About EURECA

Consumer Affairs is a world-wide rising field in research and higher education. It analyzes consumers in their economic, social and ecological environment.

The study “The Need for Postgraduate Education in Consumer Affairs in the European Union” underlines the demand from corporate and governmental sectors as well as consumer organisations for higher education graduates in this field. Furthermore, it is shown a clear gap between demand and provision of high education graduates in Consumer Affairs.

Based on these results the European Commission supports the development of Master’s Programmes in the EU. Following the idea to improve the supply of highly educated and qualified employees in the field of Consumer Affairs, the Aarhus University (Denmark), Technische Universität München (Germany), Wageningen University (Netherlands) and Warsaw University of Life Science (Poland) have established a consortium with the aim of developing the European Master’s Programme in Consumer Affairs (EURECA) which is funded by the European Commission, Directorate General for Health and Consumers. The programme is coordinated by the Department of Marketing and Consumer Research at the Technische Universität München (Germany) and will start in September/ October 2009. The language of instruction is English.

The basic requirement is a Bachelor’s degree in a subject related to Consumer Affairs, so the target group for the Master’s Programme are students with a socioeconomic Bachelor's degree or a another subject related to Consumer Affairs (for details read the conditions of admission of each participating university).

EURECA starts every year in September/ October and runs over four semesters (120 ECTS).

Beside the Basics of Consumer Affairs (30 ECTS), students are required to choose two out of the following seven specialisations:

• Consumer Affairs Management (Aarhus)
• Consumer Studies (Wageningen)
• Consumer, Technology and Innovation (Munich)
• Food Policy and Management (Warsaw)
• Marketing (Aarhus)
• Marketing Management (Wageningen)
• Sustainable Consumption (Munich)

Students are encouraged to take part in the exchange programme for one semester at one of the three other universities (Host Universities) which might be supported by a generous grant amounting to 500 EUR/ month! Rules for awarding 20 grants per EURECA-University and year will be formulated due to the requirements of the European Commission until March 2009.

The Master’s Thesis will be written in the 4^th semester of the programme. It is possible to write the thesis at the home and host university to get a double degree (additional rules for double degree may apply) or during an internship.

A Master’s degree in Consumer Affairs offers excellent career prospects in companies, governmental as well as non-governmental institutions and in research.