Today's global community has brought with it unique and unforeseen challenges, from the threat of environmental catastrophe and resource shortages, to infrastructural and economic failure and global terror. Geopolitics and Security at Royal Holloway, University of London equips students with the knowledge and skills needed to tackle these era-defining issues to mitigate the impact of potential crises and foster critical reflections on the strategies and techniques which seek to keep us secure..
This flexible Masters programme lets you select from a range of specialist courses to suit your own interests and career ambitions, choosing from options in both the Departments of Geography and Politics and International Relations. Graduates will gain a Masters degree in a discipline offering excellent employability prospects, while professionals seeking further academic training will learn transferable risk management skills ideal for further career development.
You'll join a vibrant research community and contribute to our renowned research culture with your own independent dissertation project. You’ll benefit from networking and placement opportunities with leading organisations and institutions, enjoy exciting field working opportunities in the UK and abroad, and work with leading researchers and research groups such as our Politics, Development and Sustainability Group in Geography with established track record in grant awards (eg from the ESRC, AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, EPSRC, British Academy, British Council, Falkland Island Government and the EU Marie-Curie fund).
Study Geopolitics and Security at Royal Holloway and you’ll graduate with a range of transferable skills to take with you into the workplace or further study. Learn to reflect on some of the most profound challenges of our times in this exciting Masters programme.
Core modules
Optional modules
In addition to these mandatory course units there are a number of optional course units available during your degree studies. The following is a selection of optional course units that are likely to be available. Please note that although the College will keep changes to a minimum, new units may be offered or existing units may be withdrawn, for example, in response to a change in staff. Applicants will be informed if any significant changes need to be made.
Formal and informal assessment is carried out by a variety of methods including coursework, oral and group work presentations, policy, briefing and media reports, video and documentary production, scenario planning and role-play, and a dissertation. Field visits to important sites and organisations, including RUSI, the IMO, the FCO, the RGS and others will also be available, supporting collegial interaction between students and staff. Emphasis is placed on informal assessment (especially through group work) so that students have plenty of opportunities to receive formative support and guidance.
Each year, the group will work on a major week-long project working with a cohort of French Masters students to devise the security planning of a major mega-event.
This programme is delivered in a single stage, equating to either one-year of full-time study or two years part-time, (or up to five years of part-time study by agreement with the Programme Director)
On completion of the course you will have:
Geopolitics and Security at Royal Holloway, University of London has a strong emphasis on skills development and employability, putting graduates in an excellent position to progress to further study or a rewarding career in their chosen field. Ideal for both recent graduates and professionals seeking further training, this programme will provide you with excellent field experience, placement and networking opportunities for a career working in commercial or political organisations such as banking, energy, media, think tanks, NGOs and government, where risk (management), threat and insecurity are critical to strategic policy development..
Our recent alumni have progressed to fulfilling careers in government, the media, risk and security consultancies, non-governmental organisations and public organisations both in the UK and abroad. An ideal stepping stone for PhD progression, Geopolitics and Security will help you to achieve your career and academic ambitions.
The Geopolitics, Territory & Security MA is a unique multidisciplinary course that focuses on the territorial aspect of inter-state relations. You will explore geopolitical and political geographic analysis – contextualised within the wider social sciences – and the relevant aspects of international law to understand the creation and maintenance of international boundaries, borders at various scales and the factors driving contemporary territorial disputes.
The Geopolitics, Territory & Security MA is a specialised master’s course, concentrating on the territorial element of inter-state relations. International (legal and technical) experts as well as recognised scholars will provide you with a clear theoretical and historical foundation in the principal study concepts relating to territory and international boundaries. The course will introduce you to legal, technical and practical factors of the creation and maintenance of international boundaries on land and sea, as well as offering valuable insights into the processes involved in resolving border and territorial disputes. The course engages with how academic disciplines have evolved to cover territorial questions, including the latest vogue critical lenses. It also focuses on how processes play out at the regional level, including a concentration on the Middle East and North Africa.
The study course is made up of optional and required modules. You will be required to obtain the minimum of 180 credits for the course. If you are studying full-time, you will complete the course in one year, from September to September.
If you are studying part-time, your course will take two years to complete and you will take a combination of required and optional modules over this period of time, with the dissertation in your second year.
For those seeking: an advanced appreciation of territorial geopolitics (from classical to critical); a theoretical and historical grounding in the principal concepts involved in territorial and international boundary studies; a practical application of these views and approaches to developing real-world situations. The course is particularly suitable for social science students with an international interest, government and foreign service personnel, lawyers, military and strategic researchers.
Teaching
We will teach you through a combination of lectures and seminars, and you will typically have 20 hours of this per module. We also expect you to undertake 180 hours of independent study for each module. For your 12,000 word dissertation, we will provide four workshops and five hours of one-to-one supervision to complement your 587 hours of independent study. Typically, one credit equates to 10 hours of work.
Assessment
Performance on taught modules in the Geography Department is normally assessed through essays and other written assignments, oral presentations, lab work and occasionally by examination, depending on the modules selected. All students also undertake a research-based dissertation of 12,000 words.
Graduates from this course have gone on to occupy senior management positions in government agencies and international consultancies. Many have also gained employment with NGOs involved in dispute resolution, international law firms, government ministries, oil companies, departments of the United Nations and the European Union.
The MA in Geopolitics & the Global Economy equips students with an in-depth understanding of international relations, war and conflict resolution as well as national, local and regional economic development, global economic processes, global political events and the knowledge economy.
The course includes fieldwork in an overseas location such as Berlin, Madrid, or Reykjavik. Students acquire a solid grounding in the key knowledge and skills required by a geographer specialising in political or economic geography.
Students can choose whether to study the political geography of Europe or US foreign policy in detail and can select a number of optional courses to focus on subject areas that interest them. These optional courses introduce the opportunity for interdisciplinary study with courses offered in political science, history and American studies.
Graduates work in government agencies, international aid agencies, global multilateral agencies, human rights institutions, think-tanks, research bodies and private firms in roles such as researchers, lecturers, aids workers, GIS specialists, planners and local government officials.
Graduates now work in organisations such as:
The Master in Middle Eastern Studies (MIMES) is specifically tailored for graduates of various disciplines and backgrounds, who are interested in obtaining a better knowledge of the Middle East region, taking into account its social-historical complexity and cultural plurality. The program aims to offer solid historical, political and institutional perspectives of the current domestic, regional and international dynamics affecting the stability of the region, as well as a critical outlook on current debates over the Middle East.
MIMES aims to guide students across this diverse and fascinating region, which, since decades, is at the center of the geostrategic interest of the international system. The program mainly focuses on the contemporary period, through a multi-disciplinary approach ranging over international relations, geopolitics, conflicts and security, economy and energy. Nonetheless, specific sections are devoted to the analysis of the historical and religious foundations of the modern Middle East, from the birth of Islam to the evolution of Islamic thought, law and economy. A dedicated course will offer a linguistic analysis of the political and juridical terminology and a glossary in Arabic. MIMES analyses in details infra-regions and inter-regions peculiarities and relations, from Maghreb to Central-Southern Asia, encouraging a comparative and holistic area studies approach.
MIMES provides graduate students with a detailed, comprehensive knowledge of the wider Middle East, beneficial to under-take a number of different careers, consistently with their previous training and experience, within international institutions, private companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), research centers and area studies, media networks, etc.
The Master in Middle Eastern Studies is articulated in five complementary levels, fostering multidimensional training and cross-fertilization, integrating scientific methodologies and operative competences.
1st level - Propaedeutic Phase: history, power and institution. The conceptual foundation of the Middle East
● Methodological introduction: debates on the Middle East
● History of the Middle East
● Religion, society and thought in the Islamic Middle East
● Islamic law and economy
● Study of political and juridical terminology - glossary in Arabic
● Middle East within the 20th century international order
2nd level - In-depth Analytical Phase: sub-regional contexts
● Maghreb
● Mashreq
● Sub-Saharan Africa
● South-West Asia and the Gulf
● Central-Southern Asia
3rd level - Thematic and Contemporary Issues
● Politics in contemporary Middle East and the current International Relations context
● Global security: jihadism, violent activism, conflicts and nuclear proliferation
● Post-conflict institution-building and human security
● Gender, ethno-religious diversity and pluralism in the Middle East
● Energy and geopolitics of resources
● Contemporary economic trends
4th level - Project Work
Students are required to develop a personal research project on a topic related to Middle Eastern affairs, under the supervision of a MIMES professor and/or a professional from a partner institution. The project work will often be connected to the internship experience.
5th level - Internship (or Arabic/ Persian/ Turkish language course)
The Master is completed with an internship in Italy or abroad within an institution whose mission and activities are consistent with the Master’s program. This gives students the invaluable opportunity to test and strengthen the competencies acquired during the Master and it usually lasts three months. As an alternative, students who do not carry out an internship may choose to attend an Arabic language course. Students will receive support and tutoring for their internship research.
The Master in Middle Eastern Studies offers high quality training to students from all over the world. They will take part in team projects with the guidance of important scholars and leading professionals from the Middle East as well as from Europe and the U.S.
Faculty:
● Prof. Riccardo Redaelli - MIMES Director
● Prof. Paolo Branca - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
● Dr. Marina Calculli - American University, Beirut
● Prof. Massimo Campanini - Università degli Studi di Trento
● Prof. Martino Diez - Fondazione OASIS and Università Cattoli- ca del Sacro Cuore
● Prof. Wael Faruq - American University, Cairo
● Prof. Ersilia Francesca - Università degli Studi di Napoli l’Orientale
● Prof. Elisa Giunchi - Università degli Studi di Milano
● Prof. Mehran Kamrava - Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service
● Prof. Bahgat Korany - American University, Cairo
● Prof. Marco Lombardi - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
● Prof. Maurizio Martellini - Landau Network Centro Volta and Insubria Center on International Security
● Prof. Massimo Papa - Università di Roma Tor Vergata
● Prof. Vittorio Emanuele Parsi - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
● Prof. Paola Rivetti - Dublin City University
● Prof. Mahmood Sariolghalam - Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran
● Prof. Oktay Tanrisever - Middle East Technical University
● Amb. Roberto Toscano - Barcelona Center for International Affairs
● Mr. Franco Zallio - consultant
This Master has been created thanks to the experience of ASERI in the field of graduate education and training. Università Cattolica’s Graduate School of Economics and International Relations combines quality courses with strong connections to the business world. Courses are taught by academic professors, professionals and leaders from all over the world. The high quality of this training is ensured by the presence of an international faculty composed by renowned professors and experts, coming from both Middle East and US/EU universities and research centers.
The strong theoretical basis is combined with a solid knowledge of the contemporary issues, in order to provide students’ with a specific understanding of one of the most important region in the international scenario and help them to convert their knowledge in professional skills.
Thanks to the expertise of its faculty, this innovative program combines several perspectives on the Middle East: international relations, history, economics, law, geopolitics, security and energy. The analysis of the current dynamics, debates and most important topics regarding the role of the Middle East at a regional and international level, as well as dedicated modules on its sub-regions and their peculiarities, are strengthened by the theoretical basis provided during the first part of the program.
This is an advanced and progressive programme that presents you with a unique opportunity to understand historical and contemporary developments in the economy, politics, culture, and society of Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
You will take four core courses and one optional course, as well as complete a dissertation as a piece of independent research. You will select a specialist pathway, which includes a specialist core courses and a language. (Choices vary depending on pathway).
All pathways
Central and East European Studies
Russian Studies
Eurasian Studies
Many of our graduates have gone on to establish careers as lecturers and researchers at universities in the UK, Norway, Greece, Italy, and Poland or have become secondary school teachers. Our graduates have also been very successful in establishing careers with organisations such as BBC World Service, British Army, British Civil Service, British Council, Centre for Defence Information (Moscow), Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde (Glasgow), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (London), Jamestown Foundation (Washington D.C), KPMG, Ministry of Defence, UK, Open Society Foundation (Bratislava), Open Society Institute (Budapest), Operation Mobilisation, Czech Republic and the Trust for Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe (Warsaw).
The Earth's resources are under strain from a growing population. Now, more than ever, we need to monitor, manage and maintain our environment. This vocationally relevant Masters provides you with an in-depth critical understanding of today’s major environmental challenges.
You can keep your learning broad or you can specialise in one of four areas: Water, Energy, Food Security or Pollution. There are specific core modules for each specialist area:
Several modules include field trips to the beautiful and topographically varied countryside around Lancaster, and beyond.
All options include a dissertation project, which will enhance your practical and analytical skills and give you the chance to apply your learning to a real-world challenge. Our many research projects and partners across the globe provide exciting possibilities when you are choosing your dissertation subject. Alternatively you can do a six month research placement with a private sector company, government body or voluntary sector organisation instead of a traditional dissertation. Examples of previous dissertations include:
This very popular course will equip you to pursue a broad range of careers including environmental monitoring, resource management and consultancy.
You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.
Core
Optional
Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research.
Coursework, presentations, examinations and dissertation
The Environment, Politics and Globalisation MA, MSc is an interdisciplinary course offering a unique combination of theoretical and relevant policy subjects to give you indepth knowledge and critical awareness of the politics and geographies shaping environments, both now and in the past. You will examine local case studies as well as global environmental issues, politics and policies from a variety of perspectives to gain a textured understanding of this contested and vital area of study.
The Environment, Politics & Globalisation MA, MSc is a demanding and stimulating course, with an emphasis on developing your analytical and research skills.
You will study Globalisation and the Environment, as well as optional modules covering topics such as Climate: Science and History, Geopolitics, Power and Place, Environmental Actors and Politics, and Disasters and Development. If you choose to follow the MSc research pathway, you will study Advanced Quantitative and Spatial Methods in Human Geography.
The Environment, Politics and Globalisation course is aimed at providing students with an in-depth and critical awareness of the politics and geographies shaping environments at a range of interrelated and ever shifting scales. In this context the course involves a broad and reflexive interpretation of the terms ‘environment’, ‘politics’, and ‘globalisation’. It aims to enable students to develop the skills required to engage with both cutting edge academic literature and grounded policy scenarios so that they can participate in the dynamic and contested environmental arena. These aims are achieved by the unique combination of theoretical and practical modules that draw on staff environmental expertise, along with internships with participating environmental organisations. You will be required to obtain the minimum of 180 credits to complete the course.
If you are studying full-time, you will complete the course in one year, from September to September. If you are studying part-time, your course will take two years to complete. You will take the combination of required and optional modules over this period of time, with the dissertation in your second year.
For those seeking to develop their intellectual and practical skills to engage in both academic debates and the practical construction of environmental policy and politics at national and international scales.
Teaching
We use lectures, seminars and group tutorials to deliver most of the modules on the course. You will also be expected to undertake a significant amount of independent study. Typically, one credit equates to 10 hours of work.
Per 20-credit taught module:
Lectures, seminars and feedback: Typically 20 hours
Self-study: 180 hours (some modules may involve lab work or e-learning which would require less self-guided learning).
Dissertation:
Lectures, seminars and feedback: Usually four dissertation workshops/ tutorials and five contact hours of one-to-one or group consultation with supervisors.
Self-study: 587 hours.
Assessment
Performance on taught modules in the Geography Department is normally assessed through essays and other written assignments, oral presentations, lab work and occasionally by examination, depending on the modules selected. All students also undertake a research-based dissertation of 12,000 words.
Many of our graduates have gone on to undertake further graduate study. Others have gone on to work as research assistants for international development agencies as well as pursuing careers within government agencies, teaching and journalism.
Our Geography MA, MSc course provides you with an excellent foundation in advanced Geography. The
course will offer you comprehensive study opportunities in the geographical fields of your choice:
The Geography MA, MSc study course is made up of optional and required modules. You must take modules with a total of between 180 and 190 credits to complete the course.
In addition to a required dissertation, you will select from a range of related modules. Your choice of modules will determine whether you take the MA or MSc pathway. If you are enrolling for the Geography MA course, you are expected to choose options in human geography, whereas the Geography MSc course will mean you will study physical geography.
If you are studying full-time, you will complete the course in one year, from September to September. If you are studying part-time, your course will be delivered over two years, you will take the required module in the first year, and the dissertation in your second year.
Teaching
We use lectures, seminars and group tutorials to deliver most of the modules on the course. You will also be expected to undertake a significant amount of independent study. Typically, one credit equates to 10 hours of work.
Per 20-credit module:
Lectures, seminars and feedback: The total contact time for each 20-credit taught module is 20 hours. These sessions will include lectures, teacher-led and student-led group discussions based on the main areas of study
Self-study:180 hours of self-guided learning time (some modules may involve lab work or e-learning).
Dissertation modules:
Lectures, seminars and feedback: Usually four dissertation workshops/ tutorials and five contact hours of one-to-one or group consultation with supervisors.
Self-study: 587 hours.
Assessment
Assessment methods will depend on the modules selected. The primary method of assessment for this course is a combination of essays/reports, oral presentations, lab work and occasionally by examination.
Our graduates usually continue on to further research, but many have also entered the fields of national and international consultancies and NGOs, governments, charities, research organisations, journalism and teaching.
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