This Sustainable Cities MSc is an interdisciplinary programme providing a critical understanding of how cities are shaped by human and physical processes. It builds deep understanding of the connections between sustainable urban and environmental futures. Our teaching focus extends beyond the technical infrastructure of sustainable urban development to consider the importance of the social infrastructures that help ensure urban resilience in the face of climate change and global environmental shifts. Well cover critical social science perspectives on sustainable cities, with a focus on human geography, not engineering. At the same time, we will help you to develop transferable skills in collecting, analysing and presenting different kinds of data as well as effectively communicating your ideas using written, verbal and visual mediums to a diverse range of audiences.

Key benefits

• Use London as an urban laboratory to get an in-depth appreciation of how the future of cities will be shaped by contested understandings of global environmental shift and change.
• Develop a critical understanding of urban responses to the challenges of sustainability, recognising that governance of sustainability requires both social and technical solutions.
• To learn from and compare a range of international examples, and how different contexts address and deliver urban sustainability.
• Specialise in issues of social or environmental sustainability by choosing from a range of optional modules taught by the Geography Department and beyond.
• Learn from guest practitioner and policy speakers.
• Combine academic theory and real-world experience within our environment and society internship module.
• Develop your links with the Urban Futures research group and access ongoing academic research work about the way that urban knowledges can help to produce more socially and environmentally sustainable cities.
• Develop your critical understanding of the interrelationships between urbanisation and human lifestyles, politics, economy, ecology and environment.
• Identify the challenges of managing cities in an integrated and sustainable manner.
• Help you to develop relevant transferable skills which are embedded in our learning and assessment schemes.
• Enhance your practical skills in data handling, interpretation and use.
• An optional Internship module helps students take their first steps towards employment in a relevant vocational field.

Employability

On completion of the Sustainable Cities MSc programme, you will have attained a range of knowledge and skills, such as effective communication, data analysis, urban planning, that will allow you to excel in a wide range of careers. Graduates from this programme have gone onto careers in international organisations, agencies, consultancies, national and city governments, charities, research organisations, in addition to many earning PhDs to become leading experts in their fields.

Our renowned Internship module offers many students a critical first step into their chosen careers. Many employers have hosted students over the modules 20-year history, including over 60 different organisations in 2021-22. With work placements available across a wide range of industry and government roles, both within the UK and internationally, students have exceptional opportunity to find a position that aligns with their interests. Employers we have worked with include international agencies local councils and national government departments companies in the for-profit and not-for-profit sector, research institutes and charities. As well as UK organisations, partners also included Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, and the United States.