Honours
The following Honours Programmes are available for all students of the Graduate School of Natural Sciences:
The Honours programme Quantitative Biology offers students extra challenge in the field of Quantitative Biology and Computational Life Sciences.
Honours programmes university-wide
The Honours College offers three interdisciplinary honours programmes for Master's students that want an extra academic challenge. You can choose from the Leadership Programme, the Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminars (GHIS) and Young Innovators. You follow these programmes on top of your Master's programme at the Utrecht University.
In the Dutch and English spoken Leadership programme you learn about leadership models and what makes effective leaders. It is designed for students that are eager to learn about interdisciplinary theories, leadership in daily practice and want to develop their own personal leadership skills and style. You start with theory sessions given by researches from diverse disciplines, each with an expertise in leadership. During the interactive and intimate College Tours you can engage with leaders from different domains in society, such as business, culture, higher education, as well as politics. In the last study period you will shadow a leader as part of the Leader to Shadow component: you work together with this leader in his or her organisation and experience first-hand how leadership works in daily business.
The Leadership Programme offers you the chance to develop personally and professionally. Throughout the year you follow workshops to develop your own skills; these range from personal leadership, influencing and motivating others and public speaking. These are held by experts from and outside of the UU. You also have regular meetings with your programme leader to reflect on skills you would like to develop.
GHIS is designed for open-minded and broadly societally interested students that are eager to develop interdisciplinary research skills that help combat today's global and local complicated challenges. This honours programme consists of a series of small-scale seminars that allow you to explore socially relevant research themes outside of your own field, under the supervision of leading UU professors. These themes range from global health issues and complex systems to trends in youth culture, philosophy of science, and the contested notion of citizenship. You will find that such topics are multifaceted and require an interdisciplinary approach.
During the seminars you discuss these themes with students from other disciplines. This teaches you to not only work together with researchers from other fields, but also to reflect on your own expertise. Throughout the programme you learn what it means to do interdisciplinary research.
For more information about GHIS, information sessions and the application procedure, click here.
Young Innovators is an honours programme for socially involved students. The programme stands for sustainability, social innovation and regenerativity. A regenerative society contributes to and cares for the earth and its diverse communities. This programme is a community of changemakers that focuses on creating positive impact through social innovation and personal leadership. Throughout the year you work on issues related to the wellbeing of our society. In interdisciplinary teams of students you work towards social innovation.
You embark on a practical learning journey during which you find your own place as a changemaker in our current society and what drives you to enact change. As personal development is key in Young Innovators, you also attend workshops on topics such as leadership, teamwork, group dynamics and innovation processes. The programme allows room for reflexive growth to develop these skills and practices. Lastly, Young Innovators works with outside communities on real issues to achieve change.