MSc in Marine Systems and Policies

The MSc in Marine Systems and Policies is unique across Europe as it embraces a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to understand the functionality of marine environments, and the roles of humans in relying upon marine ecosystems for survival and prosperity. It approaches marine systems as an integrated socio-ecological system through focusing on three spheres of marine systems:

• Marine natural systems: exploring diverse scales and functions of key marine biomes, habitats and species, spanning islands, coasts, estuaries, continental shelves, polar seas and global oceans.
• Marine policy systems: examining different ways in which society governs coastal and marine ecosystems and services, through formal policies, laws and informal cultural customs and practices.
• Marine built systems: looking at 'blue growth' e.g. the ingenuity and impacts of human built environments in marine settings, from re-shaping coastlines for cities, travel and trade, to the urbanization of ocean environments through innovations in energy infrastructure.

A combination of core courses, optional courses and field work enables you to develop skills and capacities around personal intellectual, analytical, practical, methodological and experiential goals. Core courses consist of a balance of lectures, seminars, lab practicals and may include field trips. In addition to the core courses, you will select 60 credits from a very broad range of elective courses across the School of GeoSciences and other Schools across the University. The requirement for the degree of MSc is the completion of courses and a dissertation worth a total of 180 credit points.

Compulsory parts:

• Marine Systems and Policies
• Marine Infrastructure and Environmental Change
• Marine Field Methods in Research and Practice
• Research Project in Marine Systems and Policies
• Dissertation

Information about our international and local field trips.

As indicated in marine 'core' courses, this programme has an international field trip to a tropical marine island setting in which we use a 'social-ecological system' approach, looking at ecological, geomorphological and social aspects of small island ecosystems and societies, facing a range of issues from climate change and trying to balance both conservation and blue growth-development goals. In 2015 and 2016 we have gone a marine lab on an atoll the Maldives, which is rich in both cultural and biophysical complexity.  Read more about the MaHre marine lab on their website.

During the course of the programme we also do a range of local field trips in Scotland through the year, e.g. in Induction Week at the start in September and Dissertation Retreat at the end in August.  For all of the field trips - including the tropical international trip - the full travel and accomodation costs are covered by the Marine MSc Programme.   Students are expected to provide their own snorkel and dive gear. 

Students who wish to SCUBA dive will need to have completed and have records of at least 10 dives beyond basic certification (e.g. beyond Padi Open Water).