After studying the SA skills course the students are able to:
* Apply some widely-used methods/tools of sustainability assessment;
* Discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and pitfalls of these methods/tools;
* Reflect on the contribution of the methods/tools to a sustainability assessment.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT METHOD(S) USED IN THIS COURSE IS WITH RESERVATION. A RE-EMERGENCE OF THE CORONAVIRUS AND NEW COUNTERMEASURES BY THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT MIGHT FORCE COORDINATORS TO CHANGE THE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT METHODS USED. THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEACHING/ASSESSMENT METHOD(S) WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE COURSE SYLLABUS.

Sustainability Assessment (SA) can be defined as a structured process dealing with a sustainability issue, using knowledge from various scientific disciplines and/or stakeholders, such that integrated insights are made available to decision makers. Applying SA in practice requires specific skills. The aim of this skills course is that students learn to apply some widely-used methods/tools of SA, and become familiar with its rules of application, strengths, and pitfalls.

In this SAS sub-course we focus on policy analysis, what can be defined as an action-oriented or intervention-oriented activity, which examines what policy or different policy options achieve, given a set of goals. Policy analysis can contribute to Sustainability Assessment (SA), and in particularly the 3rd step of SA: the assessment of policy options for a policy problem. MCA is a method for evaluating multiple (conflicting) criteria in a policy context. The idea is that structuring complex problems well and considering multiple criteria explicitly leads to more informed and better decisions. This SAS sub-course focuses on MCA, and critically evaluates its application to real-world sustainability problems.