Master of Science - Environment and Development

The students ready to explore some of the world's most pressing challenges? Understand the link between the environment and development agendas and global inequalities - for today and the future. The Master of Science Environment and Development enables you to critically evaluate the multiple dimensions of the inter-relationship between development and the environment, with an abiding concern for social and environmental justice.

That is why The University of Edinburgh Master of Science foregrounds society and nature as inherently linked, historical contexts as highly relevant to current debates, and global capitalism as an underlying force of change. Issues will be explored across a range of geographical scales, seeing the local and global as necessarily inter-related. It will consider the increasingly diverse set of actors, practices and processes driving environment and development issues, and question the power of these to direct agendas and actions.

The Master of Science has relevance in both the 'Global South' and 'Global North', drawing attention to relationships of inequality and marginalization as they occur for particular environments and sections of society worldwide. It will provide you with a unique critical perspective, as it draws on expertise from across the University, especially from development geography, social and political sciences, and environmental studies.

Students can explore society and environment issues through different theoretical and conceptual lenses, examining the interplay of sociocultural perspectives, economics and governance, development debates and ecological dynamics. There is much diversity in what you can study and conduct research on. The University of Edinburgh flexibility enables students to develop their interests at an advanced level in an area they are most passionate about.