One Health (Online Learning) MSc

Programme description

One Health sits at the interface between human, animal and ecosystem health. As such, it is a fast-evolving subject area, well suited to preparing professionals looking to tackle the wide range of intractable and highly complex health challenges of the 21st Century. This programme is suitable for a wide range of professionals, whose disciplinary backgrounds can include the health, biological, environmental and social sciences. This programme is delivered fully online, making the most of the University’s pioneering, award-winning online learning environments.

The University of Edinburgh was the first UK University to address the need for One Health professional training by providing a dedicated Master’s programme. Launched in 2014, this MSc programme capitalises on the many strengths of the University of Edinburgh across multiple disciplines to deliver world-class teaching in One Health and provide the key training and skills required for a successful career in this emerging field. In the national Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (2019), we received a 90% student satisfaction rating, reflecting the hard work the team puts in to build and support the learning community who come together to teach and learn on this programme.

The One Health programme is part of the Global Health Academy and we share many elective courses with other programmes in the Academy. This provides a great deal of flexibility allowing you to personalise your studies to reflect your professional interests and career aspirations. As well as learning from our expert tutors you will join with students from around the world on a number of different master’s programmes to share experiences and knowledge.

This programme is affiliated with the University's Global Health Academy.

Career opportunities

The One Health MSc aims to provide interested professionals with the knowledge, skills and awareness required to work within a One Health framework that recognises the importance of interdisciplinary working and the interrelatedness of human, animal and environmental health.

Graduates from our programme can expect to enhance their prospects in academia, research, government departments, non-governmental organisations, international development and the private sector. Despite being a relatively new field, and indeed approach, One Health is rapidly gaining global recognition and our students have already reported improvements in career development through studying on the programme. Graduates will be better able to drive the development of novel career pathways as this field continues to evolve in response to the complexity of the health challenges we face.

This exciting programme offers graduates a broad scientific training and the opportunity to advance One Health past the theoretical level to the practical level and beyond, bringing much needed attention to the social, political and operational issues that ultimately will be key determinants for success. On completion of this MSc, graduates are likely to have developed their ability to provide advice on policy development and implementation, a contribution whose relevance and significance is becoming increasingly recognised by governments and NGOs.