The Utrecht legal research master: the first five years

The Netherlands was one of the first European countries to adopt the Bologna Declaration, which advocates a Euro-wide bachelor/master model for all faculties. The introduction of this model should promote the international exchange of students and staff. In the Netherlands, the model has been introduced without any great problems in all university curricula. All Dutch bachelor’s programmes are now of three years’ duration. Master’s programmes differ. For sciences, the curriculum is usually two years in length; for law one year only. But most universities do allow law faculties to set up at least one two-year programme with a limited enrolment. Utrecht first considered introducing a two-year master’s programme for legal practice, but then changed its mind. Why not introduce a legal research master’s degree? It was already obvious that PhD researchers in law were at a disadvantage as compared to other PhD candidates. In their bachelor’s programme, they had had few courses on research, if any. It was therefore difficult for them to set up a good research project and to compete with graduates from those faculties which have a long experience with research. Legal practice, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of providing top-level students with introductory courses in specialised domains.