MA (Environment, Society and Development)

Course Overview

Watch course video presentation here.

Addressing core global development goals

Global issues of development, security and environmental sustainability 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 upon your career and in following your passion for addressing urgent global development issues, a core programme module ‘Field-Based Learning’ is designed to enable you to synthesise both theoretical and practical concerns in bringing critical thinking to issues of environment, society and development in the field. The module will culminate in a fieldtrip to Northern Ireland, where students will be intersecting with the work of various governmental agencies, NGOs and community development leaders and activists. The module considers how to operationalize critical knowledge of environment-society relations in the field, but also how to learn in the field by experience, through participation with both practitioners and local populations. You will gain vital experience of civic and community engagement in bringing critical thinking to development practice.

MA in ESD students on fieldwork in Mostar, Herzegovina.

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 NUI 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 NUI Galway’s President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018.

Award-winning programme

Winner: NUI Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2018
Winner: Irish National Academy Award for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (2012
Winner: NUI Galway President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2011
Winner: NUI Galway Learning and Teaching Innovation Award, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (2010

The Neil Smith Research Award

Launch of the Neil Smith Graduate Research Award—please see here.

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.

Past winners:

• 2024: Lucy Kelly
• 2023: Mara Levi
• 2022: Áine Keating
• 2021: Patrick Gaynor
• 2020: Timothy Eberth
• 2019: Matina Granieri
• 2018: Deirdre Leonard
• 2017: Maeve McGandy
• 2016: V’cenza Cirefice
• 2015: Rosie Howlett-Southgate
• 2014: Naoise McDonagh
• 2013: Paul Digan

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.

NQAI Level 8 degree at H2.1 in relevant subject and H2.2 overall; GPA 3.0, or equivalent international qualification. IELTS score of 6.5, or equivalent, if applicable. Selection is based on academic record, statement of intent and letters of recommendation. Prior learning via relevant work experience is also recognised.

MA-ESD graduates have gone on to work in key governmental, planning and public policy roles in their home countries, and in a wide range of UN agencies and other national and international NGOs. They have also added richly to the work of environmental agencies and specialist policy institutes throughout the globe, as well as pursuing PhD research in leading academic departments worldwide.

Field Experience

In addition to engaging you on the most cutting-edge theoretical work from the interdisciplinary fields of development studies, critical geopolitics and political ecology, the programme has a strong emphasis on problem-solving skills, reflected in the focus on field-based learning. You will gain enormously from the experience of working on the ground with a variety of government agencies, NGOs and community leaders and activists who are committed to a range of development issues.