Curriculum - Social Protection (M.Sc.)

The curriculum mirrors the core competencies that we think are essential to be actively involved in planning, managing, evaluating and reforming social protection systems over time. The master’s programme imparts technical knowledge about the genesis, characteristics and policy instruments in social protection systems and transfers the analytical skills that are necessary to tailor a social protection system to the respective economic, political, cultural and institutional opportunities and challenges of a country and further develop it over time in reaction to reform needs and opportunities.

At next, for each semester, the modules you will study and the questions you will be able to answer after finishing your studies:

First semester

Module 1: Comparative Analysis of Social Protection Systems: How to compare different social protection systems and study the constitutive elements as well as differences across systems?
Module 2: Foundational Skills: How social protection responds to market failures and to economic cycles but also how it is used to modify outcomes of the markets when these outcomes are not seen as acceptable from the rights, equity, and justice perspectives?
Module 3: Social Protection Policy Instruments: How the choice and prioritization of instruments is dependent on the inherent logic of the respective social protection system?
Module 4: Quantitative Methods in Social Protection: How to assess whether the design chosen is socially, politically and economically appropriate, whether interventions are cost-effective and whether fiduciary risks are minimised?

Second Semester

Module 5: Social Protection Financing: How governments finance itselves? How could it be possible to mobilize resources to Social Protection programmes and what options are available to finance different kinds of programmes?
Module 6: Groups in Focus: How to determine which risks can be mainstreamed into regular social protection programming?, which risks require separate interventions? and how we design interventions in order not to indirectly disadvantage certain groups in society?
Module 7: Social Protection Management: How to overcome the different management challenges that can arise in a social protection system and which role digitalization can play?
Module 8: Social Protection Reforms: How policy changes and reforms can be best managed and communicated so that obstacles are minimised and the general public as well as public policymakers are in support?

Third Semester

Module 9: Research Methods: How to formulate a research question?, how to come up with a suitable research design?, how to collect and analyse data? and how to write it up?
Module 10: Studium Generale: Language and other soft skill courses by the language center, courses by other departments of the University, summer schools as well as MOOCs can equally be followed
Module 11: Internship: How to acquire practical knowledge, skills and techniques, which are required in various professional fields related to social protection?

Fourth Semester

Module 12: Master Thesis: How to demonstrate your capacity to come up with a relevant research questions, independently devise a research design, conduct your own research and write up your findings in a succinct manner?