Why this programme

The specialisation is offered by leading academics and policy advisers. It has a coherent structure and clear focus on managing dynamic urban governance networks, going deeper into the complexity of urban issues as well as developing the skills and strategies to manage these. 

The Urban Governance of Inclusive Sustainable Cities programme consists of a set of courses that complement each other very well. And jointly provide a well-structured and extensive insight into the complexity of urban challenges as well as potential approaches for tackling them. The courses build very well on each other in my opinion, and block for block we were able to build on and expand our theoretical knowledge as well as gain some practical experiences in the form of different (group) projects. As part of the Urban Governance Lab for instance, we had the opportunity to work on a real-life consultancy case for the municipality of Breda, collaborating with the urban professionals in the field, providing us with ample opportunities to enhance both our hard and soft skills.

Also, I consider the composition of the team of lecturers, made of scholars and professionals from Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences and the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, as a strong suit of this programme as it makes for a unique and compelling combination of theoretical insights and practical expertise.

Finally, it was intriguing to get to know people from different parts of the world. And gain an understanding of how theories of public administration and urban governance, in general, are applied and play out in varying national and local contexts. Discussing takeaways and coming up with new ideas together to combine different sources of knowledge, when approaching urban governance issues.

I have grown a strong interest in regional and urban development throughout my previous studies of European Studies at Maastricht University. It has been interesting to see how the EU can contribute to the development of regional and urban areas. Nonetheless, I felt the need to understand the other side as cities are facing various complex issues nowadays and I believe that the EU is not the only one that can contribute to solve those wicked problems. Indeed, cities are expected to have to deal with an important amount of problems linked to the worrying increase in population density (e.g. pollution, gentrification, maintenance, data privacy, etc.). Accordingly, this programme was the perfect opportunity to gain insights from various concepts related to urban governance, urban policy, as well as urban management. Therefore, I decided to apply to the Master of Urban Governance of Inclusive Sustainable Cities at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

This master combines the expertise of professionals from the Institute of Housing and Development Studies (IHS) as well as from the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB). As a result, students gain significant knowledge from experts in the fields of public administrations and urban management. Moreover, you might want to look into this programme if you are interested in understanding how multiple actors in urban areas (i.e. governments, businesses, citizens, etc.) organize themselves around dealing with certain matters – such as climate adaption, urban renewal, smart cities. The courses that constitute this master build up on a critical reflection of today’s public administrations and lay down innovative ways of dealing with urban problems.

Moreover, this master has been taught in such a way that it stimulates your personal growth by giving you the means to work on your professional skills. Thus, I highly recommend this programme for the people that like to think out of the box or are open to being challenged. Without any doubts, each of the projects I worked on during this year have expected from us to be focused, critical, collaborative, and creative. As a result, I have gained much more confidence due to all these exercises and therefore I strongly believe that this master can make you become a great policy advisor.

On a final note, being a Swiss and French national living in Rotterdam, I believe that I have learned from the best. This programme has not only allowed me to know where I want to see myself in the near future, but also to be well-versed in the studied fields. At the beginning of the year, I was afraid that the programme would focus too much on Dutch cases. Nevertheless, the projects provided to be quite various in terms of locality (e.g. Boston, Berlin, North-Rhine Westphalia, etc.). Moreover, the fact that I was quite free to choose on the cities while writing papers and the thesis was a great exercise to apply the existing knowledge concerning urban governance coming from the Netherlands. To conclude this section, I recommend anyone that shows an interest in urban governance to apply for this master.

Enoch Tabak is an alumnus of the Master of Urban Governance of Inclusive Sustainable Cities programme. What he liked most about the programme was: "The Master of Urban Governance of Inclusive Sustainable Cities programme strikes a great balance between providing insights through the latest urban governance theory and letting us dive into practice, for example through the Urban Governance Lab!".

In addition, he mentioned why doing this programme in Rotterdam was of added value: "Embedded in the city of Rotterdam, itself a more and more vocal actor in international city networks, the programme offered me ample opportunity to make connections and tap into synergies with other projects and initiatives."