MSc Managing Environmental Change

It’s all about having fun

There is plenty of hope for positive change. The philosophy of the Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes is to explore how opportunities, technologies, and strategies can be implemented in complex real-world settings to deliver positive outcomes for people and the environment. We do this by embedding fun at the heart of our activities, including our courses. You will learn much by taking this new Masters course, but you will also have fun. By having fun you will learn more, and learn better.

Science, skills, stakeholders

The Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes is excited to be hosting the new MSc Managing Environmental Change. The MSc responds to current and prospective Anthropocene issues. Core teaching includes the natural and social science aspects of environmental change, and the policies and practices of managing these changes. You will work on the ecology of planetary life support systems, and the interactions between these systems and human wellbeing, exploring possibilities for human societies to develop in resilient and adaptive ways.

We will, of course, provide you with an excellent grounding in fundamental principles and theoretical thinking, but we will also challenge you to apply this knowledge to real world socio-ecological systems. This will be harder than you might think. You’ll need a wide range of soft skills to do this well, and we’ll work with you to foster these skills. We will develop your familiarity and use of digital and written media for outreach, research synthesis for policy, communication and facilitation skills for stakeholder engagement, as well as teamwork and leadership skills. Equally, we look forward to working with you to develop new activities that respond directly to your interests and needs.

The Centre advocates interactive learning. In addressing the complexities of environmental challenges, we will need to work across interdisciplinary topics, and across different stakeholder interests. You will be discussing many issues with us, with your peers, and with people who hold different opinions to yourselves and to each other. 

Image

The real world

There is a world outside academia. We sometimes forget that. You will be offered a four-month placement or project to apply your skills and knowledge in the context of that world. This will provide excellent experiences bridging from academia to policy and practice. You will be able to foster your own valuable connections.

The Centre will help you to identify suitable placements, drawing on possibilities suggested by our partner organisations, or on ideas that you yourself develop. We have a fantastic network of partners across Scotland and globally. Our connections span public bodies, corporations, private enterprises, non-governmental agencies, and community initiatives. We are consequently able to provide a wide range of opportunities for professional placements, potentially leading to subsequent employment possibilities.

Our partners are too many to list comprehensively. Within the Edinburgh area alone you’ll find much to interest you in the work of, for example, the International Institute of Environment and Development, Scottish Natural Heritage, The New Economics Foundation, Forestry Commission and Forest Research, Edinburgh and Lothian Greenspace Trust, LTS international, Ecometrica, Plan Vivo Foundation, Creative Carbon Scotland, the Confederation of Forest Industries, and many more.

More widely across Scotland you might be interested to work with the National Trust for Scotland, the Woodland Trust, Scottish Wildlife Trust, James Hutton Institute, Cairngorm Connect, RSPB, Tilhill Forestry, Trees for Life, Corrour Estate, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, John Muir Trust, … we could go on!

Internationally, the Centre’s members work with academic, governmental, NGO and private organisations in all major tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Important international collaborators include WWF International, and the Centre for International Forestry Research. The Centre’s connections with Europe are very strong, including partnerships with universities and organisations in Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and France, to name but a few. We also work and collaborate across the developing world, learning together with grass roots organisations, NGOs, private enterprise and national and global policy makers.

The possibilities are endless. It is up to you to chart your course for the future, and with our support we’ll have fun doing so!

For more information and to apply, please visit the MSc Managing Environmental Change website.

The start date of this MSc programme is September 2020.