The Master Class is a flagship initiative of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, designed to bring internationally renowned scholars into close dialogue with graduate students from Switzerland and beyond. The first Master Class was held in 2013 by Nancy Fraser from The New School for Social Research. The following classes were held by Wolfgang Streeck (Cologne), Axel Honneth (Columbia), Sven Beckert (Harvard), Wendy Brown (then Berkeley), Eva Illouz (Paris), Marion Fourcade (Berkeley) and Hanspeter Kriesi (Florence). From 2013 to 2023 the Lucerne Master Class was supported by Mercator Foundation Switzerland. 

In 2027 the program is relaunched under the title Lucerne Master Class in PPE, reflecting the growing importance of the interdisciplinary program Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.