MSc Environmental Governance

University of Manchester

Course description

MSc Environmental Governance addresses some of the key environmental challenges of our time, exploring the connections between environmental governance and policies and the production, distribution and consumption of resources.

It will develop your ability to apply sophisticated, critical and interdisciplinary sustainability and environmental theories at multiple scales and in different geographical contexts.

As part of the course, you'll have the unique opportunity to collaborate and engage with cutting-edge researchers and world-leading experts on environmental governance, political ecology, Marxist political economy and urban sustainability. You will learn from real-world practitioners, and liaise with external organisations on live policy problems.

The course is ideal for pursuing a career in environmental regulation and management, those wishing to conduct further research on these topics, and environmental professionals wishing to deepen their knowledge.

Aims

• Learn from real-world practitioners and liaise with external organisations on live policy problems.
• Consider approaches to regulating human use of the non-human world, from market-based to non-market approaches.
• Tackle environmental resource questions using case studies from the 'first', 'second' and 'third' worlds.
• Study different social spheres of environmental governance - production, distribution and consumption.
• Benefit from a highly interdisciplinary course, exposing you to ideas and practices developed in a range of subject areas.

Coursework and assessment

Course units involve a range of formative and summative assessments, including individual and group work, oral presentations and long essays, project work and reports. Coursework is designed to allow you to pursue your particular areas of interest.

In the summer semester, you work independently to undertake dissertation work based on primary and/or secondary data, or else a more philosophical/theoretical dissertation.

We encourage you develop research in collaboration with members of the Society and Environment Research Group (SERG) and external organisations.

Career opportunities

MSc Environmental Governance responds to a growing need for social, economic and political experts in the environmental field, and our graduates are highly employable in what is an expanding sector.

Graduates of this course possess theoretical knowledge, political understanding and practical research skills, preparing you for careers in either the public, private or voluntary environmental sectors, or for further research on environmental governance within a university or think-tank environment.

You will be equipped to work for organisations like the Environment Agency, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Soil Association, and the Department of Environment Food and Agriculture, among many others. Our students have been particularly successful in obtaining funded PhD places and gaining employment with private consultancies and international NGOs.

Geography graduates in general have particularly great employment prospects, and go on to shape environmental policy through positions in the public and private sectors.

Our graduates have gone on to successful careers in areas including consultancy, research, non-governmental organisations, project management, environmental management, agriculture and forestry, environmental sciences, energy, oil and gas, marketing, finance, and water.