Society, Sustainability and Planning
Winter intake start date
2027-02-01
Winter intake deadline
2026-10-15
The master programme in Society, Sustainability and Planning centres around understanding the human factor in spatial interventions.
Society, Sustainability and Planning promotes a novel understanding of how to transform the built environment in collaboration with its users. Our courses pay attention to the social, cultural, political, and economic environment in which decision-making on spatial interventions takes place.
The emergence of self-organizing citizen collectives is a critical change in today's societal strive for sustainable places and futures. SSP emphasizes the role of citizens in shaping places. We interrogate why different stakeholders and social groups embrace, contest, or reject spatial changes, and how we can design their surroundings in such a way that it meets their diverse needs. We present spatial justice is a leading principle to design cities of the future. Moreover, we pay explicit attention to the ways in which spatial planning can contribute to achieving the UN’s sustainable development goals, such as healthy ageing, a clean environment, and eliminating poverty, in collaboration with citizens and civil society actors.
Our programme highlights the social aspects of the global transition towards a more sustainable society. Sustainability challenges are interconnected with the communities that face them. As such, our students learn to adopt new methodological and interactive approaches to problem-solving in different contexts. This exchange does not only take place outside of the classroom, but also within our small-scale, international department.
You learn to analyze, develop and negotiate innovative institutional designs and policy solutions to support and lead complex transformations in light of international sustainability and planning debates. Core of our focus on the human factor in society, sustainability and planning is using real-life cases and working with and engaging people in real-world living labs.
Through this framework, our graduates are able to utilize spatial planning in solving urgent social problems, such as inequality and climate change. Our alumni are critical and engaged consultants and researchers, who are in high demand on the labour market. They are employed by NGOs, consultancies, governments, and businesses.
Cambridge C1/C2 certificate: overall score 180.
IELTS Academic: overall score 6.5 (min. 6.0 in all categories)
TOEFL iBT*: overall score 90 (min. 18 in Reading and Listening, 20 in Speaking, 21 for Writing)
TOEFL iBT*: overall score 4.5 (min. 4 in Reading, Listening and for Speaking, 4.5 in Writing)
Holders of a certificate from the Bachelor's degree programme in Human Geography and Planning (Sociale Geografie & Planologie) or Spatial Planning and Design from a Dutch university are assumed to have sufficient knowledge and skills and will also be admitted to the degree programme on that basis. Admission is also possible for students that have completed the 1st year of a related Double Degree programme at the partner university.
Furthermore, access with research university Bachelor's degree: Human Geography and Regional and Urban Planning, Spatial Planning and Design, Urban Studies, Land Use Planning and Management, and Cultural Geography. You might also have access with Urban/Rural Sociology (with a focus on place-space theories and governance), Urban Management (with a focus on spatial development/communities/public policy), Environmental Management (with a focus on governance/policy/public administration), Sustainability Sciences and Sustainability Studies (with a focus on spatial governance/spatial transformation), Environmental Psychology (with a focus on governance/policy/public administration), and Public Administration (with a focus on spatial governance/spatial policy). This will be assessed individually.
A list of relevant course descriptions: This list should include statistics courses, research methods courses and demographic content knowledge courses. The list needs to include info on the content of each course, literature used, learning outcomes, and details of how each course was assessed.
Job prospects
Graduates of Society, Sustainability and Planning can start a career in:
- Different levels of government
- Consultancies, housing associations and developers (private sector)
- NGOs (environmental, social, heritage)
- Universities and research institutes
