Biodiversity and Conservation MSc

Program Overview

The MSc Biodiversity Conservation program equips students with knowledge and skills in biodiversity conservation, preparing them for careers in policy making, research, and academia. Through a combination of coursework, practical field experience, and an independent research project, graduates gain expertise in managing and protecting ecosystems worldwide. The program emphasizes the challenges and solutions related to environmental change, sustainable food production, and urban development.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

This MSc course prepares you for a career protecting biodiversity in a range of natural, agricultural and urban ecosystems around the world. Throughout your course, you'll be in the field learning about conservation issues and the constraints posed by budgets, policy and legislation.

Objectives:

• Develop fundamental knowledge about major conservation issues and their human and environmental drivers, including urbanisation, tropical logging, marine plastics, and the balance between sustainable food production and biodiversity.
• Gain hands-on experience and understand the challenges faced in real-world conservation projects.
• Receive training in the principles of experimental design and data collection in an area of outstanding conservation and biodiversity interest.
• Develop an understanding of how environmental change can impact biodiversity and how the effective management of ecosystems can positively impact both biodiversity and the ecosystem itself.
• Conduct an independent research project, spending three months researching an area of biodiversity or conservation that matches your future career aspirations.

Outline:

Core Modules:

• Advanced Data Handling and Analysis: This module provides students with advanced training in the use of statistical methods and computers to explore, visualise, analyse and present biological data.
• Advanced Scientific Skills: This module builds on existing, and further develops, generic scientific skills to equip postgraduate taught students with strong competences in presenting and reporting their research work using written and oral formats, in analysing data and the scientific literature, and in acquiring and extending their critical analysis skills.
• Field Biology: This course investigates the biodiversity of ecosystems and how landscapes can be sustainably managed to deliver on multiple ecosystem service goals.
The focus will be on tropical ecosystems with a residential field course in The Gambia, or on coastal ecosystems along the North Norfolk Coast, UK.
• Literature Review: This module requires the student to write a critical review of a biological topic of choice.
• Individual Research Project: This module gives students the opportunity to develop to high level skills relevant to a career in research or management.

Optional Modules:

• Global Conservation Issues: This course provides an overview of the principles of conservation biology through lectures which focus on major real-world conservation issues and specific case studies.
• Agricultural Ecology in a Changing World: This unit will introduce the concept of agriculture as an ecological system and explore agriculture in the context of global change.
• Biodiversity in Space and Time: This module shows how large-scale patterns of biodiversity can be studied using the methods of macroecology and macroevolution.
• Global Sustainability: This course examines the historical, social, cultural and political dimensions of sustainability, focusing on food production and natural resource management on the land and in the oceans.
• Research Methods in Avian Biodiversity and Conservation: This module provides students with both theoretical and practical training in a range of modern avian sampling techniques.

Assessment:

• Most assessment is through coursework with some written examinations.
• Assessment includes, but is not limited to, essays, extended project reports, policy briefing notes, online statistics exams, oral presentations and written grant proposals.

Teaching:

• You’ll learn through a combination of fieldwork, laboratory classes, lectures, seminars and problem-solving classes.
• Your independent research project will last for up to three months where you’ll be working alongside academic staff and professional scientists.

Careers:

• With first-hand experience of global conservation issues across animal and plant biodiversity, you'll be well equipped to pursue a range of career opportunities in policy making, research and academia implementing positive change in this area.
• Previous graduates of this course are now working as:
• Peatland Discovery Officer, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust
• Ecologist, SLR Consulting
• Associate Programme Officer, United Nations EP-WCMC
• Field Biologist, Atlantic Marine Conservation Society

Other:

• The cost of all core fieldwork and practical project work is included in your tuition fees, this includes travel and accommodation for any one day field trips and compulsory field courses as well as obligatory safety equipment.
• Necessary vaccinations and visas required for travel, as well as travel to field sites for research project work, may incur additional costs.