Go-ahead for two new Campus Fryslân degree programmes

The Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science has approved Campus Fryslân’s applications for two new degree programmes: the Bachelor's in Global Responsibility and Leadership and the Master’s in Sustainable Entrepreneurship.

‘The Bachelor’s degree programme is one of the three main pillars of Campus Fryslân, alongside the Master’s College and the Graduate School’, says Dean Jouke de Vries. ‘The Master’s degree programme in Sustainable Entrepreneurship is the second Master’s programme to be approved by the Minister in a short period of time. This means that we can continue developing Campus Fryslân’s Master’s College and the campus as a whole. It's great that we are making such quick progress.’

Global challenges, local solutions

Campus Fryslân’s Bachelor’s degree programme in Global Responsibility and Leadership (GRL) aims to train students to become global citizens who are active, aware and seek to forge links. GRL will be organized in a university college setup, characterized by small-scale, intensive residential teaching in an international learning environment with a pre-entry selection procedure. The topics that the programme will focus on are related to the seventeen global goals formulated by the United Nations in 2015. ‘These global goals inspire scholarly questions, which we have translated into three specializations. The first one, “responsible planet”, focuses on energy, sustainability, planet Earth and nature. The second specialization is “responsible economy and politics”, with course units in the fields of industry, economic growth and globalization, and the third one is “responsible humanity”, which emphasizes quality of life, health, culture and conflict. Regional businesses and knowledge institutions have helped design the programme. Students will explore how the UN global goals could be achieved. They will learn to apply administrative and business insights and deploy the business world, government or civil society to this end. Global challenges, local solutions is our motto’, says De Vries.

Master’s degree programme in Sustainable Entrepreneurship

The Master’s degree programme in Sustainable Entrepreneurship (SE) is the first academic degree programme in the field of corporate social responsibility. This programme will introduce students to the theory and practice of how sustainable businesses operate and help them develop leadership skills in this field. ‘This programme is unique in its kind, so I am very proud that it has been approved. We have really gone out on a limb to establish it. It has become a beautiful degree programme based on research-driven academic teaching and close collaboration with the business world. Companies are attaching more and more value to sustainability, so our graduates will have plenty of job opportunities’, says Dr Gjalt de Jong, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Entrepreneurship of Campus Fryslân and responsible for the degree programme.

Toets Nieuwe Opleiding

Now that both degree programmes have been positively assessed by the Minister, the next hurdle to pass is the Toets Nieuwe Opleiding (TNO; new degree programme assessment) of the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO: Nederlands Vlaamse Accreditatie Organisatie). NVAO assesses new degree programmes to ensure that they satisfy the relevant quality and organizational requirements. The new degree programmes can start as soon as they have successfully passed this assessment, which is expected to be in September 2018. ‘The Master’s track in Tourism Geography and Planning was approved by the Minister in December, and now these two programmes have also been approved’, De Vries concludes. ‘Slowly but surely Campus Fryslân is taking shape.’

More information: Campus Fryslân website