Study Europe through Power, Crisis and Social Change

Academic focus
In Groningen, questions of knowledge production are placed at the centre of how Europe is studied and taught. Europe is approached both as a political project and as a cultural construct that emerged from historically grounded yet globally interconnected processes. The programme trains students to critically analyse how understandings of Europe are produced, circulate across regions and historical moments, and shape policy, academic debate, and societal narratives. Students learn to examine how Europe is constituted through institutions, competing interpretations, and situated perspectives while reflecting on the epistemological conditions that make Europe an object of knowledge.

Groningen occupies a frontrunning position through a framework that understands knowledge about Europe as emerging from global encounters, local experiences, identities, inequalities, and cross-regional processes. By integrating cultural studies, global political anthropology, political theory, global history, and critical European studies, the programme approaches Europe as a dynamic political and social project shaped by contested histories, power relations, and shared yet differentiated experiences. This perspective informs a curriculum built around decentring, defamiliarisation, and unlearning, where students work with archival, policy, ethnographic, and cultural materials to develop situated and reflexive analyses..

Key themes

Governance, power and EU decision-making
The programme analyses Europe through the politics of knowledge production and meaning-making. Europe is treated as an epistemic formation whose authority is produced through uneven global processes of knowledge creation, circulation, and validation. Students explore how particular representations of Europe come to guide policy, legitimise intervention, and structure decision-making across global contexts. Drawing on global political anthropology, political theory, global history, and critical European studies, they learn to trace how claims about Europe become actionable, who produces them, and what political effects they generate.

Crisis, security and sustainability
Groningen examines crisis not simply as an event but as a structural mode of governing contemporary Europe. Crisis framings generate urgency, legitimise extraordinary measures, and reshape democratic accountability while distributing security and vulnerability unevenly across societies. The programme analyses how geopolitical tensions, environmental change, migration governance, and humanitarian intervention intersect, and how security and sustainability policies redefine responsibility, risk, and political legitimacy. Students investigate whose crises become visible, whose harms are normalised, and how crisis narratives shape European governance.

Social change, migration and European societies
Social transformation, migration, and diversity are studied as central forces shaping Europe’s political and cultural landscape. Students analyse how citizenship, belonging, and identity are constructed through policy frameworks, institutional practices, and lived experiences. Particular attention is paid to how migration governance, social inequalities, and historical entanglements influence debates about inclusion, democracy, and European futures.

Regional strength

Located in a highly international academic environment in the Netherlands, Groningen connects theoretical debates about Europe with contemporary policy challenges. Its interdisciplinary approach links global history, political analysis, and cultural perspectives, allowing students to understand Europe within wider global transformations.

Questions students explore

• How does Europe become an object of knowledge and political action?

• How does the EU respond to crises and instability?

• What tensions shape European democracies today?

• How do migration and diversity transform European societies?

Keywords: European integration, democracy, crisis politics, migration governance, global Europe.

Practical

Course Catalogue
Euroculture Groningen has a Course Catalogue here. 

Accommodation
For international students, a number of rooms in student dormitories (SSH) is reserved every semester for the international Euroculture students. Early applications are necessary to be eligible. Otherwise, students are asked to apply through the local private sector.

Starting date of the academic year
First Monday of September

Living Costs
Estimation per month (housing, food, other expenses): €800-900

Visa matters
Visa applications are handled by the university on the student’s behalf by the Immigration Service Desk of the University of Groningen (ISD), and can be submitted online. Coordinators in Groningen inform and assist the students during their application. 

Consortium Secretariat
Groningen hosts the Consortium Secretariat and is coordinating the entire Euroculture network.

​​​​​​​Contact 

Euroculture Department & Consortium Secretariat
Faculty of Arts, Harmony Building, Oude Kijk in ‘t Jatstraat 26
P.O. Box 716, NL-9700 AS Groningen

Requests to the Board of Examiners as well as the Admissions Board may be submitted to the general email address euroculture@rug.nl.

Recognition Status

• Name of Institution: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

• Name of the degree awarded: Master of Arts in Euroculture

• Accredited by: NVAO (Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatie-organisatie)