University College London (UCL)

Global Prosperity MSc

Teaching and learning

Teaching and learning methods are strongly guided by the UCL connected curriculum and emphasise active research-led learning with students conducting their own research activities, sharing knowledge between each other and learning through peer-to peer activities. Considerable emphasis is placed on the value of a diversity and inclusivity of knowledge and on outward facing knowledge production though connection to communities and practitioners beyond the academy.

Teaching and learning methods/strategies involve:

• Critical engagement with literature through pre-recorded material, live seminars, guest lectures, in-depth discussion and exploring competing ideas.
• Active and engaged learning tasks, including work in groups and pairs.
• Engagement with world leading academics and non- academic practitioners through the departmental Academic Directors Seminars and Practitioner Soundbites.
• Grounding core concepts and theories through teaching cases, and application of core concepts through learning- by-doing methods including prototyping and design to explore how theory and practice inform one another.
• Enhancing student participation through flipped-learning methods and regular group assignments and activities.
• Connecting to practice/industry through engagement with entrepreneurial leaders, as well as policymakers and practitioners, through tutorials, guest lectures, site and field trips.

During term time, there are occasional events that will require you to travel between the UCL Bloomsbury and the UCL East campuses.

All modules contain a balance of formative in class exercises and peer-to-peer learning combined with a diversity of summative assessments. The structure of assessments also builds towards the Dissertation, where you are able to develop your own substantial research project and contribution to knowledge.

Assessment types include:

• Individual and group assignments, including personal reflection, video/live presentations;
• Critical essays and reports that involve in depth exploration of key concepts and theories pertaining to module content;
• Blog posts that allow for the articulation of complex ideas in concise and publicly accessible ways.

In terms one and two full-time students can typically expect between 10 and 12 contact hours per teaching week through a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops, and tutorials. Outside of this full-time students typically study the equivalent of a full-time job, using their remaining time for self-directed study and completing coursework assignments. In term three and the summer period students will be completing their own dissertation research, keeping regular contact with their dissertation supervisors.

Modules

Full-time

The Global Prosperity MSc is a one year taught degree that combines a range of class and seminar-based teaching with practical research-based student activities. The course is inter- and trans-disciplinary in approach, and will include contributions from the humanities, physical and social sciences. The degree engages with global challenges using novel collective problem solving, and by examining historical, current, and projected issues in global prosperity through avenues of development, health, demographics, ecology, energy systems, social innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology.

The curricula design is balanced around two general teaching and learning themes. These are conceptual/methodological and design/engagement.

The conceptual/methodological theme is weighted to modules taken in the first term to provide fundamental foundations of prosperity thinking:

• Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies
• Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity

The design/engagement theme is weighted towards the second term of teaching, and involves design thinking and prototyping as well as engagement with practitioners and policymakers:

• Pathways to Prosperity 2: Global Futures
• Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity

In Term 1, all students undertake two modules: ‘Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies’ and ‘Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity’. These modules introduce you to core concepts that examine how we understand current economic, social and environmental challenges. Critical historical analyses of major global trends such as the drive for economic growth, unsustainable consumerism, and sustainable development are accompanied by practical research methods classes that examine how measures of prosperity, wellbeing and progress have been constructed and how alternative measures (both quantitative and qualitative) might be framed through your own engaged and participatory empirical research.

In Term 2, students will critically deconstruct current approaches to global challenges and explore models for enacting positive and inclusive change for livelihoods around the world. The ‘Pathways to Prosperity 2: Global Futures’ module focuses on concepts and theories of social, economic and technological change and develop case studies of ongoing radical transformations driven by actors from across the globe and from a range of positions including entrepreneurs, policy makers, business and civil society. Radical changes discussed may include concepts such as Universal Basic Income/Services, de-growth, sustainability transitions and circular and green economies. The ‘Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity’ module will introduce you to a range of practical engagement methods aimed at empowering you to affect change within your future careers, including processes of collective decision making, trans-disciplinary research, decolonising methods, participatory action research and human-centred design.

In Term 3, you will focus a research dissertation of your own choosing on a topic related to Global Prosperity. Dissertations can be both desktop/literature based or involve practical empirical research and may be supervised by an appropriate departmental tutor or an expert from another part of UCL. Dissertations may also be aligned to ongoing IGP research or collaborative partnerships.

Part-time

In their first year, part-time students will need to take a minimum of 60 credits of modules. In the second year, you will take the remaining taught modules up to 30 credits, plus the dissertation (90 credits), for a maximum total of 120 credits.

The curricula design is balanced around two general teaching and learning themes. These are conceptual/methodological and design/engagement.
The conceptual/methodological theme is made of modules that provide fundamental foundations of prosperity thinking:

• Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies
• Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity

The design/engagement theme is made of modules involving design thinking and prototyping as well as engagement with practitioners and policymakers:

• Pathways to Prosperity 2: Global Futures
• Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity

Apart from the compulsory modules, 30 credits of optional/elective modules will be distributed across the 2 years. The distribution of compulsory and elective/optional modules should be discussed with the programme director ahead of initial enrolment.

Flexible

Students undertaking modular/flexible study may choose to organise the distribution of their modules flexibly across the five years provided they complete 180 credits by the end of year five.

The curricula design is balanced around two general teaching and learning themes. These are conceptual/methodological and design/engagement.
The conceptual/methodological theme is made of modules that provide fundamental foundations of prosperity thinking:

• Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies
• Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity

The design/engagement theme is made of modules involving design thinking and prototyping as well as engagement with practitioners and policymakers:

• Pathways to Prosperity 2: Global Futures
• Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity

Apart from the compulsory modules, 30 credits of optional/elective modules will be distributed across the programme. The distribution of compulsory and elective/optional modules should be discussed with the programme director and/or personal tutor ahead of each year's enrolment process.

Modular/flexible students are expected to have completed the majority of their taught modules before undertaking their dissertation.

Compulsory modules

• Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies
• Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity
• MSc Global Prosperity Dissertation
• Pathways to Prosperity 2: Global Futures
• Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity

Optional modules

• Debt, Finance and Prosperity
• China and Global Prosperity
• Urban Futures and Prosperity
• Transformative Entrepreneurship and Prosperity: Core Concepts
• Social Theories of Prosperity
• Prosperity, People and Planet: Conceptual Frameworks
• Prosperous and Inclusive Planetary Futures
• New Economics of Prosperity
• Prosperity from Below: The Informal, the Illicit and the Popular

Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability are subject to change.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits. Upon successful completion of 180 credits, you will be awarded an MSc in Global Prosperity.

Fieldwork

Short, half-day field trips are a component of some of our modules. Fieldwork related to your dissertation is encouraged and may take place in the UK or elsewhere in the world. However, risk and ethical considerations will need to be discussed with the Programme Leader and fully approved according to UCL regulations and the circumstances at the time.

What this course will give you

As a multidisciplinary global university with wide resources at its disposal, UCL is the ideal environment in which to study sustainable global prosperity. UCL is ranked the #9 university in the world according to the QS World University Rankings 2025.

UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity is pioneering research into questions of prosperity and driving forward novel transdisciplinary engagements to deliver new, more prosperous social and economic forms. As a student, you will have the opportunity to engage with our researchers, partners and affiliated fellows with possibilities of developing academic, policy or business-oriented projects. You will have the opportunity to become part of our emerging community, to learn from and participate in our research, and to help shape debates around what a prosperous society should be.

You will graduate with a new worldview of what prosperity means, encompassing ideas around access to basic services, secure livelihoods, a sense of belonging, and the freedom for individuals to develop, and with the creative and practical skills to conduct transdisciplinary and participatory research and co-produce solutions to some of the most urgent global challenges.

The foundation of your career

Depending on your ambitions, a degree in global prosperity can open an array of career opportunities across policy, social and sustainable entrepreneurship, education, government, the third sector, business and academia. Our graduates go on to leadership roles in the public and private sector, working in government and civil service, in sustainability and business, and in the NGO and third sector. This includes a broad range of roles such as ecological consultants, policy officers and social research officers where they show initiative and a drive to make global change. Examples of employers of our graduates include the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, CAB International, SadaPay (a bank transfer app in Pakistan), and universities including UCL and UMass. Some graduates have founded their own businesses and consultancies. Others have continued to PhD research.

Employability

As a Global Prosperity MSc graduate you will have an expansive toolkit of employable skills ready to make change across policy, economics, business, environment and third sector, and take the next step in your career. You will be able to think across and between traditional academic disciplines and apply a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques alongside broader strategic and design/prototyping thinking to find innovative solutions to complex challenges. You will gain key transferable skills in teamwork, communication, digital capabilities with particular software, writing for academic and non-specialist audiences, presentation, visual design, creativity, as well as real world problem-solving skills and methods for building engaged and participatory initiatives.

In addition to academic skills and training, the degree also provides you with a unique set of career and skill enhancement sessions. These will be delivered through Writing Labs and Skills and Personal Development sessions. These sessions delivered by both internal specialists and external consultants and include:

• Web-design and blogging
• Writing for the media
• Academic writing
• Presentation skills
• Teamwork and collaboration skills
• Personal Leadership skills
• Mindfulness and study skills
• Career Building Networking

Studying with us means joining the Institute for Global Prosperity community. We have a global network of alumni, partners and collaborators all making positive change in the world. Through-out the academic year we host careers and alumni events, allowing current students to engage with alumni and to build on this growing network of change makers. We also host a vibrant public events series, giving you the opportunity to network with researchers, policy makers and professionals whilst discussing the latest in prosperity research and engagement. You will also have the chance to meet with the people who work on our research, including our work on Fast Forward 2030, and our Prosperity Co-Labs (PROCOLs) in East London, Kenya and Lebanon.