International Graduate School
MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy
Course Structure
Course Approach
We deploy a group of theories and ways of thinking in the social sciences (e.g. environmental science, economics, geography and anthropology) to make visible, evaluate, refine and recast approaches to environmental governance.
Alongside mainstream academic approaches to policy, nature, markets and globalisation you will engage with members of our research clusters who are extending disciplinary boundaries to both understand and respond to transformations in the environment, economy, technology and global governance.
You will learn how to apply a repertoire of powerful and innovative theoretical perspectives (including, for instance: theories of corporate management and decision making, theories of globalization and development, geographies of finance, science and technologies studies, political ecology, relational and network approaches and green governmentality) and be encouraged by faculty to actively experiment in your thinking and research.
Your intellectual and professional development will be enriched by interactions with our own research centres and network, notably the Environmental Change Institute, the Transport Studies Unit and the Energy / Lower Carbon Futures research group.
Course Objectives
The specific objectives of the MSc course are:
- To develop students' research skills;
- To introduce students to the advanced research methods and practices of contemporary human geography, the environmental social sciences, including reference to the ethics of research;
- To promote students' theoretical and applied knowledge of cutting edge approaches to the intersection between nature and society, cultural, political, and economic issues by providing formal and broad-based instruction;
- To create an interplay between theoretical perspectives and the practice of environmental policy to enable students to develop critical and individual perspectives on questions and challenges relating to environmental governance;
- To provide a critical and broad perspective on the relevant debates concerning nature and society, globalisation and localisation, and environmental governance and policy;
- To integrate research students into state-of-the-art research in the SoGE by providing core teaching and supervision by research active staff;
- To expose students to a range of innovative teaching methods and pioneering theoretical and methodological perspectives;
- To enhance students' personal development and their employment-related skills; and
- To equip students with the research skills necessary to undertake further advanced study by research at Oxford or elsewhere.
Course Description
An outline time-table for the course is illustrated in the matrix. Core and elective modules are generally taught in the first two terms leaving the third term for dissertation preparation and examinations.
| MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1st Term | 2nd Term | 3rd Term |
| Nature & Society | Science & Politics | Brussels & Holland Field Trip |
| Governance, Politics & Policy | Corporate Environmental Management | |
| International Environmental Frameworks (All MScs) | Economy & Development | Exams |
| Research Design (1) | Research Design (2) | Research Dissertation |
| Research Methods (All MScs) | ||
| Mapping Controversies Exercise | ||
| Elective modules, Policy Workshops, Policy Dialogue Seminars | ||
The MSc programme comprises:
- Six core modules organized under three themes;
- two 'integrated' modules taught across the four MSc's which fit into the same three themes;
- a group 'mapping controversies' exercise;
- a series of policy dialogue seminars and policy workshops;
- two elective modules which are assessed through essays and/or coursework;
- a piece of original research which is assessed through a dissertation;
- training in research methods and group tasks associated with core modules; and
- study tours and field trips throughout the year.
The elective modules are assessed through essays, the piece of original research by dissertation and the rest of the material by three, 3-hour examinations that reflect each of the three course themes.
Core Courses
The Policy and Governance strand, comprises three core modules, policy workshops and a policy dialogue seminar series:
- The core module in International Environmental Frameworks is offered to all MSc courses in the School. This module will cover history, principles and standards of international environmental law. Lectures consist of an insight into the process of international law making, its implementation, regulation, dispute resolution and liability for environmental damage. The module will be illustrated with case studies relevant to various MSc courses.
- Governance, Politics and Policy focuses on the spaces, actors and other drivers that shape how environmental problems and policy responses are both framed and executed. The module introduces a range of analytics that help us think about forms of governance beyond the state and examine the role of trans-national, local, corporate and NGO actors involved in contemporary environmental governance and the spaces and techniques through which they leverage influence.
- Corporate Environmental Management deals with the ways in which corporate institutions manage risk, change and liabilities, especially as regards environmental issues. It focuses on large, multi-jurisdictional firms whose environmental footprints are the focus of internal and external stakeholders (including the courts and regulators). The course closes with the application of lessons learned in the recent BP case.
- Policy Workshops and the Policy Dialogues Seminar Series aim to ground theory and practice and to provide opportunities for in-depth exploration of emerging policy issues and themes.
The Theory and Analysis strand, comprises three core modules and a group exercise:
- Nature and Society examines the ways in which the relations between nature and society have been articulated within the disciplines of Geography and related fields. It will examine the contested ways in which nature-society relations are articulated in different times and places, and the consequences of this for contemporary environmental policy and politics.
- Economy and Development provides an interdisciplinary perspective on economy and development, contrasting mainstream 'economic' and 'political' standpoints with economic and political geography, stressing the significance of studying economic development with its environmental factors and outcomes on the ground, and in specific contexts.
- Science and Politics addresses the complex relations between science, politics and public policy. The course examines topics such as the conduct of scientific controversies, the relationships between experts and non-experts, uncertainty, interdisciplinary research, risk, and the role of scientific knowledge as an instrument of regulation..
- Mapping Controversies is a group exercise which is integrated into the previous module and aims to develop insight into the intermediate stages through which scientific and technical knowledge comes to be presented as certain and/or authoritative. Through the analysis of a scientific controversy it aims to complicate notions of a structured and ordered environmental governance and develop more nuanced understandings of the spaces where decisions/perceptions about the objects of policy are framed, contested, negotiated and transformed.
The Research Skills strand comprises a core module, an integrated package of research skills teaching and a research dissertation:
- Research Design relates questions in philosophy of science (about the nature of asking questions; the practice of generating 'data'; and the role of 'writing' in the research process) to specific methodological techniques and analytical strategies.
- A series of Research Methods classes are offered to all MSc courses within the School. These run over the three terms but are concentrated in Michaelmas and Hilary terms. The classes on offer include basic and advanced research skills that are essential to your research dissertation and a possible future career as a researcher and academic. A set of practical exercise are linked to the Mapping Controversies group exercise through which you will gain proficiency in a group of emerging digital research methods. The required classes for NSEP are as follows:
- Research Practices will develop key competences in using library and online research facilities and develop understandings of communicating research through presentations and publications and applying for research grants.
- Basic Qualitative Research Techniques aims to develop core competencies in interview, focus-group and participatory methods.
- Questionnaire Design and Analysis introduces the various types of questionnaire and their applications and then covers the key elements of designing and executing a robust questionnaire survey. Linked to this module is training in the software programme SPSS and statistical tests for questionnaire analysis.
- Research Ethics reviews and explores the key ethical questions involved in doing qualitative research and includes information on the University's ethical approval process.
Research Dissertation: The above courses help students design and execute an original and independent research that is expected to be of publication quality. All students are assigned a supervisor from the School of Geography and the Environment, although it is also possible to appoint additional supervisors from external institutions. Many students carry out their dissertation research outside of the UK and some work as members of research teams in OUCE or firms and organisations with which the Centre has developed close relations. View last year's list of dissertation titles (forthcoming).
Reading Group Support
Each term we offer reading groups to support the more demand readings associated with core courses. Reading group are led by doctoral students in the department.
Elective Modules
Elective Modules offer a small-group, tutorial-style teaching and discussion environment, based on a suite of contemporary research themes that reflect the specific interests of our research clusters and centres and of visiting research associates. Between 25 and 30 elective courses are available to choose from each year and electives provide an opportunity to study with students enrolled on our four other three MSc's. Each student has the opportunity to choose two electives to study through we cannot always guarantee a place on the most popular electives because numbers are capped at ten students.
Electives offered in 2011/12 are as follows:
Analytical Skills in GIS
African Environments
Balance, Bias, and Complexity in Climate Change and Environmental Journalism
Cities, Sustainable Transport, and Mobility- Climate Change Models
- Corporate Social and Environment Accountability
Economic Impacts of Climate Change
Ecosystem Valuation- Energy and the Environment
- Energy Policy
- Energy Resource Assessment
- Environmental Movements in China
- Environmental Publics
- Environmental Theory and Practice in Communist and Post-Communist Russia
Forest Governance
Flood Risk Management- Geoengineering
- Global Political Ecology
Governing Protected Areas- Health, Environment, and Development
- Indigenous Peoples and Environment
- International Climate Governance
- Land Degradation
- Managing Dynamic and Complex Ecosystems
- Politics of Oil and Gas
- Resilience, Adaptation, and Community Development
- Sustainable Behaviour Change
- Water Development
- Water and Wastewater
Policy Workshops and Policy Dialogue Seminars
Students may choose to participate in workshops that provide for an in-depth exploration of key issues in environmental policy. Each year we convene a series of bi-weekly policy workshops and an Environmental Innovation Forum. Places on these workshops are open to students studying for the four MSc and are normally restricted to thirty. The Innovation Forum is open to all.
The topics of the workshops change from year to year. The following is an example of workshops 2010/11:
- An Environment and Development Innovation Forum brings together students with Oxford-based groups working at the cutting-edge of environmental policy and practice.
- An Oceans Policy Symposium will profile cutting-edge initiatives to create meaningful governance approaches in the marine environment.
- A workshop on Science and the Media will analyse how science is represented in the media, and interrogate the politics, ethics and impact of media representations of environmental problems.
- A Science and Evidence Policy workshop will examine the actors and pathways through which science enters the policy process and how it is mediated along the way.
- A workshop on Participation and Policy Complexity will examine the complex interplay of the different elements that conspire to shape transport policy drawing on Oxford as a case-study.
- A role workshop on International Negotiations Workshop where you will role-play a committee meeting of the Convention on International trade in Endangered Species to deepen your understanding of how 'rules of procedure' frame the performance of policy decisions and the interplay of science with national interests.
A weekly policy dialogue seminar series provides an opportunity to ground theory in practice through in-depth discussions with professionals, occupying different roles in the policy process. The seminars provide an opportunity to gain insights into the real world of policy, the various career routes within it and how policy professionals talk and think about emerging issues. In any one year we typically have guest speakers from an international development bank, a government agency, a major corporation, and ethical company, a household name environmental and a development NGO, and an activist group.
Research Dissertation
In addition to the core and option modules, you are expected to undertake an independent and original research dissertation. The dissertation is an integral and formal part of the course, and completing a good dissertation is essential for further research study in the School leading to the M.Litt. or DPhil degree.
The dissertation gives you the opportunity to design and execute your own research. The choice of research topic is up to you, but it normally relates to one or more of the core or optional modules, or the research interests of one of the School of Geography and Environment staff. A supervisor will be appointed to guide you during this work, the bulk of which will be carried out after the examinations are over, and will be handed in on the first weekday of September.
It is expected that the best of dissertations will be of publication quality, and all should show originality in and/or competent and creative scholarship. Indeed, it is possible to submit the work in the form of a journal paper ready for submission. This should be discussed with your dissertation supervisor.
All dissertations will be judged on the degree to which they fulfil the criteria of a comprehensive and coherent treatment of a suitable research question in an analytical and critical manner. On successful completion of all of the necessary components of the MSc Programme - assessed essays, examinations, and dissertation - you can be considered for entry into a higher research degree in the School of Geography and the Environment.
Many students will have never completed an extended piece of independent and original research before the course. To assist students develop the skills and techniques necessary to execute a successful research project a number of inter-connecting modules, training sessions and seminars are provided throughout Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity terms. These training modules are compulsory.
Fieldwork
Fieldwork is an important element of the programme's teaching philosophy. Please see the field trips webpage for more information.
Assessment
Core courses are examined by means of two 3-hour written examinations during the summer term. In addition, students are also required to submit two written pieces of work on elective courses due at the end of the term in which the course was taken. The dissertation is handed in by the first weekday in September.
Further Information
Further information on the course and assessment is provided in the Course Handbook.