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Environment Society & Development

Postgraduate
MA-ESD

Running through the MA is an overarching aim to equip you with both critical and practical expertise in environment-society relations, with a firm eye on developing your abilities to influence policy formulation and implementation in a range of interventionary contexts.

Award Name Degree - Masters (Level 9 NFQ)
NFQ Classification Major
Awarding Body National University of Ireland
NFQ Level Level 9 NFQ
Award Name NFQ Classification Awarding Body NFQ Level
Degree - Masters (Level 9 NFQ) Major National University of Ireland Level 9 NFQ
Course Provider:
Location:
Galway City
Attendance Options:
Full time, Part time, Daytime
Qualification Letters:
MA
Apply to:
Course provider

Duration

1 year full-time,
2 years part-time.

Entry Requirements

NQAI Level 8 degree at H2.1 in relevant subject and H2.2 overall; GPA 3.0, or equivalent international qualification. IELTS score of 6.5, or equivalent, if applicable. Selection is based on academic record, statement of intent and letters of recommendation. Prior learning via relevant work experience is also recognised.

Careers / Further progression

Career Opportunities
MA-ESD graduates have gone on to work in key governmental, planning and public policy roles in their home countries, and in a wide range of UN agencies and other national and international NGOs. They have also added richly to the work of environmental agencies and specialist policy institutes throughout the globe, as well as pursuing PhD research in leading academic departments worldwide.

Course Web Page

Further information

Next start date September 2024
Closing Date Offers are made on a rolling basis.

Average intake 12

Fees: EU
€7,640 full-time; €3,855 part-time p.a. 2024/25
Fees: Tuition
€7,500 full-time; €3,750 part-time p.a. 2024/25
Fees: Student levy
€140 full-time; €105 part-time p.a. 2024/25
Fees: Non EU
€18,500 p.a. (€18,640 p.a. including levy) 2024/25

Student levy €140—payable by all students and is not covered by SUSI.

Closing Date
Please view the offer rounds website at https://www.universityofgalway.ie/postgrad-admissions/key-dates/

Applications are made online via the University of Galway Postgraduate Applications System

Addressing core global development goals
Global issues of development, security and the environment have never been so important. The COVID-19 pandemic, the broader overstepping of ecological boundaries and the threat of climate change have brought questions of neoliberal economic production, environmental sustainability and human security to the fore. If you would you like to acquire the critical thinking and field-based learning skills that are essential in addressing these challenges, then the innovative and award-winning MA in Environment, Society and Development (MA-ESD) is for you.

Engaging vital overlapping environmental and security challenges
The MA-ESD will engage you on a critical exploration of the various practices of development and security that define our contemporary world, and ultimately how that critique can enable more informed, participatory and transformative interventionary practices. The programme involves engagement with a number of core areas in international development, critical security studies and political ecology, and will expose you to global concerns that encompass a complex and dynamic mesh of environmental, geopolitical and economic processes. On the programme, you will gain enormously from the field experience of working on the ground in an international development context, and as a graduate you will have the ability and ambition to activate a wide range of expert critical knowledges in shaping a more sustainable world.

Field-based learning and civic engagement
In embarking on your career and in following your passion for urgent global development issues, would you like to draw upon the experience of working with the United Nations and a range of NGOs in the challenging international development context of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)? A core element of the MA-ESD programme will involve you working and intersecting with communities, the UNDP and other development practitioners in BiH. You will gain vital experience of civic and community engagement in bringing critical thinking to development practice.

Student-centred teaching excellence and international reputation
Our students bring passion and new perspectives to urgent overlapping questions of environment, security and development. Coming from every continent across the globe, they mirror a commitment on the programme to a postcolonial concern for the production of nuanced locally-attuned knowledges that are crucial to envisioning and actioning a better world. Students benefit especially from our reputation for providing one-to-one support. The programme director and teaching team have received a number of accolades for teaching excellence, including: the University of Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2011; the National Academy Award for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning in 2012; and the University of Galway’s President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018.

Modules:

TI6131: Introduction to Development (10 ECTS)
TI6125: Research Methods and Mapping (10 ECTS)
TI6126: Critical Geopolitics and Security (10 ECTS)
TI6127: Environmental Risk and Resilience (10 ECTS)
TI6128: Development and Justice (10 ECTS)
TI6129: Field-Based Learning (20 ECTS)
TI6130: Research Project and Dissertation (30 ECTS)

Part-time option
A two-year part-time option is also available. Students take 30 ECTS of taught modules in Years One and Two, along with a 30 ECTS Dissertation module in Year Two.

Professor John Morrissey
T: +353 91 492 267
E: john.morrissey@universityofgalway.ie
www.universityofgalway.ie/our-research/people/geography-and-archaeology/johnmorrissey

Course Provider:
Location:
Galway City
Attendance Options:
Full time, Part time, Daytime
Qualification Letters:
MA
Apply to:
Course provider