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Policy Analysis and Action Plan

Course
2023-2024

Admission requirements

This course is open for all students that are enrolled in the Minor Biodiversity.

Description

During this course you will utilize the acquired knowledge on biodiversity, it’s origin, importance, threats and what we can do about them from the previous Minor courses, to conduct a Policy Analysis and write a Policy Action report about a biodiversity issue. Additionally, students will create a short influential video report on the same topic. The first week will start with some introductory lectures about how to construct short videos. Subsequently, the students will break down into smaller groups which will focus on a specific biodiversity issue. Each group will have a specially appointed supervisor. The following weeks will be filled with studying literature, having group meetings with the supervisor and interview stakeholders in order to prepare a written and a video report. This course and the minor will be concluded with a video symposium.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course students:
1. Evaluate an assignment/request from a customer regarding biodiversity issues. 
2. Analyse the biological and societal context of the issue.
3. Identify and analyse relevant stakeholders and their specific interests. 
4. Understand and apply biodiversity information, concepts and tools to solve pressing societal biodiversity issues. 
5. Evaluate relevance of existing information for issue at hand (cf dilemma’s). 
6. Evaluate possible solutions/answers for specific stakeholders. 
7. Create a written problem-oriented report from a policy perspective in which different scenarios and actions are formulated and evaluated to solve the biodiversity issue at stake. 

Timetable

From 8 January 2024 – 2 February 2024. A detailed schedule will be provided on Brightspace before the start of the course.

You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.

MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).

For more information, watch the video or go the the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.

Mode of instruction

Lectures, workgroup discussions

Assessment method

The quality of the video presentation will account for 25% and the written report will account for 75% of the final grading. For both the minimum grade is 6.0 before rounding to whole numbers.

Reading list

None

Registration

From the academic year 2022-2023 on every student has to register for courses with the new enrollment tool MyStudyMap. There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information. Exemptions are minor students and fall semester for 1st year bachelor students: the student administration will enroll these groups for courses.

Please note that it is compulsory to both preregister and confirm your participation for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam of the course. Confirming your exam participation is possible until ten days before the exam.

Extensive FAQ's on MyStudymap can be found here.

Exchange and Study Abroad students, please see the Prospective students website for information on how to apply.

Contact

Coordinator: Marco Roos
Email: marco.roos@naturalis.nl

Remarks

Brightspace will be used for communication and exchange of documents