Does globalization undermine social solidarity? Does populism threaten our democracies? How do we encourage corporate social responsibility? And how can we rise to the challenge of climate change?
Our world today faces complex challenges that cannot be tackled by one discipline alone. We need an approach that cuts across boundaries. Our selective one-year Master’s programme in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) offers this interdisciplinary approach. The programme aims at ambitious students with a wide range of interests – students who want to explore the philosophical dimensions of political and economic issues and develop and apply their critical thinking tools. If you are interested to work at the interface between politics, economics and philosophy, this is your master's programme.
What will you learn? The programme will equip you with the central theoretical and methodological tools from PPE that allow you to understand and critically examine complex problems ranging from global poverty to the financial crisis. You will learn to analyze the political and economic complexities of organizational structures. You will see what is at stake in theories of democracy, collective decision‐making, rational choice, social inequality and economic growth. And you will learn how to apply theoretical insights to concrete policy problems both locally and globally. Find more information on page 73 in the 2024-2025 Study Guide.
Check out the Open Days at the University of Groningen. The next Philosophy Master's Day will take place on Wednesday 20 November 2024 and will be live-streamed.
Scholarship options
Admitted prospective students from outside the EU/EEA can apply for the NL Scholarship.
I'm now working as a Policy Officer at Universities UK based in London. I am part of a team supporting the respective associations of veterinary schools, dental schools, and dental hospitals. I organize meetings and conferences for the groups, work on projects and facilitate information sharing within their networks.
Day to day, this looks like analyzing a survey for recently graduated vets on how well their degree prepared them for practice, or managing a bank account to ensure subscription fees cover upcoming costs.
To get my job it was essential to prove I could critically analyse evidence and best practice for policy making – luckily we had courses for just that within the PPE MSc! Demonstrating professional skills were just as important, writing reports as part of the course was excellent practice for what I do now. I came to this job after a six-month internship in a university consortium in Brussels (The Guild) immediately after graduation. I was enabled to take this opportunity by an Erasmus+ mobility grant, kindly arranged for me by the Philosophy faculty.
I'd like to continue a career within the university policy sector. I find the scope, impact and direction of the work makes for a motivating and rewarding environment.
After my studies PPE in Groningen, I started as a Data Science Consultant at IG&H in Utrecht. Here, I help companies to solve problems by finding answers in data, mostly in the Healthcare and the Retail sector.
During my master's I've written some essays about privacy and GDPR, something that remains very relevant in my current position. It is great to put to practice the theoretical knowledge we gather in the PPE programme!
Near the end of my Master´s degree in PPE, I successfully applied for a spot in the Government Trainee Programme (Rijkstraineeprogramma) at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.
During my Master’s in PPE, I had become very interested in policy-making, and especially so in climate-related policy. The Dutch energy transition is a prime example of an interdisciplinary problem that requires insights from both Philosophy, Political Science and Economics. What constitutes intergenerational climate justice? To what extent should our government take seriously climate-sceptic voters? And how can we use economic tools to stimulate companies and citizens to embrace sustainable measures? The latter question is very relevant within the context of the project that I currently work on.
My team and I are preparing the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl) for the new period of Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (Gemeenschappelijk Landbouwbeleid). As the official paying agency, RVO.nl is partly responsible for making sure that the new Common Agricultural Policy contributes to Dutch and European climate goals, while providing financial support for farmers.