Master of Science in Environmental Science and Technology
This Master’s programme trains a new generation of professionals to provide sustainable solutions for increasingly complex environmental problems.
What
This Master’s programme trains a new generation of professionals to provide sustainable solutions for increasingly complex environmental problems. You will learn to create a healthier living environment for all, whilst avoiding pollution, preserving our ecosystems, and using and recovering resources sustainably. You will also learn to tackle environmental issues from local to global scale, both in developed and developing economies, and from oceans to megacities, duly accounting for the driving forces of global climate change. The first year provides a broad education in all the core disciplines of environmental science and technology. The entire second year allows you to fully specialise (including your Master’s dissertation research) in one of three environmental topics of international concern (majors), all of which are supported by top-level Ghent University research. The programme caters to an international audience and is fully English-taught. The study programme can be attended by students from across the globe who are interested in solving environmental problems, regardless of whether they have the ambition to improve the quality of life in their own city or country, or on another continent altogether. This international dimension enables frequent contacts and common activities with fellow-students from various backgrounds and cultures, thus also enhancing the students’ social skills.
For whom
The admission requirements vary. Depending on your prior education, you are either able to enrol directly, or there are additional requirements.
Structure
The first-year curriculum (55 credits) is dedicated to acquiring a broad, comprehensive basis in all the core domains of environmental science and technology, divided into five modules:
- Environmental Sustainability and Policy (climate change, legislation and economic aspects);
- Environmental Diagnostics (environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology);
- Environmental Technology (water, soil, air, waste);
- Applied Ecology (freshwater, marine, microbial);
- Research Skills (modelling ans simulation).
In the second year, students need to choose one out of three specialist majors (21 credits each):
- Environmental Assessment and Management of Chemicals: environmental contamination with chemical micro-pollutants is of increasing worldwide concern, as it is thought to contribute significantly to human disease and reduced ecological health, including biodiversity loss. In this major, you will learn to improve human and ecosystems health by avoiding or reducing chemical pollution of water, air and soil whilst still enjoying the societal benefits of chemicals;
- Resource Recovery Technology: we are confronted with ramping environmental problems and resource scarcity, driven by an ever-growing global population and boosted material consumption. In a world with finite resources, making the best possible use of them is paramount to the protection of our environment. The recovery of resources from waste is a critical part of the so-called circular economy model. In this major, you will learn to extract precious resources from waste streams to enable a fully circular society;
- Urban Environmental Management: although city densification is often considered a need for a growing world population, it also puts a strong pressure on the urban environmental quality and quality of life of citizens. Major environmental challenges in the next decades will be located in the urban environment. In this major, you will learn to tackle current problems in cities and how sustainability can be guaranteed in urban settings in the future;
The Master’s dissertation (30 credits) is also programmed in the second year and is related to the chosen major. Students can either propose their own topic (which could be related to an environmental problem in their own country) or choose one from a list of available topics. For certain topics scholarships are available. Finally, students can complete the remaining fourteen credits with elective course units (including e.g. Academic English, Programming, Artificial Intelligence) or a short work placement at a company in the environmental science and technology sector.
Labour Market
Environmental Science and Technology graduates become active in diverse sectors and take on a wide variety of professional responsibilities. They become – among others – entrepreneurs, policy-makers, science advisers, technology consultants, R&D specialists in the industry, researchers, or lecturers at higher education institutions. The Environmental Science and Technology labour market clamours for people who are broadly trained in all aspects of environmental science and technology. There is also an increasing demand for creative and impactful problem-solvers with advanced knowledge and skills in emerging and globally pressing environmental topics, such as those offered in the majors: chemicals management, resource recovery and urban environmental management.
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
Opportunity for specialisation: the entire second year allows you to fully specialise in one of three environmental topics of international concern through unique majors. This includes the Master’s dissertation research. Our majors are embedded in top-level Ghent University research by the lecturers.
Focus on sustainability aspects: sustainability is a common theme throughout the programme, woven into almost all aspects of the curriculum. The programme offers a holistic approach to studying environmental problems by focusing on the broad social, economic and legislative framework. The programme emphasises sustainable circular technologies with a focus on re-using natural raw materials, life cycle analysis and clean technology, and the recovery of by-products. The programme focuses on current social trends and internationally evolving insights regarding sustainable materials and raw materials management, closing cycles, and purifying and valorising residual flows in the Technosphere.
International dimension: the study programme attracts students from across the globe, who all share the common goal of solving environmental problems, regardless of whether they have the ambition to improve the quality of life in their city or country, or on another continent altogether. This international dimension enables frequent contacts and activities with fellow students from various backgrounds and cultures, thus also enhancing the students’ social skills.
Active learning: our programme implements a wide range of active and blended teaching methods. We actively stimulate the integration of theoretical knowledge into specific applications and practical issues through guest speakers, company visits, lab exercises, PC exercises, case studies and group assignments (where possible in collaboration with the professional field).
Approachable expert teaching staff: our programme boasts a dedicated team of lecturers and other staff members from various disciplines. Our internationally renowned lecturers combine their research expertise with a passion for passing on knowledge, and student appreciation for the approachability of our lecturers is high.
Strengths
Research-based & application-oriented: the programme is based on excellent research and ties in with societal and industrial demands. It prepares students well for actual demands on the labour market within the broad field of environmental technology.
Multi-disciplinarity: the first year provides a broad education in the core disciplines of environmental science and technology. In addition to the specialisation through their choice of major, our graduates will also have a broad knowledge of chemical, physical, (micro)biological and ecological environmental analysis on the one hand, and of the technologies to tackle environmental challenges, on the other. Throughout the programme, students acquire the necessary understanding, skills and attitudes to (1) assess environmental processes and risks objectively and quantitatively, (2) to do so by employing a critical and interdisciplinary approach, and (3) to design, operate, and put into practice innovative and sustainable environmental solutions while keeping an open mind on the socio-economic and legal context.
Student support and involvement: the Programme Committee is at the heart of continuous quality assurance and highlights its importance to lecturers. Participation of lecturers and students in our monthly Programme Committee meetings is high. The faculty stimulates a permanent quality culture by organising faculty-wide thematic quality assurance-related workshops, exchanging good practices amongst lecturers, etc.
Challenges
Heterogeneous education backgrounds: our programme welcomes students with different preliminary training. Coming from the Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, and Engineering programmes, our students have highly heterogeneous starting skills and knowledge. This diversity in prior knowledge is a point of continued attention for us. We are aware that some first-year course units may be a hurdle for some students, and that these students might have to put in additional extracurricular efforts, either before or during the term in which these course units are taught. However, the Programme Committee and the student representatives monitor this situation continuously and try to find tailored solutions in consultation with lecturers whenever possible.
Balancing the study load: some students may experience the study load of some course units as quite heavy, especially in the first term of the first year. The Programme Committee has already engaged in a curricular revision for a more optimal balance of the study load in the first and the second terms. Nonetheless, the Programme Committee will continue to monitor and evaluate this matter through data collection of the actual study load (in consultation with the students) and further adaptation as needed.
Structural consultations with the professional field and alumni: our programme has many contacts with the environmental science and technology sector, but mostly through the lecturers’ personal contacts. These need to be inventoried and structured further. We entertain the idea of periodically inviting professional field representatives and alumni as a sounding board for our programme.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 10/07/2024. In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.