Course Type: Postgraduate (taught)
Training Provider: Royal Holloway, University of London
School/Institute/Dept./Centre: Centre for Developing Areas Research (CEDAR)

• Research training in qualitative methods – provides a range of social science methods for field research and analysis.
  
• Quantitative methods for graduates - provides basic statistical concepts and procedures used in empirical research. 
  
• Development and environment research training – provides guidance for planning, developing and undertaking research in a development and environment context, and its evaluation and communication.

Dissertation
The dissertation (not exceeding 12,000 words, on topic of the candidate’s choice, which has been approved by the supervisor) requires both secondary and primary research, and the demonstration of originality in integrating theoretical and practical research methods in tackling a particular problem of the student’s choice.

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Staff:
Vandana Desai, BA (Senior Lecturer)
NGOs and civil society, community participation and slum housing, globalisation and gender roles, survival strategies of the poor; especially in India. Dr Vandana Desai’s main research interest is investigating NGOs involved in a broad spectrum of activities, which exhibit potentially illuminating contrasts in emphasis and packaging of activities, as well as in client group and organisational style. This research was funded by the ESCOR grant of the DFID (UK). She is now doing longitudinal analysis on the Urban NGO sector in Mumbai, this work is funded by the British Academy. Her research on community participation deals with the meaning and scope of community participation, the potential benefits for the actors involved, practical obstacles, shared responsibilities and related questions. This research was funded by the Wingate Scholarship. Her recent interest is to evaluate and explore the social and economic impact of economic liberalisation and globalisation on the urban poor women in India. The main focus is on the changing role of women, the subtle strategies adopted by women to cope in this changing environment and the informal networks which have an impact upon the dynamics of the household relations and the extent to which social capital formed at the community level is carried over into civil society and formal politics. Within this context, assessing the role of NGOs and the extent to which they are facilitating the transferability of social capital and encouraging the participation of women in both informal and formal politics. This research is being piloted through her role as a Link Co-ordinator on the British Council Higher Education Link Programme with Mother Teresa Women’s University, Kodaikanal, India.

Klaus Dodds (Professor and Dean of the Graduate School)
Geopolitics and international relations, development theory, international politics of Antarctica and Southern hemispheric environmental and political co-operation Prof. Klaus Dodds’s research interests include critical geopolitics and international relations, international politics of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, Britain and the South Atlantic empire, Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, popular geopolitics and James Bond. He has recently completed a book entitled Global Geopolitics: A Critical Introduction (2005) which considers amongst other things the geopolitics of terror and counter-terror and the implications for North-South relations. He is also working (with David Lambert) on a project concerned with the Britain's remaining overseas territories (in particular the Falklands and Gibraltar) and the contested politics of colonial loyalty.

David Lambert (Lecturer)
Colonial and postcolonial geographies, with particular reference to the Caribbean; geographies of slavery and humanitarianism; geographical ideas and techniques. Dr David Lambert is concerned with the relationships between race, national identities and power in contemporary and historical contexts. Specific strands of research address the transnational geographies of White identities; webbed and networked approaches to imperialism and diaspora; and the geographies of slavery and humanitarianism. His primary regional focus is the Caribbean, but he is also interested in the Atlantic world and the British diaspora, including ‘imperial remnants’ such as Gibraltar and the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. Interdisciplinary research is of particular importance, especially in the context of Caribbean Studies and what is often termed ‘new imperial history.

Duncan McGregor (Senior Lecturer)
Interaction of geomorphology, soil nutrient status and agricultural systems in the humid tropics; remote sensing; the Caribbean, with particular reference to Jamaica; Brazil; Colombia. Watershed management in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana. Dr Duncan McGregor is currently project leader for a recently completed DFID funded project looking at watershed management frameworks in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana. This research combines physical and social research to develop strategies for watershed management which are aimed at low-cost initiatives which communities can run themselves. His wider interests are in soil erosion and land degradation, principally in the Caribbean, semi-arid Kenya and Latin America.

Jay Mistry (Lecturer and Director of programme)
Natural resource management; biodiversity conservation; tropical savannas; fire ecology and management; tropical ecology and land use; expert systems; decision support systems; Brazil, Guyana, India. Dr Jay Mistry’s main research interests are in natural resource and land management. Her current work is concerned with fire management in tropical savannas, particularly decision-making for fire use, and indigenous and traditional fire management in the cerrado (savannas) of Brazil. She is also project leader on a Darwin Initiative (DEFRA) funded project in the Rupununi savannas of Guyana, looking at linking biodiversity, environmental factors, land use and local indigenous communities for effective management.

David Simon (Professor of Development Geography, Director of CEDAR.)
Development theory and policy, political economy of Third World urbanisation and urban growth, especially sub-Saharan Africa; survival strategies of the poor; environmental problems and sustainability; regional integration and national development; transport; southern Africa, Ghana, Kenya, SE Asia. Prof. David Simon's research embraces a wide range of development issues with particular reference to southern and sub-Saharan Africa. He has worked extensively in Namibia, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana, with funding from the British Academy, British Council and Nuffield Foundation. Current theoretical research involves rethinking the meanings of development and the relevance of perspectives such as postmodernism, postcolonialism and post-traditionalism. In South Africa, he is working on changing discourses and policies on development and the environment since the end of apartheid. Together with Dr. McGregor and Mr. Thompson, he recently completed a 3-year research grant from the UK Dept. for International Development’s Renewable Natural Resources Programme to develop a framework for participatory sustainable environmental management at the watershed scale in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana. He also recently completed a multidisciplinary research on sustainable reservoir fisheries development in Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines working with an international team on a Euro 650k grant from the European Commission over 3.5 years.

Donald Thompson (Lecturer)
Fluvial and hillslope processes in arid and semi-arid environments; related problems of agriculture and water supply in developing countries. Mr Don Thompson is examining increased rates of soil degradation in areas of traditional secaro agriculture in the semi-desert regions of Andalucia. Geomorphological process modelling can be applied to this problem in order to determine rates and mechanisms of degradation and possible strategies for improvement. Similar techniques are also being applied to low technology water supply strategies. He was a joint grant holder with Duncan McGregor on the DFID funded project in Kumasi.

Tim Unwin (Professor of Geography)
ICT4D; Rural Development; Critical Theory Prof. Tim Unwin has wide ranging research interests both in the fields of rural development and in the use of Information and Communication Technologies for Development. From 2001-2004 he was on secondment to the UK’s Department for International Development, where he led Imfundo: Parttnership for IT in Education, a prime-ministerial initiative designed to create partnerships to deliver ICT-based educational initiatives in Africa. He has extensive experience both of research and of the practical delivery of development initiatives in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.

Katie Willis (Senior Lecturer)
Gender and development; gender and migration; gender identities; skilled migration; transnationalism; structural adjustment policies, especially health; Latin America, East Asia, California. Dr Katie Willis's research focuses largely on household-level responses to macro-level change, with a particular emphasis on gender and class dimensions. She has worked extensively in Mexico, Singapore, China and California. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers). Her recent theoretical work has been looking at the relationships between studies of transnationalism and the scope of feminist geographies. This work has been informed by work on transnationalism in the sphere of skilled British and Singaporean migrants in China, and young people in California. Since 1997 she has worked collaboratively with Dr Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore on skilled migration flows to China, emphasising the gender, ethnic and national identities which are negotiated as part of this mobility. She is also working on British Academy funded research on responses to health sector reform in Mexico. This is based largely in Oaxaca City, Southern Mexico and focuses on variations by class in the responses to these changes.


Entry Requirements:
You are eligible to apply if you have a good academic background (upper second class BSc or BA Honours) in a related field (natural or social sciences), and/or considerable professional experience in any agency involved in development and environment issues. We welcome both full-time and part-time students.

Those overseas students whose first language is not English and those without a degree from a UK university must achieve an overall score of 6.5 in IELTS and a score of 7.0 in the writing component; alternatively, they must possess a computer-based TOEFL score of 250 with an essay rating of 6.0 or a paper-based TOEFL of 600 with 6.0 in TWE or Test of Written English.

Students with at least an IELTS score of 6.5 overall and 6.0 for the writing component, or a TOEFL 580/TOEFL CBT 237 with a TWE/Essay 5.0 qualify for admission to the College's 4-week pre-sessional English programme. Students with at least IELTs 6.0 overall and 6.0 for writing, or TOEFL 570/TOEFL CBT 230 with TWE/Essay 4.5 can qualify for the 8-week pre-sessional English programme.

Intake/Applications (previous year):
50/15

Course Duration:
Full-time: 12 months Part-time: 24 months

Language(s) of Instruction:

• English

Mode of Study:

• residential

Thematic Focus:

• Agricultural Development
• Anthropology/Sociology
• Civil Society/NGO Management
• Communication
• Development Management
• Development Policy
• Development Studies
• Environmental Issues
• Education
• Gender Issues
• Globalisation
• Governance
• Health/Public Health
• ICT and Information Systems
• International Relations
• International Trade
• Participatory Approaches
• Poverty Analysis
• Project Planning
• Research Methods
• Rural Development
• Social Policy and Development
• Training and Training Techniques
• Urban Studies and Planning

Country(ies):

• United Kingdom

Town(s) or City(ies):
London

Course fees:
UK and EU students: £3,085; Overseas students: £11,880; Part-time fees are 50% of the full-time total.

Scholarships & Awards:
Commonwealth/DFID Scholarships for overseas students; Royal Holloway Masters Scholarships for EU/UK students; Other funding opportunities through participant countries such as the World Bank and Chevening Awards.

Further Funding Information:
http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/postgrads/PG-funding.html

Course's Webpage:
http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/cedar/MAMSc/index.html