Direct admission
Important information: there is an extended deadline for Public Administration: Artificial Intelligence and Governance. The extended deadline is 1 July 2024 for international applicants who do not need visa. This means your application needs to be complete before that date.
You are admissible to the Master’s programme in Public Administration: Artificial Intelligence and Governance if you meet the admission requirements. The admission requirements are 12 ECTS in public administration and 12 ECTS in the field of methods and techniques of social science research, of which 6 ECTS in quantitative methods/statistics. Furthermore, your bachelor must be equivalent to a Dutch academic (WO) bachelor and therefore must be completed at a research university.
NUFFIC, the Dutch organization for internationalization in education, provides information on the academic level of universities abroad in relation to the required level of academic master programmes in the Netherlands. The Admission Board uses this information provided by NUFFIC in order to assess whether your level of academic writing and methodological training is expected to be sufficient. If your level of academic writing and/or methodological training are deemed insufficient, the Admission Board may decide you can be admitted after completing a bridging programme (premaster) which consists of courses in academic writing and/or methods and techniques, possibly combined with courses in the field of public administration. The premaster is taught in Dutch. For more information on this, see below.
Conditional admission
If you have a bachelor and/or master in a field other than public administration, you may be asked to complete a bridging programme (premaster) of maximum 30 ECTS before applying to the MSc Public Administration. Depending on the content of your bachelor and/or master programme, this bridging programme consists of a number of courses in the field of methods and techniques of social science research (12 or 18 ECTS, to be confirmed, of which at least 6 ECTS are quantitative methods/statistics) and/or public administration (6 or 12 ECTS, to be confirmed).
For each admission request, the Admission Board for the Master’s programme in Public Administration will decide on the contents and scope of a bridging programme where necessary. The subjects of this bridging programme can be taken at VU Amsterdam or at any other Dutch university, after approval by the Admissions Committee.
At VU Amsterdam the following relevant courses are offered in the field of methods & techniques of social scientific research:
- Methodology of Social Science Research (S_MTSWO): this course focuses on quantitative methods;
- Methods and techniques of qualitative research (S_PMMTKOZ) to master qualitative research methods.
At VU Amsterdam, the following relevant courses are offered in the field of public administration:
- Public Management (S_PM)
- Economics, Market and Government (S_EMO)
- EU Governance in an International Context (S_EUGIC)
- Philosophy of Governance and Organization (S_FBO)
- Policy and decision-making (S_BLB)
- Law for governing and organizing (S_RBO)
The Admission Board may also refer to the premaster in Public Administration (taught in Dutch).
Proof of sufficient proficiency in English
If you are applying for one of our English-taught Master's degree programmes you will have to demonstrate sufficient English language proficiency by submitting English test results.
Although complete applications are preferred, you can begin your application before you have completed the test and then submit your passing score once you have been conditionally admitted.
You can find an overview of all accepted tests and scores that can be used to demonstrate your English language proficiency on the language requirement page.