Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Study Details: MA: 1 year full time (PG. Cert and part-time options available)
Schumacher College is the first in the world to offer a postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition.
The programme has been developed in association with the new economics foundation and the Transition Network and is offered through the Business School at the University of Plymouth.
Never has there been a more important time for a new approach to economics.
There is an urgent need for a radical rethink of our economic system. We need a new model that recognises the challenges we face now, rather than following the thinking from previous centuries.
This model would mitigate the impacts and adapt to the crises converging on our society which include climate change, the peaking in fossil fuel energy supplies, financial instability, food security and poverty.
It would recognise the absolute need for equity and social justice right at its heart.
For 20 years, key thinkers and practitioners have been developing alternative economic ideas, models and experiments that were once considered radical and marginal.
As we turn to face a new economic dawn, these theories and practices are now moving to centre stage.
Since 1991, Schumacher College has been pioneering this radical new thinking in economics, attracting the leading teachers, practitioners and activists from across the globe. We have inspired, supported and led thousands of organisations and individuals from many different countries in their quest to achieve a more sustainable and equitable world.
In 2011, in response to the state of global economics, we ran our first MA in Economics for Transition in association with the New Economics Foundation, the Transition Network and the Business School at the University of Plymouth.
This partnership offers you an unparalleled opportunity to learn from the best of alternative thinking available globally.
Coupled with an unrivalled visiting faculty of teachers and practitioners from across the world, you have a unique chance to join those at the forefront of new economic thinking.
Our teachers include:
Jonathan Dawson and Julie Richardson – Schumacher College
Andrew Simms and David Boyle – New Economics Foundation
Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande – Transition Network
David Wheeler, Derek Shepherd, Atul Mishra, Lynda Rodwell – University of Plymouth
Peter Harper – Centre for Alternative Technology
Eve Mitleton-Kelly – The London School of Economics
David Bent – Forum for the Future
Visiting teachers will be drawn from Schumacher College associates who include Tim Jackson, Gunter Pauli, Wolfgang Sachs, Jonathon Porritt, Ed Mayo, Nic Marks, Vandana Shiva, Catherine Cameron, Janine Benyus, Ken Webster, Richard Douthwaite, Bunker Roy and many other key thinkers and activists.
Schumacher College believes in a radical and rigorous approach to learning that develops the whole person through intellect, emotion, ethics and practice. We value trans-disciplinary approaches, different ways of knowing and creative forms of expression.
Reflective enquiry, participatory learning methods, learning journals and personal development planning are among the tools we use in our small-group learning experiences.
Become immersed in a transformative postgraduate programme that is geared towards both external and inner transition.
You will also carry out an independent research project related to the economics of transition
Students will normally possess a first degree in the social or natural sciences, or a background that is equivalent, and be able to demonstrate a keen interest in the subject-matter. As places are limited we will select candidates who we consider will make optimal use of the learning experience afforded by the programme, and who will actively co-create the foundations of a “new economy.” In addition to considering individual candidates according to these criteria, the prospective MA group is considered as a whole, for which Schumacher College strives to create a balance of interest, gender and background.
£11,960 (UK/EEA; £17,300 (non EEA)
Schumacher College has a significant bursary fund for those who cannot cover the full course fees.
Graduates from this MA will have the skills and knowledge to work for sustainable change in the public, private and NGO sectors or to set up their own projects or organisations that will be a part of the transition to a new economy.
Module One: The Ecological Paradigm (20 credits)
This module explores how our understanding of sustainability is evolving – from the Bruntland Report to the triple bottom line to the recent focus on ecological resilience and the life sustaining economy.
Learning from ecological thinking and practice lies at the heart of the Schumacher College educational model. Failure to understand the world in an ecological and holistic way underlies many of the grave challenges that we now face as we strive for endless economic growth within a finite planetary system and seek to trade off one system against another. Endless material growth and trade off can never be sustained when we understand the nature of dynamic feedback systems.
This module draws from scientific ecology, Gaia theory and chaos and complexity theory to introduce important concepts which can be meaningfully applied to socio-economic systems including feedback, critical path dependency, emergence; self organisation, learning and adaptation and resilience. Students will work with case studies to apply these concepts across a range of socio-economic related topics from business strategy and environmental policy making to ecological design and closed loop economies.
During this module, students will develop personal and group inquiry practices to raise awareness of the interdependent relationship between the individual, society and nature and between theory, experience and practice.
Assessment: This module is 100% assessed through course work.
Module Two: The Emergence of the New Economy (20 credits)
‘The real science of political economy… is that which teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to life and teaches them to scorn and destroy the things that lead to destruction’ John Ruskin (1860)
The emergence of an alternative economy that is realigned with its ecological and social context and shifts the primary goal from economic growth to sustaining and enhancing ecological and social health and wellbeing has deep roots that go as far back as Ruskin (1860) and Schumacher (1973) and more recently in the work of the new economics foundation and a whole body of theorists and practitioners.
This module develops the theoretical principles of a new approach to economics to accelerate the transition to low carbon, high well-being, resilient economies. Students explore how contemporary economic, social, ecological and spiritual crises are systemically and dynamically linked to the driving forces in the global economy. The dominance of industrial growth economy with its theoretical underpinnings in neoclassical economics are powerfully critiqued from alternative schools of economic thought – drawn from ecological, environmental, institutional, Buddhist and eco-socialist perspectives to derive pluralistic principles for a new approach to economics. Students co-create future scenarios and pathways towards the transition to low carbon, high well-being, and resilient economies. An action inquiry method enables learning to relate to personal and group practice.
Assessment: This module is 100% assessed through course work.
Module Three: The New Economy in Practice (20 credits)
How are we going to make the transition to low carbon, high well-being, resilient economies and what does it mean in practice for different aspects of the economy?
There are already tens of thousands of exciting and successful initiatives around the globe that collectively are the emergence of the new economy in practice. This module will apply principles of the new economy to demonstrate what works in practice, using a range of tools and methods, policy interventions and experiential approaches to catalyse change. The module is structured around contemporary topics of the new economy in practice. Selected topics for 2011/12 may include:
Values, well-Being and sustainable consumption: How to create good lives that don’t cost the earth?
Sustainable production, appropriate technology and ecological design: How can we create economies that use waste as raw materials?
The future of work: How will work have to change to deliver a green, transition economy?
Localisation and economic resilience: How can we build sustainable local economies which meet local needs?
Community, citizenship and democracy: How can we re-build a sense of effective community?
Growth, inequality and steady state economics: Is it possible for society to pay its bills and enhance human development within a no-growth economy?
Greening macroeconomic policy: How can the structure of the economy be a catalyst for sustainability?
Re-balancing global trade and the role of international environmental governance: What is the role of trade in a sustainable global economy?
Assessment: This module is 100% assessed through course work.
Students select two options, usually from a choice of three from the Schumacher College short course programme. This provides an excellent opportunity for students to engage with other professionals and activists from outside the Masters programme.
The dissertation provides students with the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their capacity for independent study in the application of research skills to a topic relevant to the Economics for Transition. The dissertation can involve the use of alternative creative formats such as personal narrative, film and artwork and experiential material alongside those normally used in economic research.
Students will be introduced to a range of research methodologies in the social sciences and will have the opportunity to apply these to either a theoretical or applied project.
Examples of indicative dissertation topics are given below:
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