Arts Management, Policy and Practice

Our interdisciplinary MA Arts Management, Policy and Practice course covers the wide range of expertise associated with running arts organisations and coordinating arts and cultural programmes and events, as well as the strategic development of art forms, cultural leadership practices and local cultural management.

Program Highlights

• Combine key knowledge and skills in arts management and cultural policy with specialist options.
• Benefit from more than 50 active partnerships with arts, cultural and policy organisations, offering opportunities for practice-based research, expert teaching and placements.
• Join our growing international network of current and future arts leaders, made up of alumni, arts, museum and heritage professionals and current students from all over the world.
• Whilst undertaking MA in Arts Management, Policy and Practice, students will have the opportunity to apply to undertake a 20-day work placement on a relevant project or programme within a creative/cultural organisation.

As well as going into further research, our postgraduates pursue successful careers as managers, administrators, policymakers or practitioners in various branches of the arts, cultural and creative industries.

Opportunities exist in:

• the public, private, and voluntary sectors;
• theatres, opera houses, concert halls, arts centres, festival management, museums and galleries;
• orchestras, theatre companies and dance companies;
• the Arts Council, British Council, local authorities, tourist boards and various funding bodies.

The University of Manchester is a centre of teaching excellence, world-class research, outstanding student experience, and social responsibility. Part of the prestigious Russell Group of universities, it’s institutions like ours that have the greatest responsibility to act as the world faces big challenges. Together, we face this head on.

Founded in 1824 for the advancement of education, we’ve since been home to 25 Nobel Prize winners and worked across disciplinary and geographic boundaries to give the world new ideas, discoveries and innovations. Inspired by and connected with our city – the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, home to an iconic arts, music and culture scene, and now the driving force of the Northern Powerhouse scheme – Manchester remains at the heart of everything we do. We've been making an impact since day one; from creating the world’s first nuclear reaction, to building the modern computer, isolating graphene, pioneering development economics, and transforming cancer diagnosis and treatment across the world. And it doesn’t stop there – our teaching and learning approach creates life-changing student experiences, inspires lifelong learning and shapes exceptional graduate outcomes for global citizens of the future. As we enter our third century, we’re not letting anything stand in our way as we continue to tackle the world’s biggest problems with unbreakable resolve.