The Dutch Master's Selection Guide (Keuzegids Masters 2017) ranked this programme as the best in the field of Chemistry in the Netherlands.
Drug Innovation is about:
The Master’s in Drug Innovation programme focuses on diagnostics and the improvement and management of small molecule and biomolecular drugs. Drug innovation covers many topics such as the development of new vaccines and the study of antibodies, gene therapeutics, and medical nutrition. Once developed, a new drug then needs to go through approval, which raises a whole new set of challenges, for example the establishment of new methods and criteria for evaluating the quality, efficacy, safety, and performance of the drug.
This broad, interdisciplinary programme is open to graduates from a wide range of disciplines such as chemistry, biology, pharmaceutical sciences, biomedical sciences, or medicine.
Our programme offers a diverse suite of elective courses. This means you can concentrate on the topics of most interest to you. You will also take an internship with one of the research teams working on drug innovation at Utrecht University. This work may lead to publication in scientific journals within the field or new drug patents or protocols.
Graduates of this programme may go on to undertake research in drug innovation at universities, in the pharmaceutical or and biotechnology industry or to work in science or healthcare.
Programme
Drug innovation is an interdisciplinary field, which pulls together expertise from chemical, biological and medical sciences. This interdisciplinarity is central to the search for new solutions to currently incurable diseases. You will contribute to this field by undertaking two internships over a total of 15 months and submitting a writing assignment.
Graduated?
After graduation, you will have the skills needed to translate a drug-related problem into a relevant research question and will also be able to design and perform the research needed to solve this question. Finally, you will also be able to critically reflect on your own research and report on it, both verbally and in writing. These skills are highly transferable and will enable you to work independently within a competitive labour market.
As part of this two-year Master’s programme in Sustainable Business and Innovation, you will learn about sustainability challenges and the technological and other options that businesses can use to work in a more environmentally and socially friendly manner. By reviewing the academic literature and theory, real-life examples, and business case studies, you will acquire insight into the behaviour of organisations, including processes of organisational change and innovation.
Businesses increasingly face significant challenges and opportunities from environmental issues such as climate change, energy, and water and social issues such as labour and human rights, corruption, and transparency. Stakeholders in these businesses – including governments, shareholders, business customers, local communities, consumers, employees, and NGOs – are demanding that companies become more focused on sustainability for themselves and the communities they impact. As a graduate with the knowledge and skills to develop sustainable business practices, you will have excellent career prospects across multiple sectors and industries.
During your studies, you will learn about topics such as sustainable development, sustainability innovations, life cycle assessment, ecoefficiency and cleaner production, environmental management systems, sustainability reporting, organisational change, and management for sustainability. As a graduate from this programme, you will understand how to help business and organisations in their journey toward making societies more sustainable. The course content is framed by life-cycle thinking, systems thinking, and long-term thinking. If you would like to become a sustainability change agent in positions such as sustainability officer or sustainability director in a business, government agency, or other organisation, this programme offers you the perfect preparation.
The Sustainable Business and Innovation programme is closely affiliated with the Innovation Studies, Environmental Governance, and Energy and Resources research group of the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University. Research conducted at the Copernicus Institute covers a wide range of issues related to sustainable development and innovation. The content of the programme is also highly visible in the research of the groups.
As a student in the Sustainable Business and Innovation Master’s programme, you will:
This programme is an ideal Master for you if you are a student who wishes to complement a natural science background with knowledge of sustainability social sciences and current business practices.
