
MSc in Environment, Politics and Development
London, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 up to 2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
09 Mar 2025*
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
GBP 31,600 / per year **
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* first application deadline
** International students | UK students: £14,500 per year
Introduction
Our Environment, Politics and Development MSc programme provides an advanced theoretical understanding of the relationship between development problems and environmental issues. You will explore these relationships from the perspectives of political ecology, development geography and environmental governance. To illustrate these relationships, we use relevant case studies drawn from across the globe.
Key benefits
- Learn and interact with academic staff that have first-hand experience with development problems and environmental issues in contexts from around the globe
- Appreciate critically the distinct disciplinary approaches to a dynamic and contested body of knowledge on development, politics and the environment
- Develop awareness of contemporary development issues, problems and policies through engagement with development theory
- Enhance understanding of framing and problem-solving challenges at the interface of environment and development with the learning of political theory, political science and political ecology theories and environmental justice lenses
- Gain critical analytical skills to uncover reciprocal relationships between changing natural environments and dynamic livelihood strategies, or the nature of power, difference and inequality within economic, social, physical and cultural environments
- Develop an interdisciplinary understanding of how the human and physical world is revealed through representations of space, place and landscape
- Access opportunities to carry out original fieldwork either in the UK or overseas for your dissertation
- An optional internship module helps students take their first steps towards employment in a relevant vocational field
Course essentials
Our Environment, Politics and Development MSc offers you a demanding and stimulating programme of study, with an emphasis on developing knowledge and critical understanding as highlighted above. This is complemented by the development of a broad suite of intellectual and practical skills such as:
- Assessing the relative merits of contrasting theories, explanations and policies
- Conceptualising problems and identifying possible methods for their solution
- Critically evaluating evidence
- Critically analysing qualitative and quantitative data
- Planning, designing and executing an individual piece of research, including the production of a thesis/report
- Undertaking effective fieldwork as part of the dissertation, if suitable
- Employing a variety of social surveys and interpretative methods for analysing information from the human world
Duration: One year full-time, September to September, two years part-time
Admissions
Curriculum
Structure
Programmes are divided into modules. You will take modules totalling 180-190 credits as outlined below.
Required modules
Programmes are divided into modules. You will take modules totalling 180-190 credits as outlined below. You are required to take the following modules:
- Dissertation (60 Credits)
- Environmental Justice and Governance (15 credits)
- Fundamentals of Environment, Politics and Development (15 credits)
- Practising Social Research (15 credits)
- Research Design and Project Management (15 credits)
Optional modules
In addition, students are required to take 60-70 credits of optional modules, which may typically include:
- Climate: Science and Society (15 credits)
- Environment, Livelihoods and Development in the 'South' (15 credits)
- Environmental Science and Policymaking (15 credits)
- Geopolitics of Natural Resources (15 credits)
- Risk Management and Governance (15 credits)
- Risk Perception, Communication and Behaviour Change (15 credits)
- Security and the Global Natural Environment (15 credits)
- Tourism and Development (15 credits)
- Tourism, Conservation and Environment (15 credits)
- Understanding Human Mobility (15 Credits)
- Vulnerability, Development and Disasters (15 credits)
- Water Sustainability, Society and Governance (15 credits)
Other Optional Modules Available to Students on this Programme:
- Internship (Environment and Society) (15 credits)
Any Level 7 (Masters) modules offered in the Department of Geography, including those listed above. For students with a physical geography or STEM background, or who wish to specialise in aspects of environmental science or interdisciplinary work, we also recommend the following choices:
- Earth Observation and Remote Sensing for Sustainability (15 Credits)
- Environmental Dynamics in the Anthropocene (15 credits)
- Fundamentals of Climate Change (15 credits)
- GIS and Spatial Data Science (15 Credits)
- Modelling Environmental Change (15 credits)
- Risk Analysis: Science and Applications (15 Credits)
Any Level 7 (Masters) modules offered in the Department of War Studies, are subject to availability.
Up to 20 credits of Level 7 (Master’s) modules from any King’s Departments or Institutes outside of Geography, subject to approvals.
Part-Time Students
Part-time students are advised to take 75-90 credits of taught modules in their first year, including Fundamentals of Environment, Politics and Development and Environmental Justice and Governance, thereby allowing enough time to focus on the dissertation in their second year. Students are normally advised to take Practising Social Research in their second year, but that can be taken in the first year, should students have strong reasons to do so and have the agreement of their Programme Director. Research Design and Project Management should be taken in the second year.
Part-Time International Students and paid or unpaid work
Please note that for international students, UK Government guidelines are currently more restrictive for those holding part-time visas than full-time visas. If you hold a student visa for a part-time programme, you will not have the right to undertake any work, paid or unpaid, in the UK. Therefore, the Internship (Environment and Society) module is only available to full-time overseas students but not part-time overseas students, as the UK Government considers it unpaid work. The Internship module is also available to full- or part-time home students.
King’s College London reviews the modules offered regularly to provide up-to-date, innovative and relevant programmes of study. Therefore, the modules offered may change. We suggest you keep an eye on the course finder on our website for updates.
Please note that modules with a practical component will be capped due to educational requirements, which may mean that we cannot guarantee a place for all students who elect to study this module.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
On completion of the Environment, Politics and Development MSc programme you will have attained a range of knowledge and skills appropriate to careers in research, management and consultancy in organisations engaged in the environment and development field in developing countries, as well as generic skills opening the way to more general employment opportunities for M-level graduates.
Many of our graduates have gone on to undertake further graduate study and work as research assistants for international development agencies. There are also good career opportunities with government agencies, international and national non-governmental organisations and academic research institutes.
Our ever-popular Internship module, which has been running for over 20 years, helps master’s students take their first steps towards employment, offering opportunities to undertake a period of work with an organisation broadly related to their programme of study. The internship not only provides valuable career-enhancing opportunities but also counts towards their degrees.
In 2021-22, over 150 students worked with 60 different organisations across a range of sectors including international agencies; local councils and national government departments; companies in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors, research institutes and charities. As well as UK organisations, partners also included Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany and the United States.