The University of Edinburgh - Edinburgh Futures Institute
MSc in Sustainable Lands and Cities
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
MSc
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
30 Jul 2026
EARLIEST START DATE
14 Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
GBP 32,000 *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for international students | 18900 GBP for UK citizens
Key Summary
The climate emergency demands new ways of thinking about the relationships between land, cities, and human development. This programme brings together graduates and professionals from diverse backgrounds to explore what truly sustainable places look and feel like, and how they can be created.
You will learn from foundational thinkers, explore global agendas and institutions such as UN-Habitat, and study real-world case studies such as zero-waste towns and community-supported agriculture. Working with experts and partners, you will design sustainability interventions for places that matter to you.
Sustainability is explored in both rural and urban environments, harnessing practices of smart growth, understanding planetary boundaries, and advocating for justice and equity.
Practical skills for real-world change
Alongside theory, the programme equips you with practical tools. You will develop skills in geospatial data analysis, mapping, and evidence-based planning to better understand the complex social, economic, environmental, and spatial dimensions of sustainability. This programme will also enable you to shape commercial and sustainable strategies that balance business needs with ethical and environmental responsibilities.
By combining intellectual foundations, case-based learning, and data-driven analysis, Sustainable Lands and Cities prepares you to shape and influence more resilient, equitable, and sustainable futures for places and communities.
Programme benefits
- Learn from world-leading experts: Study with leading academics from across the University of Edinburgh and build the creative, critical, and data-informed thinking that employers are seeking.
- Apply your ideas to real-world challenges: Collaborate with external organisations and apply your skills to pressing challenges, gaining valuable practical experience and professional connections.
- Shape your learning around your passions: Explore the questions that matter most to you, linking study to your own passions and professional goals. Your final project will allow you to tackle an issue you care about and showcase your expertise.
- Graduate ready to make an impact: You will be ready to address complex problems through critical thinking, innovative approaches, teamwork, and collaboration.
If you are a University of Edinburgh graduate, you will be eligible for a 10% discount on your tuition fees for this programme. You may also be eligible if you were a visiting undergraduate student.
You can apply for scholarships from a variety of institutions, including:
- the University of Edinburgh
- government agencies
- research councils
- charitable trusts
- external bodies like private companies
What you will study
Students on this MSc programme will study a range of courses to complete 180 credits, including:
- core courses specific to your programme
- a choice of option courses
- a project
Core courses
Your core courses provide essential knowledge and skills specific to your area of study and provide strong foundations for the rest of your degree.
In your core courses, you will explore areas such as:
- the work of foundational thinkers and policy makers in the field to envision what sustainable lands and cities look and feel like
- geographic data science approaches to evaluating lands and cities in terms of their sustainability
Option courses
Alongside your core courses, you’ll shape your degree by choosing from a wide range of EFI option courses, taught by academic staff from across the University.
Our portfolio evolves each year in response to emerging trends, topics, and new research. You can choose from courses on themes such as:
- how the climate crisis is connected to health
- the inter-relationship of place, people and nature in urban regeneration
- critical perspectives on how new technologies are changing society
- data, programming and research skills that build on your core expertise
- how new and rapidly changing technologies and data sources are transforming the future of democracy
- what the future of education might look like
- how narratives drive the way we understand the world
- service design and service management in a data-driven society
- current challenges and futures for the creative industries
The project
Your final project brings together everything you have learned, giving you the opportunity to apply your learning in depth to a domain, issue or concern which drives you. Your final project can be:
- based on your own personal or professional interests
- defined by your employer
- sponsored by one of the Futures Institute’s industry, government, or community partners
- aligned to one of our research programmes
You will submit your final project as a written piece of work or combine text with other forms – for example:
- video
- visualisation
- a digital artifact
- performance
- code
You will begin to identify your project topic relatively early in the programme, and work on it in parallel with the taught courses. We expect you to take an interdisciplinary approach to your project to connect with the creative, data and future-orientated nature of EFI.
On successful completion of this programme, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- how data science and technological change can contribute to effective, sustainable strategies
- the legal and policy landscapes in which sustainability is embedded
- the sustainable characteristics of lands and cities and the interplay of rural and urban environments
- the interdisciplinary contexts in which sustainable development strategies can be applied
- how sustainability and consumption narratives are created and communicated in an interdisciplinary way
- the quantitative means by which sustainable strategies can be created, tested, and validated
- the role of the humanities in shaping the future of our cities and communities
This programme will prepare you to work collaboratively to create and execute sustainable strategies in the workplace. Our graduates will have cross-disciplinary skills and understanding to support decision-making in complex environments.
There is a range of career opportunities available, both for existing professionals and newer entrants to the job market, for example, with:
- public, private, and voluntary sector organisations with an increasing need to respond to and create sustainable development policy, drivers, and targets
- consultancy and environmental planning sector organisations that are developing multidisciplinary interventions to address and mitigate climate change
- businesses and commercial operators looking to anticipate and engage with new perceptions and policy frameworks for climate change
Graduates of this programme will be able to:
- create commercial and sustainable strategies to meet both business needs and ethical requirements
- respond to a broad range of challenges applicable in different professions and organisations
- specialise in sustainable development across a range of sectors and roles, for example, in:
- planning
- law and advocacy
- engineering
- design
- project management
- the environmental sciences
- public administration
- planning
- law and advocacy
- engineering
- design
- project management
- the environmental sciences
- public administration