Masters Degrees in Cultural Geography, Netherlands

The Msc programme Cultural Geography aims to train students to become professionally competent in the field of geography and liveability so that they can make a useful contribution to improving place-related liveability, quality of life and wellbeing in society.

The programme deals with the qualities of a place (neighborhood, village, city, region) that add to the quality of life as experienced by inhabitants and visitors. Aspects that influence the liveability of places and communities are safety, health, quality of the residential environment (housing, facilities and services), social interaction and participation, community involvement, possibilities for recreation and tourism, quality and unicity of the landscape. Feelings of rootedness and belonging, but also curiosity and excitement about new places, positively influence the liveability of places at local, regional, national and global levels. This may support social cohesion, community resilience and the adaptive potential of people and communities to innovate.

Why in Groningen?

Groningen is the only university in the Netherlands where you can do a Master in Cultural Geography. Students are trained with the necessary critical, analytical, methodological and theoretical tools to contribute to place-related liveability in society. Career perspectives vary from governments, NGOs and corporate roles.

Job perspectives

You will find graduates of the Msc. Cultural Geography in a variety of places.

Three types of work stand out: 1. conducting scientific research or do research for a company, 2. the formulation of policy and advice and representing spatial interests, 3. the transfer of information in areas such as historic preservation, tourism, journalism, or education,. For example, you work in a municipality, a county, a consulting firm, a heritage organization, a housing association or tourist agencies.

To optimize the connection between the Master's program and the labour market, we try to stay in touch with our alumni, for example via the LinkedIn group Master Cultural Geography.

Research in the Master

The research in the Master Cultural Geography is strongly embedded in the research of its staff, on the themes of Place, Identity and Well-being.

Central focus is the lived experiences of local peoples all over the world. Topics of recent research projects are: community engagement; ageing and wellbeing; innovation and rural transformation; socio-spatial consequences of population decline; heritage; historical landscape change; perception and evaluation of nature and landscape; nature and health; death and burial; entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility; employment opportunities; housing and the living environments of various groups within society; social impact assessment; social aspects of new technology; governance of places; social aspects of agriculture and farming; social aspects of natural resource management; and visitor and host experiences of tourism.

Our research embraces the social relations between people and places, emotional geographies, and the experience of spatial transformation and liveability. We believe that knowing one's 'place' is fundamental to the formation of human identity and to wellbeing. Forms of cultural expression such as art, architecture, ritual and language, and our understanding and appreciation of nature and landscape all interact with the physical environment in the creation of our individual and community life-stories. As such, the ways in which we construct and transform spaces and places manifest our imagination and self-awareness. In doing so, we make sense of, define, and celebrate our personal and collective identities, communities and localities.

Our research is strongly empirically embedded. During the master, students learn qualitative and quantitative research methodologies regarding place attachment, identities and liveability. In the Master thesis, there is room for innovative methods including visual methodologies and location-based applications (social or soft GIS).

The research theme of Place, Identity and Wellbeing fits within the faculty research programme 'towards Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation' (tWIST) and the themes population decline and Healthy Ageing.

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Master's specialisation in Urban and Cultural Geography

Cities are the vibrant and dynamic focal points of today’s society. These diverse agglomerations of people, companies and organisations are both locations for innovation and for conflict. Cities are regarded as creative places as well as conflictual places for divergent communities. In this Master's specialisation you will study how different actors influence the physical form of cities but also the way in which they present and understand the character and identity of cities and how they make use of the typical urban environment in their daily activities. They create and make cities.

See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/ucg

Entry Requirements (Additional)

The requirements for admission include:
- a bachelor degree in Human Geography received from Radboud University or another relevant bachelor degree with at least 24 EC in conflict studies and/or political geography
- Having successfully completed a course in social scientific research methods is highly recommended and will increase your chance of getting selected for this specialisation
- excellent proficiency in English
- a letter of motivation
- two letters of recommendation
- list of your grades obtained during previous training

Career prospects

The Master's specialisation Urban and Cultural Geography prepares students for a professional career in government, semi-government, and business. It also provides a stepping stone towards a research career in academia or consultancy. You will be able to apply the scientific insights and the practical skills you have acquired to topics including the development and marketing of cities, multi-culturality and integration, innovative and creative urban milieus, urban identities, cultural industries.
This would qualify you for a whole range of different jobs. Some of you might find a job in a government agency, e.g. as city-manager, city marketeer, city planner, integration agent, city-network manager, PR- manager, etc. Others will end up in semi-government agencies such as development agencies, cultural planning agencies, but also research institutes, etc. Finally also private industry offers a number of opportunities for urban and cultural specialists. One might think of jobs such as event manager, museum director, city marketeer, consultant, journalist, innovation consultant, communication manager or media specialist.

See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/ucg

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Introduction to the programme

Human Geography is a research field which focuses on studying the spatial behaviour of people, firms and organisations. Or, to put it simply, it is a study that observes the relationship between human activities and their spatial environment. Because it is an integrative discipline, Human Geography serves as an excellent platform for integrating knowledge from various related disciplines, such as Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Business Administration and Development Studies.

Specialisations in the Master's in Human Geography

The Human Geography Master's programme at Radboud University offers five specialisations and the option to develop your own specialisation:
- Conflicts, Territories and Identities
- Economic Geography
- Europe: Governance, Borders and Identities
- Globalisation, Migration and Development
- Urban and Cultural Geography
- Free specialisation: combination of courses of your own choice, subject to approval by the Examination Board

The Master's programme can also be conducted in dual mode (information in Dutch: studying next to working in the human geographic profession). Additionally there is a post-Master's programme for secondary teacher training also called educational Master's at the ILS (in Dutch).

Assessment during the programme

Throughout the Master's programme you will be assessed by a mixture of written exams, essays, papers, projects, oral presentations and your Master's thesis.

Career prospects with a degree in Human Geography

Graduates of the Master's in Human Geography will be qualified for many different job positions. These jobs all require excellent analytical skills at an academic level, a critical perspective, thorough knowledge of societal relations and a clear vision of how crucial societal problems can be solved. Human Geography graduates find jobs rather easily at (international) research institutes, international companies, or at consultancy firms. Top-ranking positions, in private industry as well as in governmental and non-governmental organisations can also be found.

Our approach to this field

Human Geography is a research field which focuses on studying the spatial behaviour of people, firms and organisations. Or, to put it simply, it is a study that observes the relationship between human activities and their spatial environment. Because it is an integrative discipline, Human Geography serves as an excellent platform for integrating knowledge from various related disciplines, such as Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Business Administration and Development Studies.

See the website http://www.ru.nl/english/education/masters/human-geography

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Tourism is based on the cultural appreciation and value of the cities and landscapes tourists visit. Tourism also has a major economic, social and environmental impact on places and regions. This Master's specialisation allows you to understand the processes involved and how to use them in practice. In this specialisation you will mainly learn to understand and interpret advanced theories and practices of leisure and tourism and their influence on the social and physical environment. Since tourism is mainly about experiencing places and events, you will learn to understand where these experiences come from, what effects they have and how they can be influenced.

Why study Cultural Geography and Tourism at Radboud University?

•Tourists travel to places which are different, attractive, challenging and special, and which provide them with a thrilling experience. Geographers study, how these experiences actually evolve, how they are created and produced, how these experiences differ from group to group and how places can be designed accordingly?
•Tourism also has a profound effect on places, on the local economy, on the culture of the people who live there and on the ecology and landscape. Also these aspects are of central interest for the scholars in this Master's specialisation. Finally, not just places are affected, but the movements, flows and related streams of people, goods, money, information, images, and traffic have an enormous effect on our global landscape, which we study in the framework of this Master's specialisation.
•This Master's specialisation is a concise and intensive one-year Master's programme preparing you as a full-fledged academic in this field and as such is unique in the Netherlands. Our Human Geography Master's programme, regularly ranks as the best Dutch master programme in this field in the Netherlands.
•This Master's specialisation has an international character, with students and lecturers from all over the world, and at the same time offers many opportunities to do research abroad or to gain professional experience abroad.
•Although the foundation of this specialisation is geographical, our approach to this theme is highly multidisciplinary to include related fields as cultural studies, psychology, anthropology, economics, spatial planning, environmental policy studies, etc..
•You’ll conduct your Master’s thesis research in the framework of a research internship at an organisation active in a field related to tourism. This will give you a taste of professional life in the field and enhance your chances on the job market.
•You’ll also benefit from the advantages of the Master’s programme in Human Geography in general.

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This programme trains you to do research in economic and cultural geography, planning and demography. The programme is aimed at people who are theoretically or methodologically orientated.

The Research Master in Regional Studies is interdisciplinary. It studies the fields of demography, human geography and regional planning from a social and economic science perspective.

The two-year programme provides ample opportunity for you to focus on the themes that interest you. You will gain a thorough philosophical and methodological background, and receive a solid training in qualitative and quantitative research methods. You will participate in research projects under supervision of experienced staff members, within the Faculty's Research Program TWIST: Towards Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation.

You are required to gain some international experience, for instance by doing research in a foreign context, or by participating in an international workshop.

Why in Groningen?

The Research Master in Regional Studies in Groningen is unique because it delivers excellent researchers in the core themes of economic geography, cultural geography, planning and demography. At the same time, graduates combine their expertise in their own field with the capacity to put these themes in a broader, interdisciplinary perspective of the interactions between population, economy, culture and planning.

Job perspectives

You may opt for a PhD-career at a university. Commercial research and consultancy firms also hire graduates. In addition, you may work at research units of local, regional, national or even international government organisations. Finally, you can work in government related research institutes, such as the Netherlands Institute of Spatial Research (in Dutch: RPB, Ruimtelijk Planbureau).

The program of the Research Master in Regional Studies is intertwined with the Faculty's Research Program, towards Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation (tWIST). In courses such as Individual Research Training (IRT) and Master Thesis, students participate in ongoing research projects of the senior academic staff, which are all embedded in tWIST.

The Study Program consists of different courses in the field of Regional Studies, related to the topics in tWIST. The specific courses depend on the individual student’s interests and specialization.

The research themes Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation are studied in the broad field of geography and spatial planning, which investigates the role which space, place, location and distance, play in our communities and societies. We employ a range of qualitative, quantitative, micro and macro research methodologies to uncover these issues and to help improve wellbeing, to encourage innovation, and to increase our understanding of spatial transformation processes. The research work undertaken in each of the departments within the Faculty is also supported by the use of advanced geographical information systems (GIS). The research themes of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences complement the University of Groningen’s Healthy Ageing research program. Society is ageing and also becoming more geographically mobile. The outcome of this is that growing social inequalities in terms of wellbeing, heath and wealth are interrelated with emerging spatial inequalities. These are major issues faced by contemporary society for which the Faculty of Spatial Sciences is uniquely placed to provide coherent policy analysis, design and impact assessment.

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This programme trains you to do research in the Spatial Sciences: economic and cultural geography, spatial planning and demography. The programme is aimed at people who want to become successful researchers in the field.

The two-year Research Master in Spatial Sciences (before September 1, 2016 called Regional Studies) is interdisciplinary. Spatial sciences, regional studies geography and spatial planning constitute an interrelated, inherently broad and multi-disciplinary field. A field not only rich in theoretical variety but also encompassing both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, from ethnographic to case study to statistical and econometric approaches. You will develop real competences in all of these areas, in order to choose your own area of research, and become a successful researcher in the Spatial Sciences field in general.

You will participate in research projects under supervision of experienced staff members, within the Faculty's Research Program tWIST: Towards Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation. Regular personal coaching, guidance and monitoring will help you to identify your own preferred learning trajectory and develop your individual research agenda. You are required to gain some international experience, by doing research in a foreign context, and by participating in international workshops or conferences. You can also choose to study abroad.

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