- Degree
- Master of Arts (if applicable: PhD)
- Course location
- Potsdam
- Teaching language
- • English
- Languages
- Students will attend courses in English, and the examinations will be written in English. Some courses may be offered in German.
- Programme duration
- 4 semesters
- Beginning
- Winter and summer semester
- Additional information on beginning, duration and mode of study
- Additional information about the dates and deadlines can be found here (https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/studium/dates-and-deadlines/important-dates-and-deadlines-during-your-studies).
- Application deadline
- Information about the application deadlines can be found here (https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/studium/application-enrollment/application-master).
- Tuition fees per semester in EUR
- None
- Combined Master's degree / PhD programme
- No
- Joint degree / double degree programme
- No
- Description/content
- This English language degree programme at the University of Potsdam is currently unique in Germany, and it offers you the exceptional opportunity to study Public Administration and Public Policy from an international perspective. As a student in this programme, you will study at one of the most renowned universities in the areas of political and administrative science. You will be in an attractive academic environment and in the immediate vicinity of all levels of government and administration in practice. The interdisciplinary orientation of the programme also allows you to study political and administrative science topics from the perspective of various disciplines.
During your studies, you will engage with core topics in political and administrative science research from an international and comparative perspective. The focus is on empirical projects in the areas of administration, public policy, management, and governance using qualitative and quantitative methods and drawing on subject-specific theoretical knowledge.
You will build and expand your knowledge of modes of governance, public administration, structures and development of political systems in the 21st century, and the role of civil society interest groups in a national and international or supranational context. You will also gain deeper insight into the underlying legal frameworks. Furthermore, the elective modules make it possible to set your own focus, for example, on questions of modernisation of state and administration (e.g. administrative reforms), digitalisation in state and administration, global crisis management, policy field analysis and democracy research. In addition, you will expand your expertise in research methods and practice.
The Master's programme has an academic orientation as well as a professional orientation. In the Fast Track Doctoral Stream, you will have the opportunity to work towards a doctoral dissertation. During your theoretical and empirical training, you will deepen your knowledge about the structure and the functioning of public administration from the local to the global level. You will reflect on the interdependencies of structures and actors of public policy as well as on the explanatory power of core theoretical concepts and the feasibility of research designs. The interdisciplinary orientation of the programme is a great advantage here, as it allows you to connect knowledge from political science and law as well as from sociology and economics. The focus is on the simultaneous empirical use of and critical reflection on acquired theoretical knowledge. The programme also focuses on deepening your knowledge of social science methods with regard to qualitative and quantitative analysis. This training is closely tied to the current research done in the faculty.
- Current information
- Join our online Master's Info Day (https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/studium/prospective-students/masters-info-day) on 13 March 2026 to learn about the Master’s programmes, career prospectives, and life in Potsdam.