EUROPEAN STUDIES, MASTER

Organisation of the European Studies programme

The four-semester programme (120 ECTS) is organised as follows:

• The first semester (September 1st until mid-January) has international relations and foreign-policy as overall topic. It consists of course work and project work in the areas of comparative regional integration, the external role of the EU and of International Relations. Separate courses om method are offered, too.

• The second semester (February 1st until mid-June) is focused on the EU how it is organized and how it works. It involves course work and project work mainly in the area of EU policies, EU institutions and EU law, European Political Economy and a course on ‘Rising Powers and Emerging Markets’. Also a Simulation Game is part of the semester

• The third semester (September to late January) involves an internship in an EU, national or non-governmental agency related to Europe, or a study period at a foreign university

• The fourth semester (February 1st until mid-June ) is focused on the Master's Thesis. It consists of independent research work of about 80-100 pages with an in-depth study of a problem-area within the field of European Studies. The writing of a Master’s Thesis should be done in 4-5 months. 

Examples of projects 1st & 2nd semester

• The reasons for Brexit
• EU regional development policy and Poland
• North Stream 2 and EU Energy Policy
• Realism and Liberalism in the Foreign Policies of Russia and the European Union
• Press freedom in the EU: A single case study of the press freedom in Poland and the actions from the EU in this matter
• Mass Movement Institutionalization: The cases of Spain, Italy and Greece
• Where does the EU go? Finding the bases of European foreign policy
• Collective identity construction in Europe: The European Citizens’ Initiative as building identity from bottom-up
   

Examples of MA-theses

• The origins of the Ukraine conflict
• EU development policy in relation to Cameroon
• The European Court of Justice as a promoter of integration in the field of health policy
• Finnish Arctic Policy
• More Power, Less Radicalism? : A study of the interaction between the European Parliament and interest groups in environmental policy-making in the European Union
• EU Foreign Policy After Lisbon – focus on the high representative and the European External Action Service – A foreign Policy Analysis
• The Danish Defence 25 years after Maastricht. Europeanization as an intervening mechanism

► In the Project Library you can find projects written by the students

► The curriculum of European Studies (2020)

The study method at AAU is called Problem Based Learning (PBL). Together with your fellow students you will work with real life problems by way of problem based project work.
 

learn more about Pbl at aau