Urban Studies-4Cities

What is 4CITIES?4CITIES is an immersive, two-year, interdisciplinary Erasmus Mundus Master Coursein urban studies, incorporating geography, sociology, history, cultural studies, and governancestudies. Organised within UNICA, the Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe, and co-funded by theErasmus+ Programme of the European Union, 4CITIES brings together 25–30 students each year from around the world and across the academic spectrum. The language of instruction is English and proof of fluency is required. Graduates receive a master of science (MSc.) degree in urban studies.4CITIES is, however, much more than its formal description. Because of the exploratory nature of a programme in which travel is a constant, because of the diversity of each cohort of students, and because of the intention of the programme to provide a holistic education in urbanism, 4CITIES is also a crossroads where academic research, professional practice, urban exploration, and civic activism overlap and intersect.Why is 4CITIES?As the world continues to urbanise and globalise, cities are becoming the predominant form of human settlement and the scale at which many of the most pressing societal issues are engaged. Although urban studies, in which the city is both object and context, is an inherently interdisciplinary field, it is too often limited by national containers. In response, 4CITIES brings a distinctly European viewpoint to issues concerning urbanity and urbanisation that are simultaneously locally unique and globally networked.Glocalisation, or the ways in which global forces interact with local conditions, is a key part of the programme’s multiscalar perspective, and it is seen as essential for new approaches in important fields of urban policy such as culture, economy, and planning. 4CITIES was developed to provide an immersive, experiential urban studies education that overcomes geographic and disciplinary boundaries while embracing the diversity of actors, forces, and contexts that are shaping the 21st century city.Where is 4CITIES?The two-year 4CITIES programme spends a semester in each of four European capital cities: Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Madrid. Additional excursions to a diverse set of cities such as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Zagreb, Belgrade, Malmö, and Zaragozaare also organised in each semester. During summers and holidays, students self-organise trips to cities throughout Europe and occasionally beyond. It is not uncommon to visit 20 countries and more than 50 cities over the course of the programme.