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| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2024-09-01 | - |
Program Overview
Course Overview
Addressing core global development goals
Global issues of development, security and the environment have never been so important. The COVID-19 pandemic, the broader overstepping of ecological boundaries and the threat of climate change have brought questions of neoliberal economic production, environmental sustainability and human security to the fore. If you would you like to acquire the critical thinking and field-based learning skills that are essential in addressing these challenges, then the innovative and award-winning MA in Environment, Society and Development (MA-ESD) is for you.
Engaging vital overlapping environmental and security challenges
The MA-ESD will engage you on a critical exploration of the various practices of development and security that define our contemporary world, and ultimately how that critique can enable more informed, participatory and transformative interventionary practices. The programme involves engagement with a number of core areas in international development, critical security studies and political ecology, and will expose you to global concerns that encompass a complex and dynamic mesh of environmental, geopolitical and economic processes. On the programme, you will gain enormously from the field experience of working on the ground in an international development context, and as a graduate you will have the ability and ambition to activate a wide range of expert critical knowledges in shaping a more sustainable world.
Field-based learning and civic engagement
In embarking on your career and in following your passion for urgent global development issues, would you like to draw upon the experience of working with the United Nations and a range of NGOs in the challenging international development context of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)? A core element of the MA-ESD programme will involve you working and intersecting with communities, the UNDP and other development practitioners in BiH. You will gain vital experience of civic and community engagement in bringing critical thinking to development practice.
Student-centred teaching excellence and international reputation
Our students bring passion and new perspectives to urgent overlapping questions of environment, security and development. Coming from every continent across the globe, they mirror a commitment on the programme to a postcolonial concern for the production of nuanced locally-attuned knowledges that are crucial to envisioning and actioning a better world. Students benefit especially from our reputation for providing one-to-one support. The programme director and teaching team have received a number of accolades for teaching excellence, including: the University of Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2011; the National Academy Award for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning in 2012; and the University of Galway’s President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018.
Award-winning programme
University of Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2018)
Irish National Academy Award for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (2012)
University of Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2011)
University of Galway Learning and Teaching Innovation Award, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (2010)
The Neil Smith Research Award
The Neil Smith Graduate Research Award is annually given to the best overall student on the MA. The award is designed to celebrate the legacy of the late Neil Smith, the inaugural external examiner for the programme, by encouraging graduate research in the areas of geopolitics, development and social and environmental justice.
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Part-time option
A two-year part-time option is also available. Students take 30 ECTS of taught modules in Years One and Two, along with a 30 ECTS Dissertation module in Year Two.
Scholarships available
Find out about our Postgraduate Scholarships here.Applications are made online via the University of Galway Postgraduate Applications System.
Who Teaches this Course
Prof John Morrissey BA (Dubl.), MA (NUI), PhD (Exon.)
Professor of Human Geography
Room 111 Geography
University of Galway
University Road
Galway H91 TK33
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Dr Patrick Collins B.A., M.A. View Profile
Dr Nessa Cronin BA, MA.,Ph.D View Profile
Dr Valerie Ledwith BA,MA,PhD.
Coordinator Population and Migration Research Cluster
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Dr Aaron Potito PhD., MA, BA View Profile
Dr Kathy Reilly B.A.,H.Dip., Ph.D View Profile
Prof Ulf Strohmayer Dipl. Geog, PhD
PROFESSOR
Dept. of Geography
Room 118, Arts/Science Building
NUI Galway
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Assessment is in the form of continuous assessment, essays, oral presentations and other projects. Students also submit a dissertation of 15,000–20,000 words based on original research.
