Erasmus University Rotterdam

Erasmus University Rotterdam is a public research university in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It began in 1913 as the Netherlands School of Commerce and took its present name in 1973 after the humanist Desiderius Erasmus. It grew from an economics and business school into a university whose core remains economics, management, law, social sciences and medicine rather than a full technical spectrum.

The main units are the Erasmus School of Economics, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus School of Law, schools of social and behavioral sciences, history, culture and communication, philosophy, and health policy and management, plus Erasmus MC, the university medical center. Graduate students work in finance, econometrics, business, health economics and clinical medicine. Erasmus MC is a large hospital complex that houses doctoral and specialist training.

Enrollment is about 30,000 students, with a large master's population and a substantial international share, especially in English-taught economics and management degrees, from more than 100 countries. Economist Jan Tinbergen, who taught in Rotterdam, received the first Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969. Alumni work in Dutch government, European institutions and international firms.

Graduate study centers on one- and two-year master's degrees, research master's that lead into the PhD, MBA programs at Rotterdam School of Management, and doctoral training through graduate schools and Erasmus MC. Taught master's are coursework-heavy; PhD work is a dissertation under a graduate-school structure. The Dutch academic year starts in September. Many PhD candidates are paid as university researchers. Woudestein campus lies east of the center; medical students are based at the hospital.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Erasmus University Rotterdam lists 21 graduate programs across 14 subjects: 19 master's programs and 2 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in business & management, accounting and economics. Erasmus University Rotterdam holds rank 127 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.