
MSc in Future Governance
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 up to 3 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time, Part time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
29 May 2025
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
Request tuition fees
STUDY FORMAT
Distance Learning, On-Campus
Introduction
A new, interdisciplinary degree with the Edinburgh Futures Institute
Technology and data are transforming governance across the globe. How we apply ethical and innovative use of data and technology to society’s most pressing challenges is key to how we govern our future world. This new MSc programme in the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) explores and analyses the challenges and opportunities that big data brings to the future of democracy.
This is a unique, new interdisciplinary programme offering an innovative approach to study that will help you develop advanced thinking in governance and policy-making for the future. It is for critical thinkers who seek to develop leading-edge knowledge to help them shape the world – and their careers – by driving positive change through policy and decision-making.
You will gain the skills and knowledge required to evaluate and use diverse data sources and emerging technologies to understand, critique and shape the future of governance. The cross-sector, interdisciplinary approach used within EFI showcases the very best the University of Edinburgh has to offer and includes collaboration with policy and communication experts and decision-makers across the public, private and third sectors.
You will:
- develop a deep understanding of democracy and participation in an era of rapidly developing technological change and data-driven decision-making
- interrogate the challenges and opportunities that new and big data sources bring to the future of governance
- increase your knowledge of ethical decision-making in the context of data-driven policy-making, and your confidence in using new and big data
- learn to identify the most appropriate methods required to address policy issues and learn how to apply a strong, critical and interdisciplinary understanding to the challenge of our democratic futures
Postgraduate Study at the Edinburgh Futures Institute
This programme is part of an interconnected portfolio of postgraduate study in the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI). EFI supports interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research that is focussed on complex global and social challenges.
Our programmes are all taught by academic experts from many different subject areas. As an EFI student, you will develop creative, critical and data-informed thinking that cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries. You will have the space to think deeply about questions linked to your own passions and professional goals, and will develop a project based on an issue that you care about.
As well as knowledge specific to your area of study, studying at EFI will give you the skills and understanding you need to become a creative, confident and critical citizen in a fast-changing world. These will include:
- core data skills
- data ethics
- the ability to interrogate issues of global scope
- the creative and analytic approaches to knowledge that are vital for building better futures
You can join us regardless of whether you already have skills in the use and application of digital data.
Admissions
Curriculum
Students on the programme study the following:
- A portfolio of EFI ‘shared core’ courses (40 credits) which teach the essential critical and hands-on data skills, enquiry methods, ethical and creative capacities needed to underpin your programme-based studies.
- Core courses (20 credits) specific to your programme.
- A project (taking the form of a 20-credit ‘integration and project planning’ course, and a 40-credit final project).
- A wide choice of short 10 credit optional courses (60 credits), at least two of which must be on topics related to your programme, with scope to study across the entire EFI portfolio.
Core courses
You will take the following 10 credit core courses for your programme:
- Future Governance –This future facing course critically examines how data and technology are used within governance and the policy process.
- Digital Democratic Innovations – This course explores the potential transformative effect of digital technology for democratic innovation.
You will also take the following 10 credit shared core courses, which are compulsory for EFI students on all programmes:
- Interdisciplinary Futures
- Insights Through Data or Text Remix (choose one)
- Ethical Data Futures
- Representing Data or Building Near Futures (choose one)
These shared core courses place you in cross-disciplinary teams with students from other programme areas. They will teach you to collect, manage and analyse computational datasets, and to use emerging methodologies for mapping and designing the future. They will also teach the fundamentals of data ethics, while supporting you to use your creative skills in the analysis and representation of data-informed and qualitative inquiry.
Optional courses
EFI will offer a wide portfolio of about 40-50 optional courses taught by academic staff from across many discipline areas including approximately six to eight courses on topics associated with your programme. The exact courses will vary from year to year.
In 2023-24, the courses associated with your programme may include:
- Digital Influence
- Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in a Digital Age
- Text Mining for Social Research
- Data Civics
- Datafication, Accountability and Democracy
- The Neuropolitics of Decision Making
Optional courses from across the wider portfolio will cover a range of themes and topics, such as:
- critical perspectives on how new technologies are changing society
- data, programming and research skills that advance the skills taught in the EFI shared core
- the causes and consequences of inequalities around the world
- what the future of education might look like
- how narratives drive the way we understand the world
- bringing service design and service management together to build change in a data-driven society
- current challenges and futures for the creative industries
The project
In your final project, you will be able to apply your learning in depth to a domain, issue or concern which drives you. It could be:
- based on your own personal or professional interests
- defined by your employer
- sponsored by one of our EFI industry, government or community partners
- aligned to one of the EFI research programmes
You can submit your final project report as a written piece of work, or combine text with other forms as appropriate – video, visualisation, a digital artefact, performance, code.
You will provisionally identify your project topic relatively early on in the programme, and work on it in parallel with the taught courses. We expect projects to take an interdisciplinary approach which connects with the creative, data and future-oriented nature of the EFI core.
Part-time and full-time options
Full-time students on the programme take these courses in one year.
Part-time students take the same courses as full-time students, over either two or three years:
- For the two-year version, students take 80 credits of courses in year one and 100 credits (including the project) in year two.
- For the three-year versions, students take 120 credits of courses over years one and two (with up to 80 credits per year in each year), and then take the project (60 credits) in year three.
Students can also study towards a Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma:
- Students have two years to undertake the Postgraduate Diploma, taking the same taught courses as students on the MSc, but not the project. They will take a total of 120 credits of courses - between 40 and 80 in each year.
- Students have one year to undertake the Postgraduate Certificate, taking 60 credits of courses, including between 10 and 40 credits of the EFI ‘shared core’ courses, between 20 and 50 credits of programme-specific courses (either the programme core courses or optional courses), and up to 30 credits from the broader suite of EFI optional courses.
Program Outcome
On successful completion of this programme, you will be able to:
- develop a critical understanding of the role of diverse data, new technologies and the need for methodological excellence in the shaping of future governance and democracy
- increase your data literacy and confidence in handling new and big data sources and learn to confidently identify the most appropriate technologies, data and methods required to address a policy puzzle
- become aware of the ethical implications of methodological decisions and how to make appropriate ethical and methodological choices
- become a confident and curious learner able to shape your own learning journey; to communicate your research findings to diverse audiences, using different media; and be equipped to take the knowledge and skills developed into a range of professional and educational contexts
Career Opportunities
Future Governance graduates will have a robust understanding of data-driven decision-making in governance processes. They will be ready to make positive change in the decision-making environment. The core elements of the programme address the data and higher-order skills we know are important for the future of work, confident and critical citizenship, and a thriving, just society.
Our data-literate graduates will be well placed to offer the cross disciplinary skills that are in demand from decision-makers and researchers in the public, private and third sectors. We expect our graduates to take up posts or to seek promotion in these sectors, equipped to carve out a niche in the rapidly transforming field of governance.
For mid-career professionals from the private, public, and third sectors, the programme will support them to become leaders on new or existing governance projects with a strong data aspect or to transition to such careers and/or seek promotions within their own institutions.
Program Admission Requirements
Show your commitment and readiness for Grad school by taking the GRE - the most broadly accepted exam for graduate programs internationally.