ESST - The ESST Masters Degree

The ESST Masters Degree

The ESST association offers a Masters degree in "Society, Science and Technology in Europe", aims to develop informational resources, analytical skills and conceptual frameworks for researchers and students in technological change and innovation. The course is designed to provide post-graduate training for academics of all backgrounds: social science, natural sciences, engineering and humanities.

The Masters course is based on active participation by people from industry and engineering, policy-makers and academia from all over Europe. The approach is inter-disciplinary, based on recent results from research at the frontiers of modern studies of science/technology and economy/society. The course aims to relate such research to the social and economic analysis of innovation, to strategic decision-making and management of sciences and (new) technologies, to ethical issues in sciences and technology, and to political and cultural analysis of modern science- and technology-based societies.

The original ESST Masters degree was a one-year course, and this can still be taken by students who start at Oslo or Maastricht University. At other universities the ESST programme is a 'track' embedded in a two-year masters programme. At most ESST universities students receive both a local Masters award and the ESST MA Diploma.

All ESST universities that offer the first semester teach a common curriculum (with some local additions) in this semester, after which students choose a second-semester specialisation from the range on offer at the different universities within ESST. Students have the option either to move between universities (and countries) after the first semester or to stay at one university for both semesters; Erasmus Programme agreements are in place to assist students who move between countries. All second-semester specialisations are taught in English. The Masters thesis is supervised by an advisor at the second-semester university (supplemented by a 'home' advisor where appropriate) and the thesis is graded by staff from two ESST universities, one of whom is always from the first-semester university.

Starting in 2012-13, students who successfully complete course modules that cover the common first-semester ESST curriculum, but who do not go on to take (or complete) a second-semester ESST specialisation and write a thesis under ESST rules, will receive an ESST Certificate in addition to their local award.