Students who want to get more out of their studies or seek an extra challenge, the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences offers two honours programmes.

Bachelor Honours Programmme Pharmaceutical Sciences
The Honours Programme of Pharmaceutical Sciences (HPPS) is meant for those bachelor students (both Pharmaceutical Sciences and CPS) who feel that the normal curriculum does not provide enough challenge or in-depth knowledge It gives gifted students the opportunity to follow honours-level courses, to get an impression of the ongoing research activities within the department, and to initiate new projects on an individual basis or together with fellow-students with the same ambition level. The choice of the topic of these extracurricular projects is in the hands of the honours students themselves, often nourished by their individual interests. As such, the content of an Honours Programme will be unique for each honours student and tailored to one’s interests. The overall aim of the Honours Programme is to make the learning experience for the gifted students more enticing and challenging and to prepare the students for a leading role in the pharmaceutical field. Be it academia, public or hospital pharmacy, or industry. In addition, it provides a lifelong professional network for HP alumni.

The Honours Programme entails a total of 15 to 20 ECTS, divided over 2 years, for extracurricular activities and projects. Part of these extracurricular activities (7.5 ECTS) will be organized by the Honours Academy (SHA), in which all Honours Programmes of the Faculty of Science participate. These include the organization of interdisciplinary symposia and an excursion to one of the many European research institutes. Examples of honours projects that have been initiated in the past are: the organization of a mini symposium on fraud in science, writing a book on pharmacy for layman, following a Ph.D. level course on Immunology, organizing a workshop mind mapping, or initiating a research internship at a research group in the Netherlands or abroad.

Important to note is that there are no strict guidelines of what an honours project should look like as long as it is related to pharmaceutical sciences. This gives the students the full freedom to follow their personal interests and to explore their potential and limitations. All honours students who have fulfilled the ECTS criteria will be awarded with an internationally recognized honours certificate, which will list the projects the student has initiated during their honours programme.

More details about the programme can be found on the websites of the Honours Academy and in the the information leaflet of the HPPS programme. The coordinator of the programme is Freija ter Heegde.

Master Honours Programme Innovation in Pharmacy
The School of Pharmacy has its own honours programme for approximately 10% of the most talented students. It is an individual programme that consists of several components:
1) Additional in-depth knowledge through challenging assignments in elective courses;
2) Broadening/deepening by initiating an individual or group project of choice and organizing symposia in collaboration with the honours programme pharmaceutical sciences (BSc);
3) Choice of a deepening assignment within the research/clinical project.
To prepare for a possible scientific/international career, communication within the program mainly takes place in English.
Master’s students in Pharmacy are invited to apply before the start of the 2nd semester of year 1.
The coordinator of HPIP is Tina Vermonden.

In addition to these faculty honours programmes, Utrecht University also offers the interdisciplinary Decartes Programme for students who want to look beyond the boundaries of their own field. Other opportunities and more information can be found on the website about Utrecht’s honours education.