Information about who will teach your course is correct at the time of publication. In some cases changes may be necessary and unavoidable, such as staff changes due to illness or leaving the University.
Overview
Top reasons to study with us
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World Top 100 QS World University Subject Rankings 2025 (Arts & Humanities)
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Develop critical thinking around a wide range of societal issues and concerns
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Engage with leading, socially-engaged academics
World leading academics from across Lancaster's Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences share the latest developments in this dynamic field.
What are the key causes of environmental change? What is stopping nations from collectively shaping a more sustainable relationship between people and the environment? Our innovative master’s course offers fresh thinking on how to address some of the biggest challenges of our times, equipping you to play a transformative role in finding viable solutions.
Why Lancaster?
- Join a diverse, interdisciplinary team with world-leading environmental expertise across the arts, humanities and social sciences
- Develop a practical and future-orientated understanding of how to tackle environmental challenges and contribute to possible solutions
- Learn global leadership skills that equip you to participate in challenging negotiations on local, national and international scales
- Work collaboratively with students across our suite of master’s courses to build your own professional network
- Be inspired by our gorgeous green campus, close to historic Lancaster and spectacular coastal and mountain scenery
- Prepare for roles with national and international organisations such as environmental think tanks and protection agencies
Tackling climate catastrophe
Our master’s in Global Sustainability and Environmental Futures analyses the relationship between people and the environment. Using critical concepts, theories and practices drawn from across the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences, you’ll learn tools that will enable you to unpick the complexity of human and non-human interests in environmental futures.
You’ll engage with educational, scientific, legal and regulatory approaches to dealing with global issues such as violences, sites of trauma and conflict, inequalities, poverty and environmental injustice. You'll explore the past, present and future of environmental change, including topics such as global environmental politics, and environmental crisis and societal change.
Through a variety of modules, you’ll be encouraged to draw on different disciplines and consider issues from the perspectives of diverse stakeholders and seek context-specific solutions.
Collaboration in practice
The School of Global Affairs offers three master’s degrees that share a common ethos and course structure. Each provides distinctive yet interconnected opportunities to develop the skills, knowledge, relationships and partnerships needed to meet the global challenges of our time.
You’ll take part in subject-specific modules designed to build in-depth knowledge of global sustainability and environmental challenges and assess, engage in and create responses to real world issues.
In studio modules you’ll work on live community briefs, connecting Lancaster’s research with both local environments and global issues.
On leadership modules, you’ll join with students from other master’s cohorts on projects and use generative, collaborative thinking to create innovative solutions that are relevant to diverse external stakeholders.
Working with students from our other cohorts will bring you into contact with those specialising in AI and global health and medical humanities. You’ll experience the benefits that harnessing skills and knowledge from diverse groups and subjects can bring.
You’ll have the opportunity to tailor your final project to draw on your academic, personal or professional experience. A range of innovative assessment types will give you the freedom to represent your chosen topic creatively and persuasively.
Become a leader in change
With its dedicated leadership module, this course prepares you for a future as a collaborative change-maker. The course challenges traditional views of leadership. It adopts an understanding of inclusive leadership that is grounded in critical, creative and collaborative skills.
By taking this interdisciplinary approach and engaging in the discourses of leadership ethics, you will be equipped to bring about positive change in your chosen field.
You will benefit from Lancaster’s rich, collaborative academic environment, being able to participate actively in research events and opportunities provided by the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Flexible study options
Study alongside work and other commitments by taking this course on a part-time basis. Running over two years, you take a selection of modules each year.
We will liaise with you over your choice of optional modules and your schedule, so that you can successfully balance your work and other commitments alongside the master’s programme.
Careers
This course will appeal to those wishing to move into a challenging but rewarding career where you can make a difference to the world we live in. You may already be engaged in a professional role and looking to advance or change your career path.
The programme integrates flexibility in terms of options for part time students and is designed to maximise opportunities for students with professional experience to share and develop their existing insights and expertise.
We welcome students from a broad range of academic backgrounds including the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and management subjects. This master’s provides the opportunity to extend your prior educational and work experience in new directions.
You may be interested in roles with:
- Public and private sector environmental research
- Think tanks and lobbying organisations
- Environmental regulators and protection agencies
- Third sector and social enterprise organisations
- International organisations and agencies
Careers and employability support
Our degrees open up an extremely wide array of career pathways in businesses and organisations, large and small, in the UK and overseas. Our specialist Employability team is ready to support you, whether you are starting out your career after leaving higher education or returning to university to open up new career options.
We provide individual employability advice, application support, career events, development opportunities and resources to help you plan and achieve your career goals. We also run a paid internship scheme specifically for arts, humanities and social sciences students.
The Lancaster Award is available to all postgraduate taught students and recognises work experience, volunteering and personal development alongside your studies. Developed with employers, it helps you reflect on key skills, boost your CV and articulate your strengths with confidence.
Whether you have a clear idea of your potential career path or need some help considering the options, our friendly team is on hand.
Find out more about Lancaster’s careers events, extensive resources and personal support for Careers and Employability.
Entry requirements
Academic requirements
2:2 Hons degree (UK or equivalent) in any subject.
Additional requirements
- A personal statement which should be a 300-500 word reflection on your interest in the programme, the relevance of your experience and what you hope to gain from the programme.
- The department plans to interview all eligible applicants.
English language requirements
We require an IELTS (Academic) Test with an overall score of at least 6.5, and a minimum of 6.0 in each element of the test.
We also consider other English language qualifications and if your score is below our requirements, you may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language programmes.
Help from our Admissions team
If you are thinking of applying to Lancaster and you would like to ask us a question, complete our enquiry form and one of the team will get back to you.
We also have more details on our website about:
Pre-master's programmes
Delivered in partnership with INTO Lancaster University, our one-year tailored pre-master's pathways are designed to improve your subject knowledge and English language skills to the level required by a range of Lancaster University master's degrees. Visit INTO Lancaster University for more details and a list of eligible degrees you can progress onto.
Course structure
We continually review and enhance our curriculum to ensure we are delivering the best possible learning experience, and to make sure that the subject knowledge and transferable skills you develop will prepare you for your future. The University will make every reasonable effort to offer programmes and modules as advertised. In some cases, changes may be necessary and may result in new modules or some modules and combinations being unavailable, for example as a result of student feedback, timetabling, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.
Core
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Develop your project management skills and practice at an advanced level.
In this innovative studio format, you will be given a live brief, and through hands-on learning, you will work with others in a group project to meet this brief. Your task will centre on how interdisciplinary humanities approaches can be applied to contemporary place-based challenges.
You will address these multi-dimensional challenges through a range of approaches, applying learning from your specific topic of expertise such as:
- Artificial intelligence
- Society and global challenges
- Sustainability and environmental futures
- Global medical and health humanities
Projects may be based on academically significant topics that will expose you to areas of contemporary research. Alternatively, they may be linked to ‘real world’ issues and external clients enabling you to develop your abilities in professional practice.
This project-based module will incorporate studio sessions with lectures from a range of disciplinary experts and external stakeholders, workshops to support practical skills and student-led group working in the studio space.
In this second studio format module, you will build on your first applied learning experience. You will move from contemporary place-based challenges to a focus on how interdisciplinary humanities approaches can be applied to global challenges that encompass multiple locales and contexts.
You’ll continue to develop project management and practice at an advanced level working on a live brief. Through further hands-on learning, you will work with others in a group project to meet this brief.
These multi-dimensional challenges will be addressed through a range of approaches as you apply learning from your specific topic of expertise such as:
- Artificial intelligence
- Society and global challenges
- Sustainability and environmental futures
- Global Medical and Health Humanities
Projects may be based on academically significant topics that will expose you to areas of contemporary research. Alternatively, they may be on issues put forward by external clients, enabling you to develop your abilities in professional practice.
This project-based module will incorporate studio sessions with lectures from a range of disciplinary experts and external stakeholders, workshops to support practical skills, and student-led group working in the studio space.
In this module you’ll gain a range of practical skills that are required to lead the development and implementation of innovative solutions to global challenges within education, academia, business and society. You will participate in workshops and work in self-directed Action Learning Sets which meet independently on a regular basis outside of the classroom.
Applying a critical, decolonial lens, you will reflect on your own position, prior learning and experience and connect these with ideas of leadership (and leadership ethics) in a range of contexts.
Our focus is a humanities-led approach to leadership, grounded in critical, creative and collaborative skills. You’ll be encouraged to take a holistic approach to the role of leadership in society, and humanistic thinking.
As well as theories of leadership and followership, you will learn skills for leadership and collaboration, which may include:
- Project and self-management
- Entrepreneurship
- Research and information literacy
- Communication
- Partnership building
The teaching and learning are designed to be flexible and prioritise self-directed study, enabling you to develop your own unique set of leadership skills and traits which will prepare you for a wide range of leadership roles, further study or a range of careers.
Explore and experiment with topics, ideas and methods which you will devise and design. The project will usually be a piece of individual work and can take a number of formats, which may include:
- A long form written dissertation
- A multi-media formatted project
- A creative intervention or a policy document
You will be supported by The School of Global Affairs to work collaboratively and to identify external partnerships through which to develop the project. You’ll be expected to draw on the multi-disciplinary aspects of your programme to devise critical, creative and future facing work.
Optional
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In times when hope and fear about the environmental crisis alternate in our minds, when social and political change play havoc with our interpretation of the historic worlds we inhabit, it is crucial that we examine critically and creatively the ways and means by which such a crisis has come into existence. To do so, this module builds bridges across disciplines.
This module combines a place-based approach (Lancaster, the Morecambe Bay, and the Lake District) and an analytical focus centred on the dissonance and convergence of temporal scales. We seek to answer two questions in close dialogue with students:
- To what extent is the dissonance between the different timescales of the Earth system, the social and built environment, and the human imagination a contributing factor to political inaction and cultural indifference?
- In what ways can we better integrate these timescales while retaining the rigour, criticality, and creativity of the disciplines used to study each?
Explore the complex relationship between people and the environment from the Middle Ages to the present. This module examines how humans have shaped ecosystems and vice versa to offer new perspectives on crucial historical developments, such as:
- Climate change
- Landscape changes
- Animal diplomacy
- Resource depletion
- Industrialization
- Colonization
- Environmentalism
The module is organized around case studies that span Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia, and so you will gain an appreciation of the natural world’s historic diversity, as well as the ways that differing peoples across history have understood, exploited, and preserved the environment.
In addition to investigating historical phenomena that have profound contemporary relevance, you will also read deeply in the vibrant field of environmental history. You’ll emerge from this module with a nuanced understanding of how humans have altered the environment, the importance of the environment for shaping world history, and the ways that historians have studied environmental history.
Intercultural business communication plays a key role in the global economy and world commerce as it considers cultural differences between international business partners and clients. On this interdisciplinary module, you will examine how communication is affected by different values, attitudes and beliefs, in the context of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments.
You will learn how to effectively interact, work and develop meaningful relationships with professionals across different cultures and social groups: essential skills in a global workforce.
Drawing on interdisciplinary research,you’ll gain the necessary awareness, know-how and practical skills needed to become more effective at intercultural interactions. You will use various models to analyse your own experiences and develop a personal development plan to address effective interactions at work in the face of significant challenges. Studying intercultural business communication will foster an understanding of your own cultural, linguistic and communication related background. This may benefit future careers that operate within a multicultural context.
Study a language formally in a way that will support your learning. You can enrol either as a beginner or as a more advanced student where you will build on existing knowledge.
In the seminars and workshops, as well as through a series of optional drop-ins offered later in the module, you’ll get the tools you need to approach materials which are relevant to your own academic and work interests.
You will be given opportunities to practise in your chosen target language, building on materials posted on the learning space (flipped classroom videos, self-study links) as well as other events organised for the community of linguists and language learners in the University, such as our weekly lunch clubs.
On this module you will develop transferable communicative skills and reflect on cultural and linguistic challenges which are relevant to your postgraduate studies and beyond.
You may use these skills to research matters relating to intercultural and/or interlinguistic issues, work with archives, develop an international research network, or simply add them to your CV.
In this module, you will examine the methodological and ethical considerations involved in researching environmental issues through a social and cultural lens.
You will address ecological challenges through ideas and methods, such as:
- Research design
- Ethical frameworks
- The role of social sciences in interdisciplinary environmental research
- Qualitative approaches
- Reflexive practices
- Culturally grounded methods
- Case studies
You’ll explore decolonising methodologies and show how power shapes who gets heard and whose knowledge counts. You will learn to evaluate, select and apply appropriate methods in your own work, leading to the production of a project presentation.
In this module, you will explore how global development and environmental policies are shaped and debated. You will explore key ideas such as “development”, “poverty” and “nature” and how their meanings are political and contested.
You will examine how historical challenges, especially colonialism and capitalism, have impacted the practices of sustainable development. You will engage with a wide range of issues through case studies from regions such as Latin America and Africa.
You will explore a range of topics, such as:
- The evolution of the concept of development
- The development regime and foreign aid policies
- North-South relations and global environmental governance
- Environmental justice and global inequalities
- International climate politics and policies
Fees and funding
We set our fees on an annual basis and the 2026/27 entry fees have not yet been set.
Additional fees and funding information accordion
There may be extra costs related to your course for items such as books, stationery, printing, photocopying, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits. Following graduation, you may need to pay a subscription to a professional body for some chosen careers.
Specific additional costs for studying at Lancaster are listed below.
College fees
Lancaster is proud to be one of only a handful of UK universities to have a collegiate system. Every student belongs to a college, and all students pay a small College Membership Fee which supports the running of college events and activities. Students on some distance-learning courses are not liable to pay a college fee.
For students starting in 2025, the fee is £40 for undergraduates and research students and £15 for students on one-year courses.
Computer equipment and internet access
To support your studies, you will also require access to a computer, along with reliable internet access. You will be able to access a range of software and services from a Windows, Mac, Chromebook or Linux device. For certain degree programmes, you may need a specific device, or we may provide you with a laptop and appropriate software - details of which will be available on relevant programme pages. A dedicated IT support helpdesk is available in the event of any problems.
The University provides limited financial support to assist students who do not have the required IT equipment or broadband support in place.
Application fees for 2025
For most taught postgraduate programmes starting in 2025 you must pay a non-refundable application fee of £40. We cannot consider applications until this fee has been paid, as advised on our online secure payment system. There is no application fee for postgraduate research applications.
Application fees for 2026
There is no application fee if you are applying for postgraduate study starting in 2026.
Paying a deposit
For some of our courses you will need to pay a deposit to accept your offer and secure your place. We will let you know in your offer letter if a deposit is required and you will be given a deadline date when this is due to be paid.
The fee that you pay will depend on whether you are considered to be a home or international student. Read more about how we assign your fee status.
If you are studying on a programme of more than one year’s duration, tuition fees are reviewed annually and are not fixed for the duration of your studies. Read more about fees in subsequent years.
Find all fees and funding information for students at Lancaster University.
Scholarships and bursaries
Details of our scholarships and bursaries for 2026-entry study are not yet available, but you can use our opportunities for 2025-entry applicants as guidance.
Check our current list of scholarships and bursaries.
Meet the MA Sustainability and Global Environmental Futures team
Carlos López Galviz
I am Professor of History and Social Futures at Lancaster. I joined in 2015 as a founding member of the Institute, now Centre for Social Futures, of which I became Director in 2022. My work has contributed to understanding if and how we should connect history to the future in relation to cities, informality, transport infrastructure and, more recently, environmental crises and societal change.
Deborah Sutton
I teach and research modern South Asian History, exploring environmental histories and the strategies and deficiencies of imperial and national governance. I am also part of an interdisciplinary collaborative project, 'Desert Disorders: Comparative Approaches to Asian and East African Desert Regions’ funded by the British Academy. My current work examines eco-technologies in arid landscapes in Northwestern India.
Rolien Hoyng
I am a Senior Lecturer in Sociology. I study climate technologies and the role of uncertainty in the management of the climate crisis, along with differential cultural experiences of technological mediations of the climate crisis. Today we live in technological societies: all problems and especially environmental ones are considered through the lens of digital technology. I hope to give humanities or social science students the courage to tackle issues that they have little say in, such as technology and sustainability.
Nathan Jones
My research focuses on how artistic practice can contribute to sustainability science, exploring innovative approaches to environmental challenges. Books such as Artists Rethinking the Blockchain (2017), BiblioTech (2024), and initiatives with the Onassis Centre and Abandon Normal Devices link contemporary art-tech to pressing issues in climate science and ecology. Current projects with Eden Project North, Deco Publique and Morecambe Bay Curriculum explore art’s relevance to coastal ecosystems and food futures.
Nicola Thomas
I am a Lecturer in German Studies, interested in space, time, environment and knowledge across literatures, languages and cultures. I am currently lead researcher on a British Academy-funded project investigating the varied temporal imaginaries of wetland communities around the world.
Important information
The information on this site relates primarily to the stated entry year and every effort has been taken to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication.
The University will use all reasonable effort to deliver the courses as described, but the University reserves the right to make changes to advertised courses. In exceptional circumstances that are beyond the University’s reasonable control (Force Majeure Events), we may need to amend the programmes and provision advertised. In this event, the University will take reasonable steps to minimise the disruption to your studies. If a course is withdrawn or if there are any fundamental changes to your course, we will give you reasonable notice and you will be entitled to request that you are considered for an alternative course or withdraw your application. You are advised to revisit our website for up-to-date course information before you submit your application.
More information on limits to the University’s liability can be found in our legal information.
Our Students’ Charter
We believe in the importance of a strong and productive partnership between our students and staff. In order to ensure your time at Lancaster is a positive experience we have worked with the Students’ Union to articulate this relationship and the standards to which the University and its students aspire. Find out more about our Charter and student policies.