Unique Selling Points

What makes the Leiden University MA degree programme in European Union Studies unique?

• The Leiden programme is interdisciplinary. This means that it focuses (relevant parts of) various disciplines on a unique cluster of questions. In our case we borrow concepts, theories, methodologies and models from economics, history, law and political science and concentrate them on the issue areas that form the core concerns of the European Union. Note that we take the problem areas as our starting point and not the institutions of the EU itself.
  
  

• The degree prides itself on the wide range of specialist courses in the second semester and the small class sizes that this makes possible. There will be ten optional courses available next year. As a result, it is rare for a specialist class to have more than twelve students.
  
  

• One of the particular features of this programme is its mix of specialist, academic researchers and experts with direct experience in policy-formulation and policy-making. This is an approach we have pioneered within PraktijkStudies (“practical studies”) at BA level and which we have carried over into our course design for the EUS MA.
  
  
• Another feature of our programme is its location. It is based at the oldest university in the Netherlands and a member of the exclusive league of European research universities. It has a European Documentation Centre attatched to the refurbished Law library in the Kamerlingh Onnes Building. Leiden also has the advantage that it is also located near The Hague. I am a firm believer that a degree of this kind benefits from proximity to the material and human resources concentrated in a centre of government.
  
  
• A final consideration is that our EUS MA offers an English-language degree in a country which was one of the founding members of the European Union and which has evolved a different history, attitude and discourse from that found in those countries that joined later.