BSc Science for Sustainable SocietiesAdd to shortlist

Programme profile

New 2025

How do you involve a local community to tackle biodiversity loss? How do you create awareness and political movement on climate change? And how do you find a balance between environmental impacts and economic needs when it comes to pollution? These are examples of core questions at the heart of a new and interdisciplinary Bachelor: Science for Sustainable Societies. Within this programme you learn to combine natural and social science insights and methods, to help you understand and address complex sustainability challenges such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss in the context of human systems.

Sustainability issues are often highly complex problems, which can only be understood if you combine knowledge on both natural systems and the communities which need to deal with the issues. Throughout your 3-year Science for Sustainable Societies programme, you learn to analyse complex sustainability challenges by integrating relevant natural and social sciences perspectives.

Programme content

The first year of the programme gives you an important foundation, with modules in both the natural and social sciences, including ecology, earth sciences, anthropology and psychology. To connect the you will study a common theme: food. You will not only study this in the classroom, but also go out on field trips to investigate challenges and solutions first hand.

In the second year, you will build on the knowledge and skills you acquired in the first year. You will further learn about the importance of an interdisciplinary approach, while analyzing complex sustainability problems and their possible solutions. This happens through co-teaching: teachers integrate core themes from the natural and social sciences together within courses to show you the added benefit of ‘system thinking’.

In the third year of the programme, you first have one semester to do a minor, take modules from another discipline, or even study in another. In your final semester you will continue to use the interdisciplinarity approach by collaborating on a real-life sustainability challenge during the Sustainable Societies Project. Finally, you will do your own research project, and write your thesis.

Progression

A BSc in Science for Sustainable Societies guarantees entry to the MSc Industrial Ecology (Leiden University and Delft University of Technology) and the MSc Governance of Sustainability (Leiden University).

Entry Requirements