Key facts

Overview

The University of Oxford's MSc in Sustainable Urban Development is both intellectually rigorous and is strongly grounded in professional practice. It is offered by the University's Continuing Professional Development Centre in association with the Prince's Foundation for Building Community.

Our current first year students talk about the MSc on the Prince's Foundation film 'Educating with Oxford' (links to YouTube).

The course is part-time and is aimed at professionals worldwide working in the property development sector. The course provides meaningful and up-to-date learning to enhance career development within the sustainable urban development sector. It is envisaged that successful graduates of the course will go on to become the leaders of tomorrow.

The course has a modular structure, which allows a flexible approach to learning. Over the two years of the course, students attend eight intensive one-week teaching sessions. These include lectures, seminars, practice-based workshops and one-to-one tutorials. At the end of the course students complete a dissertation on a topic of their choice.

Description

More than half the world's population live in urban areas and by 2030 this is likely to increase to more than 80%. As a result, the sustainability of cities is both under pressure and crucial. Planners and decision-makers are faced with the task of how to resolve potentially competing urban problems such as transportation, waste management, drinking water provision and the preservation of urban green space.

By promoting sustainable urban form, function and development, cities become healthy, viable places for people to live, work and play. There are numerous advantages to sustainable urban development, many of which emerge from the study of 'successful' urban areas: a good quality of life, availability of green spaces, low levels of crime, good accessibility and transport for all, low levels of environmental pollution and so forth.

Sustainable urban development aims to shape present and future city environments that incorporate and promote shared concerns for the social, economic and environmental well-being of urban communities. Reflecting these shared concerns the study of sustainable urban development needs an approach that is both focused and holistic. The University of Oxford's part-time MSc in Sustainable Urban Development offers a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject rooted in the idea of sustainable development that includes science, business development, trade, human development, values, and differences in cultures and genders.

Features

• The course is taken part-time so students can complete the course whilst continuing to work full-time
• It unites the study of urbanism and sustainability
• It is international in scope
• It is based on a multidisciplinary approach and structure
• It provides a strong knowledge basis to professional practice in the area
• The course is in association with the Prince's Foundation
• It has the close involvement of renowned departments such as the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Transport Studies Unit, Saïd Business School, and the recently launched Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities
• Throughout the course, students can use the University of Oxford’s un-rivalled electronic library resources to enable them to complete the assignment tasks

Who is it for?

The MSc in Sustainable Development is aimed at professionals worldwide working in the property development sector: architects, planners, land economists, landscape architects, designers and managers in construction companies, property developers, surveyors, engineers, those working in the property finance sector and urbanists.

The programme is structured so as to be accessible for international students and for busy working people. Students and tutors are linked through the course's online portal. Not only does this operate as a key communications tool for project and group-based work and help build an online academic community, but it also provides remote access to essential course materials.

Programme details

The MSc in Sustainable Urban Development begins in October and runs for two years. It comprises eight taught modules, each of which lasts for one week. Students take all eight modules, five in their first year and three in the second year. At the end of the taught modules, students are required to submit a dissertation on a topic of their choice.

The MSc is offered in association with the Prince's Foundation and two of the eight modules are taught at the offices of the Foundation in Shoreditch. The remaining six modules are held in Oxford in facilities of the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. Each face-to-face week comprises a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials. Students are given the opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research and practice as well as discuss their own professional experiences.

The MSc offers students significant insight into the key opportunities and challenges for Sustainable Urban Development in the 21st Century and beyond. The course content ranges from an historical understanding of urban development across the world, and a critical and theoretical analysis of key urban issues and problems in the new millennium, to urban design principles and practical project work based on students’ own working lives. Each of the eight taught modules has a dedicated theme, which underpins the teaching and learning. These eight major themes are reflected in the module titles as follows:

• Concepts of the City and Environmental Change: This course provides a thorough grounding in three topics which will recur throughout the programme: (i) the city as an ever evolving stage for both human endeavour and for environmental change; (ii) the process of planning and development as an interdisciplinary engagement with the city, and (iii) the notion of sustainable urbanism as a framework for responding to today’s environmental pressures and crises.
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• Climate Change and the Built Environment: The second module in the MSc in Sustainable Urban Development analyses the nature of climate change and its relevance for the design and development of the modern city by examining the following issues: carbon dioxide and human development - the atmosphere on human timescales; predicting change; future scenarios; urban impacts on climate change - industry, living and transport; reducing impacts and urban vulnerability.
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• Placemaking: The third module is structured around six core principles of placemaking: (1) mapping the land - uncovering the history and ecology of sites; (2) enhancing connectivity and street hierarchy; (3) allowing for social infrastructure and spatial economy - engendering social interaction and providing convenient local amenities; (4) creating flexible building blocks - making adaptive environments that can cope with change; (5) designing using principles of organic growth - from orientation to building harmonics and (6) building to last - building robust, ecological and beautiful buildings to last.
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• Financing Sustainability: This course focuses on strategies for financing longer-term sustainable urban development. Initially, consideration is given to a range of existing approaches used by property developers, landed estates, financiers of major infrastructure developments and government agencies, and the advantages and disadvantages of such approaches. Particular attention is paid to the need for longer time horizons in the area of urban investment and current discussions on possible structural, technical and financing approaches to this in the research literature and in practice. Consideration is given to current research on the treatment of time horizons in investment decisions.
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• Transportation and Sustainability: The fifth module in the MSc in Sustainable Urban Development discusses the problem of urban transport and sustainability, with a focus on the carbon dioxide emissions, traffic congestion and consequent time costs, air pollution and health and other external costs. As well as considering the implications for urban design and development, policies such as taxation, road pricing, subsidies, parking charges, and regulation are also considered as possible solutions.
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• Urbanism and the Design Process: The sixth module in the MSc in Sustainable Urban Development addresses understanding and seeking to improve the processes through which urban developments and extensions are designed and shaped, an important issue for those trying to increase the sustainability of the urban landscape. The course seeks to review the literatures on city planning and design processes, giving particular consideration to participative approaches to design. With this wider understanding, students are taught the ‘Enquiry by Design’ collaborative design process, which has been successfully applied by the Prince’s Foundation to projects ranging from individual buildings, to new towns with clients ranging from the Department of Health to the Defence Estates. Enquiry by Design is different from existing design processes in that it is ‘simultaneously proactive’ rather than ‘sequentially reactive’.
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• The Flexible City? Urban Theory, Practice and Project Management: The course will adopt a strategic view of the role of project and programme management in sustainable urban development. Recognizing that many such initiatives are seen to fail because of problems with their management, the aim will be to review what is known about more effective approaches to the design, management and evaluation of projects and programmes in the areas of infrastructure investment, transport, energy and urban extension and renewal.
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• Urbanisation in the Global South: This module isolates the components of population growth that lie behind rapid urbanisation in the developing world; explores the complexities of the urban labour market that have permitted labour absorption, but have hindered capital accumulation and the creation of a surplus for investment in housing, and investigates the nature of the housing market and the role of the state in assisting ownership, renting and informal housing solutions.

There are usually between six and eight weeks between each module and whilst we understand that our students have busy working lives, we anticipate that many will make use of the online course support portal to keep in touch with their fellow students and academics as well as access ancillary course material and learning resources. The online portal also enables students to access the University's online library resources including electronic journals and books. Based on our knowledge of other courses, you should expect to spend an average of between 10 and 15 hours per week on independent study in addition to the eight teaching weeks.

Selection criteria

Staff

Dr Matthew Hardy

Role: Tutor

Matthew Hardy is an architect and architectural historian. Matthew trained as an architect at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, holds a...more PhD in architectural history from the University of Wales, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His PhD research, based at the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, London, was a study of Hippocratic attitudes to climate and their influence on house planning in the classical tradition. He was the founding Secretary of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism, and was tasked with the early development of INTBAU from its instigation as a research project in late 2000, and served as Secretary from February 2001 until March 2009, when he became Senior Lecturer in Architecture & Urbanism, a role he shared between INTBAU and The Prince's Foundation for Building Conmmunity.

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Course aims

The over-arching aim of the programme reflects that of the UK's Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, namely to provide students with a systematic understanding of core areas and advanced topics in Urbanism and Sustainability, the ability to evaluate empirical or primary evidence critically, and the conceptual understanding to marshal and present arguments and solutions based on primary data, theory and/or the application of sound reasoning.

More specifically, the MSUD programme aims to:

• Draw on the academic excellence of the University of Oxford
• Provide students with a rigorous and intellectually-demanding education in the fields of Urbanism and Sustainability
• Offer a programme with a genuinely international scope and a genuinely multidisciplinary structure that is firmly rooted in professional practice
• Explore the strengths of a multidisciplinary approach to the understanding of Urbanism and Sustainability

Assessment methods

For each module students must satisfactorily complete the coursework assessment. Each module is assessed with an essay on a topic chosen by the module director or suggested by the student and approved by the course director. For four of the modules the essay is a maximum of 3,000 words in length; for the others, an essay is submitted of up to a maximum length of 5,000 words. In addition to the formal assessed essays, MSc students are required to complete and submit a dissertation of between 12,000 and 15,000 in length. It is expected that the student will provide the dissertation topic in consultation with the course director.

Level and demands

It is expected that students are, or intend to be, working in the property sector. The course has been designed in consultation with industry to meet this need. Students should have good undergraduate degree, normally in a relevant subject, such as Geography, Land Economy, Architecture, Planning, Environmental Change, Surveying or Engineering, or similar, and at least two years’ relevant professional experience. Students will benefit from the flexible delivery of this programme, which allows participants to continue in full-time employment whilst working towards an academic qualification.

Applicants must be able to demonstrate their proficiency in speaking, reading, writing and understanding English to a level commensurate with the course of study. Where students are from overseas or English is a second language, they will be required to show proof of their English language ability.

Teaching methods

Accommodation

The Department offers a full residential and catering facillity, with a range of both 3 and 4-star campus accommodation. 'Number 12', our recently refurbished Victorian on Wellington Square, right next to Rewley House, offers 9 superior en-suite bedrooms.

All students can take advantage of the excellent dining facilities and common room bar, where they may relax and network with others on the programme. See CONTED's web site for more detail.

Scholarships

Details of funding opportunities, including grants, bursaries, loans, scholarships and benefit information are available on our financial assistance page.

Apply for this course