Your research project counts for up to half of your taught Master's degree, so it is important to make sure that you select the right one for you.

By bringing together the combined scope of Lancaster Environment Centre, Rothamsted Research and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Graduate School represents one of the world’s largest environmental research centres.

Our size is matched by the number and breadth of research projects open to our Master's students – with interdisciplinary opportunities ranging across all of the natural and social sciences, and chances to study with research and industry partners in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.

Among many other options, you could find yourself investigating heavy metal pollution in Bangladesh, monitoring the ecological effects of decommissioning oil and gas activity in the North Sea, exploring the electrical behaviour of plant roots, considering the social factors shaping food security among smallholder farms in Ghana, or researching forest ecology in Brazil.

World-beating choice

Every year we ask each of our approximately 100 academic staff to submit ideas for projects that they would be interested in supervising. The result is perhaps the most comprehensive array of research opportunities open to Master's students anywhere in the world.

But even this is just a starting point. Of course, you can choose one of the suggested research topics, but we actively encourage you to tell us about your own ideas. Talk to us and we can connect you with a relevant supervisor to help explore ways to develop your research plan. And if you’d like a project with an external organisation we can help tailor something to suit your needs.

The right project for you

The idea is that every student ends up with a project that they have co-created with their supervisor. That way you can immerse yourself in a field that truly fires you up, which we believe is the best way to generate the kind of original, ground-breaking research that we specialise in at the Graduate School.