability challenges do not stop at national borders. The programme is taught in English and is open to students from all academic disciplines and nationalities. It actively teaches students to cooperate in interdisciplinary teams and to contribute their disciplinary knowledge, while looking for possible solutions to specific environmental problems.

Curriculum

The programme starts with an overview of the breadth of environmental problems, followed by two parallel courses that cover economic policy instruments for managing environmental problems and the theory and practice of environmental governance and the role of different political actors. Students can then choose a specialisation, including:

• Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity
• Global Food Challenges
• Global Water Challenges
• Energy and Climate
• Global Sustainable Futures

Each specialisation has its own set of compulsory courses and offers students the opportunity to develop specific skills, such as research methods, research design, academic writing, and employability skills.

Specialisations

Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity

This specialisation covers methods for assessing societal values with economic and socio-cultural methods. It also examines the theoretical tools for analysing the governance of ecosystem services and the management options from local to global level, as well as from the public to the private sector. Typical subjects addressed in this specialisation include protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, sustainable supply chains, wildlife management, sustainable agriculture, and marine management.

Compulsory courses:

• Value of Ecosystem Services
• Governance of Ecosystem Services

Global Food Challenges

This specialisation aims to provide students with a profound understanding of the functioning of food systems and the ways these can be studied and evaluated in terms of sustainability. The specialisation will address the ways in which food systems vary across the world and how they change with time.

Compulsory courses:

• Food Systems & Sustainability
• Food Governance & Sustainability

Global Water Challenges

This specialisation provides students with expertise to scientifically assess the interactions of water and human systems and the tools to address complex interdisciplinary water issues that involve multiple stakeholders.

Compulsory courses:

• Water and Climate Systems
• Water Politics and Governance

Energy and Climate

This specialisation provides expertise to scientifically assess the transition to sustainable energy systems and to critically evaluate the range of policy options to accelerate this transition. Attention is also paid to regional, national, international, and transnational efforts to mitigate climate change.

Compulsory courses:

• Sustainable Energy Systems
• Energy and Climate Governance

Global Sustainable Futures

This specialisation offers students the opportunity to mix and match different courses offered by IVM and other faculties and departments at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. At the same time, this specialisation will give students a clear focus on environmental and sustainability themes.

Research Project

The year ends with the Research Project, integrating all previous course work in one condensed activity in which students' specialisation knowledge, theoretical foundation, and research skills are combined.

Internships and Thesis

Writing a thesis is the moment to demonstrate that students can link theory to practice and use proper academic methods and tools. In preparation for the Research Project, the programme organises the ERM thesis/internship market in early December. During this market, students will be presented with the thesis positions that are available at IVM, and at a large number of external organisations around the world.

Career Prospects

After completing this Master's programme, students can follow a PhD programme or enter the job market. As a graduate in Environment and Resource Management, students can start work as a consultant at an (environmental) consultancy, as an environmental economist or project manager at an NGO, or as an international civil servant.