Master's Degree in City Resilience Design and Management

This master's degree is an innovative, international and multidisciplinary education program that teaches students how to operationalize the most urgent calls for building more resilient and sustainable cities through urban planning and design, and how to frame adequate policies and governance models. This one-year program provides the most up-to-date perspectives, methods, and tools for dealing with the threat of climate change, natural disasters and the social and technical transformations required to minimize the environmental impact of the current global urbanization trends while addressing social justice.

Reasons to study this master's degree

• International professors and a global multidisciplinary perspective: This master's degree has been framed and supported by the International Urban Resilience Research Network, and the program is taught by professors from some of the most prestigious universities and research centers dealing with urban resilience in different parts of the world. The program's global and multidisciplinary perspective (it addresses the environmental, social, economic, planning, and political aspects of urban studies) enables students to learn about and understand resilience challenges on an international, national and local city level, thanks to the dense network of research and teaching partners involved in this master's degree.
• Wide range of job opportunities: The program is supported by the most prestigious foundations, networks, and agencies dealing nowadays with city and community resilience. It includes a mandatory job placement period, which provides students with the connections and work experience needed to ensure a successful and international career. A long list of cities from different continents has also pledged their support to the master's program in the form of job placement opportunities in their city resilience units.
• Bridging research and practical experience with an innovative educational model: In this master's program, students will bridge science and policy through workshops and active involvement in panel-like classes, fostering different points of view and constantly re-framing the business-as-usual strategies often seen in the creation and management of resilient cities.

Presentation

In a world increasingly threatened by complex and rapid urbanization and environmental, climatic, and socio-economic change, this program was created to meet the city practitioners' need to understand better and frame integrated strategies when implementing urban resilience policies and projects. At the same time, resilience is being addressed by different disciplines and from a wide range of perspectives, which sometimes conflict in their meanings, approaches, and methods, leading to a fragmented and confusing framing of urban resilience. This master's program provides the necessary interdisciplinary bridges, linking an integrated perspective on urban resilience to the management tools needed to design and implement city resilience.

Overview, objective, and structure

The Master's Degree in City Resilience Design and Management is a one-year, full-time master's program developed and coordinated by the International Urban Resilience Research Network and hosted by UIC Barcelona. Its title reflects the need to go beyond the "building resilient cities" paradigm, taking resilience as a process expressed through a set of capacities and emotional responses to a range of impacts; one that cannot be just "built or designed", but must be managed.

The aim of this master's degree is to provide students with multiple perspectives and the multidisciplinary skills, tools and knowledge future city resilience officers require.

The program is divided into 3 main blocks: on-site classes, a research project, and work experience. The first part of the course follows a logical sequence that starts with theoretical aspects of resilience and urbanization processes. The next four modules explore and integrate different views on resilience, related to i) the built environment and infrastructures; ii) nature and urban ecosystems; iii) economic and city services resilience, and iv) community resilience. The final and most extensive module uses a set of international case studies and workshops (on governance models, leadership, and tools for managing resilience) to explore the challenges of implementation. As the course moves forward, Barcelona will be used as a case study due to its experience in resilience, and students will have the opportunity to take part in a workshop with the Barcelona Urban Resilience Lab.

Through these workshops, students will be linked to organizations, institutes, and city resilience offices worldwide, giving them the opportunity to apply their learning and skills through job placement opportunities, supporting their career and city resilience strategies for a more sustainable urban future.

University spirit

The vocation to learn and to change the world

A university involves knowledge, research, and knowledge transfer. However, we aspire to more. We are people who dedicate our time and effort to learning in order to change the world. You can see this ambition in UIC Barcelona activities. It is in our DNA.

Have the university experience you always dreamed of

Placing each student at the heart of everything means that you are the protagonist in UIC Barcelona.

This is our commitment to you, reflected by individual attention, small class groups, a friendly teaching body, supportive services, and everything you need to improve your skills.

Building bridges to professional reality

We are connected to society and to companies. Classes are practiced and taught by active professionals. They are complemented by a work placement program. For all these reasons, UIC Barcelona has one of the best employability rates in the Catalan university system.

In Barcelona and in connection with the world

Multicultural Barcelona provides an overarching background of talent and knowledge. We also have international agreements and exchange programs with universities abroad. Some of our degree programs are taught partly in English; you can even take your entire degree program in this language.

Accreditation

The Universitat Internacional de Catalunya officially began its academic activities in October 1997. Organic Law 11/1983 on University Reform, (LRU) along with the 26/1984 Parliament of Catalonia Law, established the appropriate legal framework for the establishment of a university with the capacity to award official degree certificates. The Fundación Familiar Catalana (Catalan Family Foundation) took on full responsibility for carrying out this academic project.

Top reasons why a student should consider studying at UIC Barcelona

International experience in one of the most exciting cities in the world: Barcelona Highly qualified professors and professionals that love to teach with an international mindset Official Degrees and Practical training International internships A high rate of employability The optimal way to improve language skills Personal coaching and advice for all programs and to all students Networking and contacts Developing leadership and entrepreneurial skills Continue education: Master, postgraduate and Ph.D. programs

Services

Accommodation: If you require accommodation during your time at the university you will be able to apply for student residences, apartments, and rooms that have been specially designed for your needs.

Sports: Studying at UIC Barcelona means evolving overall as a person. We encourage students to be involved in sports and physical activities. The university promotes and organizes sports activities, competitions and provides discounts and other advantages to students so that they can have access to other facilities and organizations in Barcelona.

Coaching and counseling: Counseling and coaching services designed for students to achieve their personal and professional challenges.

Student Life

Student Services: helps you to achieve what is most important: your personal goals.

It organizes a wide range of cultural, sports-related, social and academic activities. The service provides information and guidance about academic, administrative and extracurricular issues in the university.

The UIC's Student Services is in charge of informing and advising university students about how to manage their paperwork and also other extracurricular issues.

Alumni: UIC Barcelona relays its academic philosophy to society through its community of 12.000 graduates. This philosophy is excellence at work, the individual placed at the center of everything, the desire to serve and the constant search for truth.