Master's in

Social Transitions and Innovations (METIS)

  • Schedule
    Daytime schedule
  • ECTS Credits
    120
  • Language
    French

Description

A multidisciplinary Master’s degree in Hainaut made for you!

If you want to:

  • reflect and act on social and environmental contexts
  • both reflect on and implement change and social innovation

…then this Master’s is for you!

METIS opts for a multidisciplinary approach. It combines the resources of anthropology and sociology with those of urban planning, architecture, economics, psychology, sociology, education, and political sciences, among others.
METIS is also firmly rooted in the heart of the Hainaut basin, which is a prime location for observing all these phenomena of social transitions and innovations.

Organised by two universities (UMONS and UCLouvain) and three Hautes Écoles (HEH, HEPH-Condorcet and HELHa), the Master’s in Social Transitions and Innovations (METIS) focuses on social transitions, particularly those linked to globalisation processes, as well as on the social innovations that result from them.

METIS examines the transformations that occur in the following contexts:

  • Economic and urban spaces
  • Public policies
  • Connection to nature
  • Digital cities
  • Polarisations and heritage resilience
  • Working relationships
  • Employment and new social uncertainties
  • Migrations, diasporas and interculturalities
  • Family structures and mobilities
  • Gender and intergenerational tensions, the ageing population

Training Future Scientific and Social Professionals

The objective of METIS is to train future scientific and social professionals capable of:

  • Thoroughly and critically mastering the fundamental theoretical frameworks of transitions and social innovations, as well as the relevant analytical approaches and the appropriate methodological tools.
  • Making an interdisciplinary scientific diagnosis of societies in ecological, social, cultural, pedagogical, economic and political transition, and building concrete courses of action.
  • Understanding how social leaders seek to influence these changes through social, urban, economic, ecological, political, cultural and multicultural initiatives and creations.
  • Developing a nuanced and accomplished vision of the major contemporary issues, coupled with an ability to propose innovative and realistic solutions to decision-makers and activists of change, whatever the field and scale of action.
  • Studying the processes of emergence of social creation, the concrete situations to which it attempts to respond, the knowledge it deploys to face difficulties, and the experiments it requires.
  • Integrating a logic of continuous questioning and learning that allows one to be a professional with expertise and versatility, equipped with a theoretical background that can be mobilised for action and innovation, capable of adapting and evolving positively.
  • Taking a critical look at the challenges of societal transitions in the 21st century, taking into account ethical values, and making civil society and politicians aware of them.
  • Proposing adapted solutions through social creations and innovations, in interdisciplinary teams, by contributing to the development of responses and contextualised courses of action based on the inventiveness of local actors.

Access conditions

Do you already have a higher education qualification obtained in the French Community? Use our search tool to check whether your qualification grants you admission onto this Master’s degree and, if so, under what conditions.

For holders of another academic degree, whose eligibility is judged by the METIS board (admissions procedure), admission is possible by taking some extra credits. In particular, students with a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from UMONS may be admitted onto the course.

Admission through Recognition of Prior Learning (VAE)
The METIS board may recognise the knowledge and skills that students have acquired through their professional or personal experience as a basis for admission onto the course. After an evaluation procedure, the board determines the additional courses needed for admission onto the programme and, if necessary, any exemptions.

Extra information

Course Locations

The entire programme can be followed in Mons.
Some options are taught in Marcinelle or Charleroi.

The course locations are:

University of Mons

School of Human and Social Sciences
Place Warocqué, 17
7000 Mons
UMONS in Charleroi
Boulevard Joseph II, 38-42
6000 Charleroi

UCLouvain
Mons campus
Chaussée de Binche, 151
7000 Mons
The FUCaM Workshops
Rue des Sœurs Noires, 2
7000 Mons

Haute École in Hainaut
“Social” campus
In Mons
Avenue V. Maistriau, 13
7000 Mons

HEPH Condorcet
“Social” category
Rue de la Bruyère, 151
6001 Marcinelle

Haute École Louvain in Hainaut
“Social” category
Chaussée de Binche, 159
7000 Mons

Program and structure

The programme consists of 120 training credits distributed as follows:

  • A core curriculum (45 credits) including methodological and epistemological training, general training that the options specialise in, a seminar on participatory research contributing to the supervision of the placement and the dissertation.
  • A choice of three options (15 credits to choose from within each option, i.e. 45 credits) from:
    • Territorial, Environmental and Urban Planning Issues
    • Well-being, Interculturality and Precariousness
    • Alternative Policies
    • Social Inclusion, Socio-Educational Intervention and Community Development
    • Worlds in Transition
  • Placement and Dissertation (30 credits)

Regarding the options, students choose 3 out of the 5 options on offer.

Teaching profile

The programme description defines the expected learning outcomes at the end of the cycle (Bachelor's, Master's, etc.). The programme description defines the expected learning outcomes, i.e. what the student should know, understand and be able to achieve at the end of a learning activity, a teaching unit or a study cycle (Bachelor's, Master's, etc.). Learning outcomes are defined in terms of knowledge, expertise and soft skills.

At the end of the course, students will be able to:

 

  • Thoroughly and critically master the fundamental theoretical frameworks of transitions and social innovations.
  • Master the epistemological positions and methodological tools used in human sciences with regard to the problems of social transitions and innovations.
  • Mobilise the relevant analytical approaches and adequate methodological tools to rigorously, thoroughly and comparatively analyse the problems of social transitions and innovations, including their interactions and their spatial and temporal developments.
  • Develop an interdisciplinary and multi-scale approach that integrates a complementary discipline, such as anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology and education, urban planning and architecture, geography, and history, with a view to contextualise and analyse transitions.
  • Articulate thoughts, research and action in order to design and carry out a research project based on an innovative proposal.
  • Appropriately intervene in concrete transitional issues, by contributing to the development of responses and contextualised courses of action based on the inventiveness of local actors.
  • Take a critical look at the challenges of societal transitions in the 21st century, taking into account ethical values, and making civil society and politicians aware of them.
  • Work in an interdisciplinary team and collectively negotiate the steps of an action research from a perspective of transition.

 

For more information, consult the programme description for this study cycle below (in French).

PROF-ENS-M2-METISS.pdf (umons.ac.be)

Opportunities

METIS offers a variety of opportunities to all those involved in the multidisciplinary treatment of situations of change that require forms of social innovation.

These multiple opportunities cover the following sectors:

  • Local public service
  • Regional public service
  • Federal public service
  • European public service
  • Parastatal organisations
  • Voluntary sector
  • Non-profit sector
  • NGOs
  • Companies promoting new organisational working methods or economic exchanges.

About this training

Sector
Human and Social Sciences
Field
Political and Social Sciences
Location
Mons

Contact us for more info

Secrétariat des études
+32 (0)65 37 32 67