The Master of Food Safety offered at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NVH) is an international Master's programme, taught in English, with one full year of taught courses and one year of research and writing your MSc thesis.
Target group and application
The Norwegian School of Veterinary Science aims at recruiting students from various biologically oriented studies and persons with a solid background in food safety work to the study.
To apply for the study a minimum of a Bachelors degree or vocational training of a minimum of three years duration is required.
Duration of study
The study is a two year's full study, but separate modules may be taken separately and the student may spread the study over more than two years. A total of 120 ECTS with 60 in course work and 60 in the research part is the basis for the final degree.
Study objective
The Master of Food Safety will give the candidate a good understanding of the basis for work in various areas of food safety. The degree will give the candidate a strong competence basis for work in public food safety services, the food industry as well as advisors in primary production.
The courses will cover basic and advanced food microbiology and food toxicology, but also general principles for food safety work, risk analysis and risk-based work in general.
Throughout the study, the student is expected to reach the following competence basis:
Knowledge
1. Know the theoretical basics of food safety, including the biological aspects of food microbiology and toxicology, environmental food safety and veterinary drug residues.
2. Know the basis of research methodology and scientific method
3. Know the essentials of international legislation and approaches to risk based food inspection
4. Be able to retreive information from various sources to work in improving food safety.
Skills
1. Be able to evaluate a food production chain and suggest chanin intervention to improve food safety standards.
2. Analyse a chain within a HACCP and risk assessment framework
3. Be able to suggest relevant laboratory analyses and perform some analytical procedures in food microbiology.
4. Be able to formulate a research proposal and run through a research process until publishing the results.
Attitudes
1. Develop sound attitudes to the importance of food safety in public health and in development of countries
The study
The main outline of the studies is as follows (more details are found in the semester plan)
Year 1 | Semester 1 | Basic food safety, with two main modules (30 ECTS): Basic food microbiology and Environmental toxicology (20 ECTS) Food toxicology and veterinary drug residues (10 ECTS) |
| Semester 2 | Advanced food safety (30 ECTS) with Compulsory courses Research planning and introduction to biostatistics (10 ECTS) Risk based food inspection (10 ECTS) Optional courses Epidemiology (10 ECTS) with either Introduction to epidemiology + infectious disease epidemiology or Introduction to epidemiology + microbiological risk assessment. Advanced food microbiology (10 ECTS) Advanced food toxicology (10 ECTS) |
Year 2 | Semester 3+4 | Research part (60 ECTS) with presenetation of the thesis before May 10 year 2. |
Teaching/ learning platform
The study has a basic platform linked to lectures and group work, with the final aim in establishing specific skills. Some web resources are used and interaction with the staff is frequent through training and research.
Evaluation
Within each unit, evaluation will be a mix of exams, case reports and presentations. Each study unit will receive a grading using the European grading system A (best) to F (fail). The thesis will be evaluated on a pass/ fail platform.