Master of Arts in Social Sciences (Global Studies Programme)

The Master of Arts in Social Sciences (Global Studies Programme) is the oldest higher degree of its kind worldwide. It is an interdisciplinary international programme comprising sociology, political science, anthropology, and human geography. During the two years of the programme, students work in these disciplines at prestigious institutions on three continents. The high-ranking institutions offer students a unique study experience, while at the same time, students have the exceptional opportunity to learn outside the classroom through the Master's programme. They study together all around the world as a group composed of students from all corners of the globe. The intercultural, interdisciplinary, and intercontinental experience makes them experts in the currents of globalisation and their study. In the Global Studies Programme (GSP), students acquire profound theoretical knowledge, methodological training, and practical skills for the comparative analysis of the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of globalisation processes in a research-led institutional framework. Students learn to approach social phenomena and processes of globalisation from at least four disciplines, comprising sociology, political science, anthropology, and human geography. Due to the fundamental insight that all global processes are at the same time of local-regional as well as of global-transregional importance, the programme aims at understanding the manifestations of transnational processes on the concrete local/regional level and the interdependencies between different regions as well as between regional and global processes. Accordingly, students learn to analyse the various forms, manifestations and impacts of globalisation from different regional perspectives. As social scientists, the students examine a variety of social phenomena and institutions in an interconnected interdependent world. The thematic focus here depends on current global events and regional research interests. These can include migration, social movements and civil society, inequalities, climate politics/sustainability, pandemics, populism, and knowledge production, to only name a few. Studying at three places on three different continents in a flexible and student-centred learning environment with international faculty makes students aware of the relativity and constructedness of societies, politics, and cultures. Besides their further qualification as experts of transnational interconnections and interdependencies, it strengthens their intercultural competence.