MASc in Global Sustainable Development

at University of Warwick

In Global Sustainable Development (GSD) we take a critical approach to the dominant discourse of sustainable development. We are committed to understanding as well as challenging existing practice, and want you to join us as we seek innovative, transformative responses to complex global challenges. Based in the School for Cross-faculty StudiesLink opens in a new window, our academic home is a natural place for future transdisciplinary leaders to flourish.

On this course you will work with Warwick’s GSD DepartmentLink opens in a new window, the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD)Link opens in a new window, and partner departments across the University. Our staff are at the forefront of their fields and share your passion for global sustainable development.

Core modules will support your development as an intellectual leader dedicated to bringing about positive change. They will help to deepen your understanding of the core global challenges we face, and develop your critical and reflective approach, as well as your technical and methodological skills. Your learning will be rooted in critical intellectual enquiry and philosophical understanding, which will support your personal development as a leader of thought and action. In addition, by having a wide range of optional modules, you can tailor the course to your own areas of interest.

In Term Three and the summer, you will have an exciting opportunity to ‘learn by doing’ as you undertake a transdisciplinary capstone project. We will offer you a choice of research, practice, and work-based experiences. Your chosen project will enable you to develop a skillset most suited to your future career goals.

By the end of this course, you will be equipped to play an authentic role in reflective global citizenship. You will also have a defined understanding of what is necessary to act as a leader of positive change. The route you choose upon graduation will be defined by your own interests and aspirations. Your learning from the course will equip you with what you need for a career in applied research, in policy, business, or in third sector activity.
 

Core modules
Term One

Leading Transformation in the Anthropocene

For the first time in history, humans are the primary agents of change on a planetary scale. This module will equip you to be an intellectual leader within this new and defining context.

Throughout this module you will explore often unexamined questions of intellectual leadership in change. You will consider how they might rigorously and reflectively conceive of socially positive change and transition from first principles of philosophical reflection. You will consider perspectives from historical interpretation, reflections on identity and power, as well as practical methods of change.

Creating Knowledge for Change: Transdisciplinary Approaches

Transdisciplinarity is a way of creating new knowledge about the world we live in and how we bring about change. This approach sees beyond siloed disciplines and integrates academic and non-academic perspectives.

In this module you will consolidate previous methods training through active consideration of transdisciplinary methodologies. We will encourage you to think about the underlying differences in the way different groups of people see the world, and therefore build knowledge and act in different ways. This module, in particular, will prepare you for your capstone summer project.

Global Challenges and Transdisciplinary Responses

This module will deepen your understanding of the core global challenges facing our world today. You will develop your transdisciplinary problem-based, response-focused process skills and subject knowledge. You will work through units on resource management, climate change and human inequalities.

Term Two
You will be required to take at least two of the following optional core modules:

Qualitative Approaches to Sustainable Development

Through the use of case studies and real-world examples, you will explore and evaluate the scope, value and limitations of different and, in some cases, combined qualitative approaches for knowledge generation.

You will gain practical skills in qualitative research and further develop your ability to critically engage with qualitative research methods, while understanding the challenges that both researchers and participants can face with data collection and analysis.

Quantitative Approaches to Sustainable Development

With the use of case studies, real-world examples and data, you will learn to conduct advanced quantitative research, and to evaluate the scope, value and limitations of different quantitative approaches for knowledge generation.

Hands-on practice in computer-lab seminars will allow you to develop skills in statistical analysis relevant to trans- and cross-disciplinary research. You will critically engage with applied quantitative research, and gain a comprehensive understanding of the main issues arising from the use of quantitative methods.

Both of these methods modules will allow you to make informed and evidence-based decisions when designing research interventions that respond in nuanced, robust and imaginative ways to complex and systemic problems.

Sustainable Development Policy

This module is practically-focused, allowing you to understand how sustainable development policy is created. You will be encouraged to reflect on the complexities of policy creation, and to consider how you might engage in the design of policy for the future.

You will also select optional modules offered by GSD and partner departments.

Term Three and summer
You will select one of our transdisciplinary capstone projects:

Workplace Project

Using an agreed work placement with an outside organisation, you will think through issues of personal and institutional change-making and transition. Our Department's Employability and Placement Manager will support you throughout this project in searching for, securing, and carrying out your placement.

Practice-based Project

Engage across campus or beyond with Warwick’s pioneering sustainability agenda or other organisation’s sustainability aspirations and plans. Working closely with sustainability practitioners, you will act as a sustainability consultant within a defined organisational area, appraising, assessing and formulating proposals, which would lead sustainable transformations.

Research Project

You will have the opportunity to create a dissertation, policy briefing, or article output. You will be guided by specialist academic supervision.

Optional modules

The number of optional modules you take will vary depending on how many of the above optional core modules you select. Your optional modules will be offered by the GSD Department with IGSD, and partner departments. You will specialise in thematic learning, for example:

• Socially Engaged Performance: Interventions and Provocations
• Resource Fictions: Studies in World Literature
• World Literature in the Anthropocene
• Popular Movements and Sustainable Change
• Sustainable Urbanisation: from Risk to Resilience
• Urban Resilience, Disaster and Data
• Habitability in the Universe
• Education for Sustainable Development
• Design Thinking for Social Impact

Please note, optional modules are subject to availability and offerings may change each year to keep your learning experience current and up-to-date. You will also need to discuss your optional module choices with your personal tutor and receive approval from the Director of Graduate Studies in GSD. Other optional modules may be available across other departments.

Minimum requirements

2:i undergraduate degree (or equivalent).

We encourage applications from students with diverse backgrounds, from the sciences, social sciences and the humanities. We particularly welcome students with experience of interdisciplinary study.

In certain circumstances, we will consider applicants with a lower second-class honours degree, or a normal degree (and their equivalents). This is particularly the case for applicants with relevant professional experience which can be explicitly and directly related to our curriculum.
 

English language requirements

• Band B
• IELTS overall score of 7.0, minimum component scores of two at 6.0/6.5 and the rest at 7.0 or above.
   

The University carries out an initial fee status assessment based on information provided in the application and according to the guidance published by UKCISA. Students are classified as either Home or Overseas Fee status and this can determine the tuition fee and eligibility of certain scholarships and financial support.

If you receive an offer, your fee status will be stated with the tuition fee information, however we are awaiting guidance from the UK government regarding fee status for EU, other EEA and Swiss nationals and their family members living in the UK for academic year 2021/22 onwards. We are not able to confirm the fee status for these students until the relevant eligibility criteria have been confirmed. Once we have received further information from the UK government, we will provide you with an update on your fee status and let you know if any additional information is required. If you believe your fee status has been incorrectly classified you can complete a fee status assessment questionnaire (follow the instructions in your offer) and provide the required documentation for this to be reassessed.
 

Studying an MASc in Global Sustainable Development will open careers in the public, private and third sectors in a range of areas and functions including the following:

• Governance – shaping policy and processes at local, national and international level
• Research – academic via MRes or PhD research or for an organisation in the public, private or third sector including think-tanks
• Teaching at all levels: primary, secondary, HE and tertiary
• Project management in any industry – this could be a community or commercial project
• Communications and media relations
• Consultancy – e.g. in corporate social responsibility
• Advocacy – e.g. on international relations, humanitarian work for organisations such as the UN
• Data and intelligence analyst- e.g. security, geo- political risk