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Meeting the growing demand for energy, clean water and sufficient food without depleting natural resources and while maintaining the earth’s biodiversity - these are some of the most complex global challenges that we are facing today.
In order to ensure our future on earth, we need to deal with these challenges
proactively and find innovative and sustainable solutions. In searching for
these solutions, various kinds of knowledge need to be brought together:
knowledge from the domain of the natural sciences about energetic and
ecological systems and cycles;
interdisciplinary knowledge, i.e. in which scientific knowledge is combined
and integrated with knowledge about and economics;
knowledge from the domain of the social sciences to provide insight into how
we can improve the current situation and realise long-term social change.
Core programme (18 EC)
The minor has three core courses:
Current Sustainable Energy Technologies
Energy & Climate Change; Science, Policy & Economics
System Innovation & Transition Management
Elective(6 EC)
Besides this core programme, you can choose an elective from various courses on
energy, climate change, environment, water and food issues. This elective can
either have a pure scientific focus or a more interdisciplinary or socially
oriented focus.
Project (6 EC)
In the final project, a comprehensive approach is adopted in order to clearly
identify the problems and develop promising scenarios for the future. You will
work with other students on a case study in which you bring all your knowledge
and expertise together, integrating the available knowledge from both the
natural and the social sciences to come up with a viable solution for that
particular issue.
An example of a case is an imaginary project in which the Dutch government
has hired you - a consultant in an advisory agency specialised in sustainability
issues - to develop a strategy to cope with future phosphorus scarcity issues.
You must develop your recommendations based on your knowledge of the science and
technology of phosphorus and on quantitative considerations of sustainability.
But you should also take into account uncertainties and risks related to the
different technologies and strategies and how these weigh in the decision
process of policymakers.
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