
Creative Business course overview
The Creative Business degree at NHL Stenden teaches you how to think and work from a cross-media perspective. You will become a creative professional who can take on a leading role, both in the spotlight and behind the scenes. You’ll develop your insights into the entire process of media production, from concept development to implementation, as well as learn how to market media products. Through our educational concept, Design-Based Education (DBE), you work in small teams of students, teachers, researchers and industry professionals. You tackle current, real-life issues developing and adapting your visions and ideas to form a solid solution. And you gain yet more practical experience during your internship in your final year.
During the Creative Business programme, you will be trained as a manager in the media industry. The skills you develop for this are integrated into the programme and practised through practical assignments and during your internship. Together with real companies, you will learn to develop new media concepts that add value to a company or organisation and make an impact on the target group(s).
Themes:
You will work on different topics from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the goals agreed upon by 196 countries within the United Nations. For example, you will work on explaining the topic of sustainability to your target audience through media in a comprehensible, engaging way and make an impact. Other topics you will work on are:
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Media business/Media management, Media concepting
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Media marketing
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Content marketing
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Media landscape
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Finance
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Personal leadership
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Practice-oriented research
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Media content
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Media production
Semester 1 - Explore
The media industry is constantly changing, raising questions as to what the industry looks like, who the stakeholders are and what business models can be applied. In this semester, you work with a partner from the media industry looking into what media products and services you could create for this partner that would add value to their portfolio and how you can ensure your product will appeal to the target group. In short, in this semester you learn all about the media industry and the marketing aspects of media products and services.
Semester 2 - Experience
In this semester, you learn to look at media productions from a media professional point of view and learn how to make these products. You learn about media literacy and how to analyse and evaluate media products. You will make prototypes for future media formats for a partner in the media industry. You will produce content for our own online content channel Matters.
Semester 3 - Adventure
Everything you learnt in the first year comes together in this semester. You work on setting up, organising and managing a creative organisation within the creative industry. What set-up, organisation and management do you need to create value with media? Together with a real client, you will create value with media.
Semester 4 - Concept & Production
Everything you have learned so far comes together in this semester. How do you develop a media concept, how do you ensure that this concept is converted into a concrete product? How do you organise all this and how do you market your product? You will also produce content for our Matters channel.
At the end of year 2, you will choose one of these 4 graduation profiles:
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Media Producer
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Media Manager or Entrepreneur
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Media Marketer
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Media Strategist or Developer
Creative business 3: becoming a creative business professional
This semester, you will consider a number of strategic issues that organisations within the creative business struggle with. As a consultant, you will deal with topics such as developing new business models, product innovations and meaningful communication for a creative business organisation or your own creative company. If you want to start your own business, you may also work on a number of projects within your own company.
Minors
In this semester you take a minor, a subject you can later specialise in. Read more about the options available and where you can take your minors in the section below on minors and specialisations.
Start up community: start your own business!
Do you want to do more with entrepreneurship? We give you all the space you need! Within our 'start-up community', you and other enterprising students will be given all the tools you need to take your company further. Among other things, you will have weekly coaching sessions and workshops at our external location MICA (Media Innovation Campus) in Leeuwarden. At this creative hotspot, students and companies from the creative sector work together on various innovative media and communication projects.
CrossWise
In your third year, you can do various projects within CrossWise; a collaboration between theatre and concert organisation SPOT Groningen, the municipality of Groningen and universities of applied sciences in the Northern Netherlands. Together with students and lecturers, you can, for instance, help organise the well-known music festival Eurosonic Noorderslag, carry out projects within your minor and/or do your internship here. Visit the websites for more information (Dutch only).
Internship and graduation project
Work in industry by doing an internship. You can do your internship with a business anywhere in the world, from media companies such as Sony, Netflix, and Vogue to companies with media departments such as Rabobank, Adidas, Ikea and UNICEF. And if you’ve already turned your dream for your own business into a reality, you could consider doing your internship in your own start-up. The Center for Entrepreneurship at NHL Stenden can advise you on how to do this.
For your graduation project, you work on creating a solution for an interesting challenge in the field of creative business.
In your third year of Creative Business, you get to specialise by taking a number of minors.
Minors are electives in which you focus on a specific subject or expand your knowledge by taking an additional subject. This allows you to truly take charge of your education by ‘customising’ your course.
You can take these minors on the Leeuwarden campus or at one of the NHL Stenden Grand Tour locations in South Africa, Bali or Thailand. You can also choose from minors offered by other courses and universities of applied sciences – this is all part of broadening your academic skills.
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Music Business (the Netherlands)
Learn the basics of the music business and collaborate with industry professionals on a music digitisation project while specialising in artist management, label or release management or live management. -
Video Game Business (the Netherlands)
With this minor you explore the gaming industry in terms of marketing, publicity and sales, production, project management and scouting creating a commercial concept for a real investor. -
Integrated Digital Marketing (Thailand)
Offering a combination of creative and technical skills development, this minor gives you an understanding of digital marketing strategy and how you can build the online presence of a brand and manage digital platforms to sell products. -
Media Concepts & Sustainability (the Netherlands)
Focusing on creating media and communication concepts, with this minor you learn that as a media maker, you can have a positive impact on society, creating concepts and stories that contribute in some way to the sustainable development goals. -
Digital Entrepreneurship (Thailand)
This minor provides a creative and structured approach for turning your business idea into a tangible product. You work with an array of digital marketing tools that will support your business’s growth.
Course Catalogue
International opportunities
We want to prepare you for an international, intercultural, and ever-changing environment, so that you can dive into the unknown and gain experience in an international context. It is possible with our Grand Tour, Exchange programme or one of our mobility options offered by RUN-EU. Or you can choose to do your internship abroad. You’ll be able to put together the right combination of courses and internships to develop both your professional and personal skills – and develop your own network for the future.

Lea, doing her Exchange in Copenhagen
Join Lea, third year Creative Business student in Copenhagen where she's taking a minor in multimedia design. She's got an exciting day as her team is pitching ideas to an industry client. Pick up tips for finding accommodation, hear what she thinks makes an Erasmus exchange so good and find out about a great aspect of Danish student life: student bars on campus.

Kim, doing her Grand Tour in Thailand
Join Kim in Bangkok where she’s doing her minor. Join her as she goes to class, grabs lunch on campus and then spends the evening with friends in Chinatown. What do you think of her uniform? Makes deciding what to wear in the morning pretty easy, right?

Neele, doing her internship in Copenhagen
Meet Neele, a German Creative Business student. She’ll tell you more about her internship in Copenhagen, taking you with her on her commute to work and explaining everything about her internship, including the social aspect of working in Denmark, and finishing off her day with a coffee date. And check out her cooking skills!
Is this the degree for you?
If you're confident this degree is the one for you, then why not apply online straightaway? Or pick one of the other options to help you take the next step.