Specialisation Quality Control and Assurance

The specialisation Quality Control and Assurance (A) educates students in complex problem-solving by the techno-managerial approach, food safety knowledge, quality and safety standards, fraud and authenticity, and food law. Students will perform research in topics such as food safety culture, risk-based auditing, food integrity management, effectiveness of food safety management systems (FSMS) in global supply chains, FSMS development and food safety enforcement in emerging countries.

Academic year, courses and study load

In the first year of the Master programme students are expected to take 60 ECTS. In general there are three types of courses: compulsory courses (CS), restricted optionals (RO) and electives. The specialisation Quality control and Assurance typically contains 8 compulsory courses and one restricted optional.

The table below shows the specialisation programme and courses. The course content can be found in the online study handbook.
*This course can be replaced by an elective, in case of sufficient background knowledge.

First year

Compulsory courses:	Restricted optional: select one
Food Quality Management	Food Safety Economics
Food Microbiology*	Food Fraud and Mitigation
Food Law
Food Quality Analysis and Judgement*
Advanced Tools in Quality Management
FQM Research Principles 1
FQM Research Principles 2
Food Safety Management

Second year

The second year consists of an individual thesis project (minimum 36 ECTS) and an internship/traineeship (minimum 24 ECTS). The topics of the thesis and internship has to be within the scope of the specialisation. The thesis is carried out at Wageningen University. The internship is always outside Wageningen University and can be in any country, at a university, a company or an institute. Thesis topics and internship supervision for this specialisation are offered by the chairgroup Food Quality and Design.