MSc in Climate Adaptation Governance

How can tourism and climate adaptation shape our natural surroundings into the flourishing countryside, thriving towns, and booming cities? And how do these landscapes sway our identity and society?

Cultural Geography studies the mutual shaping of human societies and our natural surroundings into cultural landscapes. Within this program, you can follow a track on sustainable tourism, or specialize in the governance of climate adaptation. Either way leads to a Master of Science degree.

In the general program, you study the interplay between place and wellbeing in regional development. You follow classes on natural and cultural heritage, culture and identity, and mobility and multiculturalism. After advanced training in data collection and analysis methods, you conduct field research on any one of these topics yourself, learn how to conduct intervention impact assessments, and write your master thesis.

The year 2023 will see the first stocktake of worldwide adaptation efforts under the Paris Agreement. To advance the massive governance efforts required, the Global Commission and its Groningen-based Global Center on Adaptation promote eight action tracks. Through our specialization, you develop the expertise to tackle these challenges.

Why study this program in Leeuwarden?

Campus Fryslân is the only faculty in the Netherlands that offers an MSc in Cultural Geography. Our Climate Adaptation Governance specialization provides you with unique and relevant perspectives. Its governance approach enables you to add value to adaptation solutions by contributing much-needed political, economic, and financial insight to technical proposals. The embeddedness in cultural geography allows you to take historical, contemporary, and future socio-cultural landscapes into account.

Research Areas

The program is firmly rooted in Campus Fryslân's (CF) chair groups: Global and Local Governance; Governance and Innovation; and Sustainable Entrepreneurship in a Circular Economy, as well as the Frisian Flagships (Governance; Sustainable Economy; Culture, Language, and Technology; and Health & Food). We collaborate closely with the Cyan Centre on Climate Adaptation and the Global Center on Adaptation, whose CEO Prof. Patrick Verkooijen holds a Chair in Climate Adaptation Governance at CF.

Taken together, these vast knowledge resources in cultural geography, sustainable tourism, and climate adaptation governance-related studies allow you to benefit from existing in-house expertise and even get involved with the latest topical research conducted by your lecturers and faculty partners.

During our program, you will follow courses on Place, Regions & Identities; Fieldwork Cultural Geography; Adaptation Governance; Nature, Landscape & Heritage; Culture & Community-Based Adaptation; Qualitative Research Methods; Urban Adaptation & Innovation; and Social Impact Assessment.

Courses

• Adaptation Governance (5 EC)
• Culture & Community-Based Adaptation (5 EC)
• Fieldwork Cultural Geography (5 EC)
• Nature, Landscape & Heritage (5 EC)
• Place, Regions & Identities (5 EC)
• Qualitative Research Methods (5 EC)
• Social Impact Assessment (5 EC)
• Thesis (20 EC)
• Urban Adaptation & Innovation (5 EC)

Study load

35 hours of class and self-study per week on average

The expected study load is 30 to 40 hrs per week, adding up to 1800 hrs in total for 60 ECTS per total of the program. Most classes are taught in Leeuwarden or online (hybrid education); some classes may take place in Groningen or contain regional excursions.

Program options

• MSc Cultural Geography (track)

Study abroad

Study abroad is unaccommodated

Cultural Geography equips you with the necessary theoretical and practical tools to contribute to place-related liveability in society. Quality of life depends to a large extent on successful adaptation to climate change. This is not only a local, technical challenge but one of global governance. After finishing the specialization, you will be an expert in climate adaptation governance pathways. In such a position, you can positively influence key adaptation strategies, policies, and decisions.

Job prospects

Field trips, guest lectures, workshops, and serious gaming simulations, which are part of your program, allow for regular exchanges with local and global faculty partners, such as the Global Center on Adaptation. These connect you with potential employers already during your studies. Next to this curriculum, the University of Groningen offers a wide range of career services to support your job market preparations.

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

Job examples

Possible jobs

As a leading Cultural Geographer and sustainable tourism or climate adaptation governance specialist, your expertise enables you to work i.a. as a researcher and lecturer in academia; as analyst or trainer within both the public and private sectors; and as strategist, policy-maker, advisor, project officer, or program coordinator for local, regional, and national governments, intergovernmental bodies, non-governmental organizations at home and abroad, the management of businesses, and other institutions.