Admission requirements
To take part in Area Study Sustainability Netherlands, students should be registered in the minor Sustainable Development and must have followed the previous course Sustainable Development: Big Issues New Answers and must have succesfully completed Sustainability in Practice.
Description
In this course you will explore a real-world and current sustainability challenge in a local city. In groups you will analyse the problem, its solutions and the factors that obstruct these solutions. This course gives ownership to the students in structuring the course and stimulates creative and critical thinking and dealing with complex issues. The Area Study will enable you to put into practice the theories and methods you have learned in class.
In groups, you will continue working on the project which you developed a proposal for in the Sustainability in Practice course. You will investigate a real and current question commissioned by your client by executing the research plan established in the proposal, and therefore provide the client with recommendations on how they can achieve their sustainability goals.
Course objectives
After completing this course, you will be able to:
Convert your research proposal (from the Sustainability in Practice course) into an actionable research project.
Identify how the knowledge and skills of your major program can contribute to managing and solving sustainability challenges.
Use multiple communication approaches to present research outcomes for different target audiences.
Implement innovative solutions to sustainability issues by applying a system perspective and sustainability theory in your interdisciplinary projects.
Timetable
The course runs from 6 January – 7 February 2025. Exact timing of the course, and programme details will be announced via Brightspace. Dates might change.
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
The main component of the course is the interdisciplinary group work, supplemented by content lectures, workshops, and group sessions (e.g., mid-term presentation, and peer-review sessions) to provide you with the necessary skills for developing your research proposal.
All scheduled components of the course (i.e., lectures, workshops, etc.) are to be considered compulsory. Students can miss one day without penalty if there is a justified reason. Points will be deducted from your final grade for the course if you miss more than one day as follows: for each day missed without justification, it will be deducted 0.5 points per day from your final grade. Since this is a full-time course, you are expected to work on the group report and/or (preparatory) assignments on non-contact days.
Assessment Method
Students will write a comprehensive consultancy report and present their findings in a final symposium on 31 January. Furthermore, each group will present their ongoing progress in a progress presentation prior to the final presentations.
The score for this course is comprised in:
Consultancy report to the project's commissioners (70%)
Group presentation (30%)
Reading list
Not applicable
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Registration for the minor Sustainable Development opens on May 15 (13:00 hrs) via EduXchange.
Contact
Should you have any questions regarding the registration or the minor Sustainable Development in general, please reach out to minor@cml.leidenuniv.nl.
Remarks
Students are enrolled in Brightspace. All the lecture notes, announcements, the schedule, assignments, etc. can be found there.
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.