online Cultural Heritage Futures (Online Learning) MSc, PgDip (ICL), PgCert

An interdisciplinary degree with Edinburgh Futures Institute

The MSc Cultural Heritage Futures has been designed to shape the future of the heritage sector. Through this interdisciplinary and challenge-driven programme, you will become creative heritage professionals committed to data-informed innovation with social purpose.

The programme is based on a critical understanding of heritage as the contemporary processes and outcomes of interacting with tangible and intangible aspects of the past and attributing cultural and social meanings to them. You will be introduced to cutting-edge theory, digital skills, future-facing social science methods, policies and practices that equip you to create, enhance, preserve, communicate, and research heritage in ways that address pressing social and environmental issues at local to global scales.

Upon completion, you will be able to address questions such as:

• How can we decolonise museum collections and heritage sites through data activism?
• How can ocean heritage contribute to sustainable local economies?
• How do we negotiate between human and non-human rights, including animal rights, in heritage conservation practice?
• How can transnational heritage site management help peace-building in countries affected by violent conflict?

MSc Cultural Heritage Futures will be taught with a sensitivity that attends to decolonisation and a truly international outlook. Courses will draw on examples and case studies from different geographic areas including the Global North, South, East, and West. The programme team consists of a unique blending of leading academics at the University of Edinburgh, who collaborate with heritage organisations in Scotland, the UK and internationally. For example:

• UNESCO
• ICCROM
• Aliph
• ICOMOS
• Historic Environment Scotland
• Historic England
• National Museum Scotland
• Museum of London Archaeology

You will benefit from interactions with these heritage professionals and from the collaborative and making spaces at Edinburgh Futures Institute, which will help you to undertake creative, co-design and digital activities collaboratively.

Postgraduate study at the Edinburgh Futures Institute

This programme is part of an interconnected portfolio of postgraduate study opportunities at Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI).

The Futures Institute supports interdisciplinary teaching, learning and research that is focused on complex global and social challenges. Our programmes are taught by academic experts from many different subject areas.

As a Futures Institute student, you should be proactive and motivated. You will be supported to 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 Edinburgh Futures Institute will give you the skills and understanding you need to become a creative, confident, and critical citizen in a fast-changing world.

These skills include:

• core data skills
• data ethics
• the ability to interrogate issues of global scope using perspectives from across disciplines
• creative and analytic approaches to knowledge

You can join us regardless of whether you already have experience or practical skills in the use and application of digital data.

These entry requirements are for the 2025/26 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2026/27 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2025.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in any discipline.

We will also consider your application if you have other professional qualifications or experience; please contact us to check before you apply.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country

English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency which will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced (CAE) / C2 Proficiency (CPE): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE: ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 73 with at least 65 in each component. We do not accept PTE Academic Online.
• Oxford ELLT: 8 overall with at least 7 in each component.

Unless you are a national of a majority English speaking country, your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start of the month in which the programme you are applying to study begins. If you are using an IELTS, PTE Academic, TOEFL, Trinity ISE, or Oxford ELLT test, it must be no more than two years old on the first of the month in which the programme begins, regardless of your nationality. (Revised 14 January 2025 to include Oxford ELLT.)

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about our language requirements:

• English language requirements

The MSc Cultural Heritage Futures will open a premium route to a PhD in Heritage or in other related subject areas. The programme will also position students to work as private consultants, or employed officers, researchers, and managers for local, national and international heritage bodies and agencies.

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.

Potential career roles could be held in areas such as:

• heritage governance
• interpretation, public engagement and outreach
• digital curation, digital policy
• conservation policy, and policy research and evaluation

Possible employers may include:

• universities and research organisations
• national and international heritage management agencies
• heritage sites and museums
• archives and libraries
• archaeological units
• cultural and social policy consultancies and charities (e.g. NESTA)
• local and national governments