The course aims to inspire PhD candidates to critically engage with contemporary scholarship and debates on decolonisation and explore how it can shape and enrich their current research. The course is open to Netherlands-based students at higher education institutions affiliated with the SENSE network (who get a discounted tuition fee) and also other Dutch Universities unaffiliated with the SENSE network. It targets students of engineering, and natural and social sciences who are engaged with research on environmental issues - involving sectors such as water, forests, agriculture, and more. We especially encourage Netherlands-based women candidates and students from post-colonial countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to apply. The course is divided into three segments, each engaging with critical aspects of doctoral research: theory, methodology, and fieldwork (see schedule). The course also includes a day-long field trip in the Netherlands to understand how colonialism shaped the development of Western science and a screening of a docu-film that opens up questions on modernity and development in the context of the dispossession of Indigenous people and the erasure of plural knowledge traditions.
- Module/Course coordinator: Amitangshu Acharya
24/25 before arrival (access Finad2024-info)
Finad2024 (cohort)
- Module/Course coordinator: Yong Jiang
development is organized for students from all tracks and profiles. The joint start of the academic programme allows students to appreciate the societal relevance of water challenges and understand the multifaceted aspects of the issues at stake before they dive into more track-specific and/or disciplinary-oriented studies. It also introduces the students to the learning environment. The collective start also facilitates the bonding and collaboration between students enrolled in the Master's programme.
The module offers the students insights in the main issues, challenges and debates related to water and development. The specific approach that the module follows to explore these larger questions by familiarizing incoming students with different ways of studying and knowing water, based on diverse forms of water wisdom, practices, and expertise. During the week there will be lectures, collective exercises, assignments and film/documentary screenings which will engage students to critically reflect on the implications of interdisciplinarity and plurality of water knowledges. For instance, we will explore whether and how different ways of studying water can be combined and what the tensions are in interdisciplinary research approaches. Importantly, the module aims to develop the students’ sensitivity to some of the hierarchies and silos that are still prevalent in (water) sciences. With this we aim to open up the disciplinary, geographical, racial, and gendered boundaries prevalent in (water) science for questioning and collectively explore with students how this affects their own life trajectories, their worldviews and their educational needs. This theme therefore helps students develop skills such as critical thinking, working together, and self-reflection.
Module 1 is a compulsory part of the academic programme and will as such be assessed based on pass or fail. Actively participation and timely submission of the assignments are therefore required to obtain the study points (3 ECTS). Failing to submit or obtain a sufficient mark for the assignment will result in a fail.
- Module/Course coordinator: Amitangshu Acharya
- Module/Course coordinator: Annelieke Duker
Groundwater Treatment - for IMETE 2024/2025
- Module/Course coordinator: Nirajan Dhakal
Introduction to Water Resources and Ecosystem Health 2024/2025 T02
- Module/Course coordinator: Seleshi Yalew
