M.Sc Biodiversity and Conservation

Course description
This 12-month MSc course prepares you for a career protecting biodiversity in a range of natural, agricultural and urban ecosystems around the world. Throughout your course, you'll be in the field learning about conservation issues and the constraints posed by budgets, policy and legislation. Through fieldwork in the Peak District, you'll receive training in the principles of experimental design and data collection, equipping you with the key skills to plan and manage your own scientific projects.

You'll develop an understanding of how environmental change can impact biodiversity and how the effective management of ecosystems can positively impact both biodiversity and the ecosystem itself.

You’ll conduct an Independent Research Project, spending three months researching an area of biodiversity or conservation that matches your future career aspirations. You could be field-based, lab-based or complete a computational data-driven project, tackling topics such as urbanisation, ecosystem services, tropical deforestation, and marine conservation.

After your degree
Graduates of the MSc are well-equipped to pursue a range of career opportunities in policy-making, research and academia.

Possible career paths include working on conservation or sustainability programmes within government, NGOs or in the private sector. You could pursue a career in academia, inspiring the next generation as a university teacher or solving pressing problems through research in higher education.