Program Overview

MSc Education (Neuroscience and Education)

Overview

Neuroscience is beginning to influence education across the world. This programme will provide you with the skills and understanding to interrogate and apply insights arising from neuroscience in education.

It is suitable for teachers and practitioners of all subjects, including teachers of children with special needs, educational psychologists, education managers, and policymakers. Students will enrich their educational thinking and practice with insights about typical and atypical learning from the sciences of the mind and brain.

The programme also provides an excellent foundation for further research, such as a PhD, that involves the ideas and methods of cognitive neuroscience in areas related to education and learning.

You will engage with the latest research literature and debates, including the most recent findings arising from the sciences of mind and brain in areas relevant to education (such as reading, attention, mathematics, language and learning disorders, autism, adolescent development, and technology, along with many other areas). You will become an active researcher who draws on findings from neuroscience, psychology, genetics, and educational research in order to carry out your own small-scale experiments and research studies, leading to the major work of your dissertation.

You will also complete a range of assignments that encourage written, graphical, and oral communication of your ideas. The programme will help you to gain confidence in making critical judgments about research findings, and in debating and discussing issues or ideas in the field of neuroscience and education.

Key Information

• Programme duration: One year full-time; two or three years part-time.
• Start date: September 2025
• Application deadline: Overseas applicants: 25 July 2025; Home applicants: 8 August 2025
• Delivery method: On-Campus
• Location: Clifton
• Awards available: MSc

Programme Structure

Our education master's degrees give you the opportunity to select a programme of study tailored towards your interests and learning needs. The range of degrees we offer means you will be able to specialise and receive an award in a particular discipline area.

Visit our programme catalogue for full details of the structure and unit content for our MSc in Education (Neuroscience and Education). Please note that this pathway consists of core units that all students on the pathway must take and a range of optional units that students can choose from, within availability or timetabling constraints.

Alternatively, you can design your own pathway by opting not to specialise and to take those units that fit with your availability. Units can be taken from across the different specialisms and from our bank of available optional units to build a tailored programme of study, resulting in an award of MSc Education.

World-Leading Research

• The University of Bristol is ranked fifth for research in the UK (Times Higher Education).
• 94% of our research assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent.

Entry Requirements

• You will typically need an upper second-class honours degree or an international equivalent in any discipline.
• If you are currently completing a degree, we understand that your final grade may be higher than the interim grades or module/unit grades you have achieved during your studies to date.
• We will consider your application if your interim grades are currently slightly lower than the programme's entry requirements and may make you an aspirational offer. This offer would be at the standard level, so you would need to achieve the standard entry requirements by the end of your degree. Specific module requirements would still apply.

English Language Requirements

• If English is not your first language, you will need to reach the requirements outlined in our profile level E.
• Further information about English language requirements and profile levels.

Fees and Funding

• Home: full-time £12,300 per year
• Home: part-time (three years) £4,100 per year
• Home: part-time (two years) £6,150 per year
• Overseas: full-time £28,200 per year

Fees are subject to an annual review. For programmes that last longer than one year, please budget for up to an 8% increase in fees each year.

Alumni Discount

• University of Bristol students and graduates can benefit from a 25% reduction in tuition fees for postgraduate study. Check your eligibility for an alumni discount.

Funding and Scholarships

• Further information on funding for prospective UK and international postgraduate students.

Career Prospects

Our goal is to equip you with the tools to demonstrate impact, excellence and distinctiveness in your chosen field.

We will enable our graduates to display the following characteristics:

• be equipped to demonstrate impact, excellence and distinctiveness in your chosen field;
• be visionary, imaginative, innovative, reflective and creative;
• have high ideals and values, including a strong sense of social justice;
• be highly employable throughout the world;
• be adaptable, with the potential to be a leader in work and in the community.

Graduates with an MSc in Education often advance into roles in:

• Teaching and educational leadership – Many work as teachers (if they hold Qualified Teacher Status or equivalent – additional qualifications) or progress into leadership roles such as curriculum coordinators, headteachers, or educational consultants.
• Education policy and administration – Opportunities exist within government bodies, local authorities, and education charities, influencing policy and practice.
• Higher education and academic research – postgraduate students could choose to continue into PhD programmes or take on academic research roles within universities or independent education think tanks.
• EdTech and corporate training – Graduates may move into educational technology companies, instructional design, or corporate training and development.