MSc Transformative Change for Sustainable Development

How will we tackle ongoing global challenges? Join our new MSc programme –Transformative Change for Sustainable Development.

Transformative change is widely advocated by global organisations, such as the United Nations, as a roadmap towards a more sustainable future.

Despite progress in many aspects of global development over recent decades, 690 million people experienced hunger in 2020. Degradation of our natural resources – land, water, forests, and biodiversity – continues at alarming rates. These challenges are exacerbated by climate change and violent conflicts in many parts of the world.

Tackling these challenges and ensuring a sustainable future will require Transformative Change (TC) – change that is disruptive, systemic, occurs at relatively large scales, and involves a reconfiguration of technology, economy, institutions, and society.

Our Transformative Change for Sustainable Development MSc will provide you with an in-depth understanding of Development Studies theory and practice, including different conceptions of human, societal and environmental changes. Drawing on real-world-lessons from various domains (economic, environmental, social, and institutional), sectors (agri-food, energy, education, and financial services) and contexts (developing and developed countries), you will develop the capacity to critically discuss, analyse, and evaluate TC.

You will develop hands-on skills in sustainable development design and planning, project management, research, and impact evaluation methods, and familiarity with systems modelling and relevant software. The MSc will enhance your communication, networking and community-engagement skills.

What you should know about this course

• This MSc course is run by the Natural Resources Institute – a specialist organisation with a focus on development-related research, teaching, consultancy, and community engagement
• Receive personalised teaching from a team of world-leading researchers and development practitioners with experience of working with the World Bank, UN, CGIAR, NGOs, etc
• NRI’s extensive global networks & ongoing research projects in 30+ countries will provide you with opportunities for practitioner-based learning
• You will receive one-to-one care and mentoring and be part of a vibrant and diverse postgraduate student community
• Course content is focused not only on what the world’s sustainable development challenges and potential solutions are, but also on ‘how to make changes happen’.

We are a multi-faculty university, which provides high-quality teaching, research and enterprise, and puts student satisfaction at the heart of our work. We welcome everyone who shares our passion for remaking the old and imagining the new. Our university community includes staff, students and other stakeholders in the UK and around the world.

With subjects ranging from accountancy to science, we are proud of our excellent standards of teaching.

We are based on three attractive, historic campuses in London and Medway, Kent, at the centre of an international network of partners and clients. The university is home to a diverse community of nearly 28,000 students studying in the UK and overseas, one in five of them postgraduate.