Gemma – Studi di Genere e delle Donne

GEMMA Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree in Women’s and Gender Studies – is a postgraduate programme that consists of two years of study (120 ECTS) and is taken in 2 out of 7 prestigious European universities that participate in the Consortium.

The Home University is the university where you start the programme and complete the first year of study, while the Mobility University is the university where you complete the compulsory mobility semester in the second year of study (and in some cases the fourth semester as well). When applying to GEMMA, you can choose a combination of either two of the seven European universities, except Granada-Oviedo or Oviedo- Granada (please see “Mobility combinations” section for more details).

The programme is divided into four semesters as follows:

1st YEAR 60 ECTS
1st semester 30 ECTS Core modules, taken at Home University and organised around the same three modules at all consortium universities (Feminist History; Feminist Theory; Feminist Methodology)
2nd semester 30 ECTS Elective courses taken at Home University

2nd YEAR 60 ECTS
3rd Semester 30 ECTS Elective courses taken at Mobility University (mandatory mobility period)
4th semester 30 ECTS Master’s thesis at either Home or Mobility University

The languages of instruction used by the Consortium universities are:

Granada – Spanish and some courses in English

Oviedo – Spanish (first year: Home) English (second year: Mobility)

Bologna – Italian and English

CEU, Hull, Lodz, Rutgers and Utrecht – English

In the selection process you are encouraged to indicate your preference for 2 universities where you want to study: Home University and Mobility University. For every new edition of GEMMA each individual mobility path is decided upon during the Consortium student selection meetings conducted in January and May of the previous academic year.

The students’ choices and their areas of study are carefully studied at this stage. Whenever possible they are respected, always trying to keep also a balanced distribution of students among all consortium member institutions. However, due to the high number of applications to our programme, there exists a possibility that you will be offered a different mobility route than the one you originally requested.

Students can start at any of the consortium institutions and all mobility paths are available providing they involve institutions from two different countries (thus excluding Granada-Oviedo/Oviedo-Granada), which makes a total of 54 different mobility paths:

IMPORTANT: The mobility will be conducted in the third semester according to the following combinations:

IMPORTANT NOTE ON MOBILITY TO RUTGERS:The call will be announced internally to enrolled students in due time. Mobility to this university will only be possible for some of the students and only for 3 to 6 months (depending on the scholarship category).

This structure of the programme and the design of mobility paths address the multifarious needs of gender students in three major ways:

1. Students are able to get solid education in the foundations of Women´s and Gender Studies discipline at the home institution in the first year of their studies, where they complete core courses and make the first choice of elective courses.

2. Students are then able to deepen their knowledge in the chosen area within the discipline through the completion of the elective courses at the partner institution selected according to their specialization and through thesis writing.

3. Students have a possibility to compare perspectives from different European and non- European countries and national and local contexts, which contributes to the development of the discipline internationally.

Students can choose from the elective modules offered by the partner universities according to the research areas within Women’s and Gender Studies they wish to work upon. The course offer is à-la-carte: broad, interdisciplinary and constantly updated to reflect the current developments in Gender Studies. Partners complement each other in their specialisations.
Complete description of the specializations of each center involved can be found HERE

The Consortium universities organize summer schools which are offered to GEMMA students. University of Utrecht coordinates Noise Summer School, in which most GEMMA partners participate; while Granada, CEU and Bologna have also offered their own gender summer schools since 2006.

Master’s thesis: 4th semester (30 ECTS). In this module students are expected to write a 20,000 to 30,000 word dissertation, relevant to the area of Women’s and Gender Studies, encompassing a new insight into the subject, clearly formulated and with a theoretical framework and valid conclusions confronted with former theories.

The thesis can be completed either at the Home or at the Mobility University (with the exception of Utrecht, where a full year mobility will be required for EM scholarship holders) according to the student´s choice and research interests. It is jointly supervised by the faculty of both institutions in order to ensure its academic quality, fuller support to the student and recognition from Home and Mobility institution. It can be written in any of the three official languages of instruction.