Máster Oficial Erasmus Mundus 4 Cities: Unica Euromaster in Urban Studies

4CITIES is an international, interdisciplinary, immersive master programme in urban studies. Supported by Erasmus Mundus, its perspective is European while its context is global. Students learn to see the city, to hear it, to understand it, to engage it, and to choose their role in shaping it.

The interdisciplinary curriculum designed specifically for 4CITIES builds on the strengths of each host city, university, and department or research institute. Theoretical coursework is enhanced by field observation, applied skills, and a wide array of excursions. Students are challenged to connect readings and concepts from across the disciplinary spectrum and to analyse urban systems and elements at micro, meso, and macro levels.

4CITIES is a two-year master program organized in three tracks: Classical, Research, and Practice. All three tracks follow a shared core curriculum in the first year, with the first semester spent in Brussels and the second in Vienna. Classical Track students continue to Copenhagen and Madrid for a second year of shared coursework. Research and Practice Track students follow largely self-designed second-year curricula, with each student expected to conduct an internship or work-placement (15 ECTS) and to complete 25 ECTS of elective coursework. Students apply for, and are accepted into, a specific track. This means that changing from one track to another is not possible. All students are to submit and defend a written thesis in Vienna after the fourth semester.

Semester 1 (Brussels)
Geographies of a globalizing Europe
Urban social geography
Urban sociology
Urban economic geography
Urban analysis 1&2

Semester 2 (Viena)
Principles in urban planning and urbanism
Contemporary challenges in urban and regional development
Urban population dynamics
Geographies of innovation and transition
Urban analysis 3

Semester 3 (Copenhagen)
Urbanism and architecture
Urban culture and cultural theory
Urban analysis 4

Semester 4 (Madrid)
The sustainable and liveable city
Governance and local welfare

Thesis submission & defense