Evert Schot

After I graduated, I became a Rijkstrainee (Central Government entry level public servant) for two years. During this period I worked for several divisions of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports. The traineeship also gave me the opportunity to work for the European Commission in Brussels for six months. After, I became a policy advisor at the ministry, mainly concerned with the issues of healthcare fraud - a challenging subject that often draws a lot of media and political attention. Among other things, my colleagues and I dealt with improving the internal financial processes of healthcare providers like hospitals and improving the quality controls exercised by healthcare insurers via intermediaries who organise care for individuals with long-term care needs which is paid for by provided personal budgets provided by the government.

Part of my job was preparing our minister for parliamentary appearances on this subject. In these cases, we prepared a ‘dossier’ with all necessary facts, figures and possible speaking points. During the debate itself, we tried to prepare answers on the spot to questions asked by the MPs.

Another important part of my job was cooperating with several stakeholders, like professional associations and interest groups. These organisations have a lot of clout in the health care sector and it is hard to come up with effective policies without their input or support. That is why I often met with them, consulting them about new policy initiatives and informing one another on what we both work on. We needed to know their key concerns. A specific subject that we have discussed quite often were the norms professional groups communicate to their members concerning financial matters.

After I graduated, I decided to find a job that does not primarily focus on doing research. This is because I wanted to gain experience with other professional roles as well. I believe the research master provides a solid basis for this. You learn to easily break down complex problems. In addition, the Master’s programme also challenges you to manage your own individual ‘project’ for a whole year (i.e. your thesis). The two-year programme also provides you with enough space to find your interests, regarding the specific subjects you like as well as the professional role that fits you best. The research master gives you the necessary experience to find your way into the fields of policy making, consultancy, research and beyond.