Course description

MSc Urban Regeneration and Development focuses on the regeneration and development of cities.

It will provide you with a range of intellectual and professional skills in urban regeneration and development in both public and private sectors, including local authorities and central government bodies, local regeneration partnerships, regeneration consultancies and private developers.

Aims

You will:

identify urban problems and build the knowledge base to devise appropriate solutions;

receive excellent preparation for professional practice in urban development and regeneration;

get an international perspective through overseas fieldwork.

Special features

Benefit from small-group teaching, close staff-student relationships, and guided one-to-one supervision.

Develop practical skills in project studios with drawing facilities, model-making workshops, and specialist design and spatial analysis software.

Enjoy fieldwork opportunities in the UK and abroad, exploring real-life issues on one-day trips, site visits, and overseas residential visits to locations including Manchester, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Toronto, Amsterdam, Belfast and Dublin.

Have the flexibility to mix discipline units or specialise, and choose from a wide range of optional course units.

Study in Manchester, a city where planning has been taught for more than 50 years, and urban development and environmental impacts are on your doorstep.

Teaching and learning

An overseas field visit is an optional part of the course, if students choose to undertake the relevant optional course unit (International Planning (Field Visit)). Recent locations have included Barcelona, Amsterdam, Belfast, Dublin and Toronto.

Fieldwork may be scheduled at any point during the course, and this may include time during University vacations. Successful applicants are expected to be available to attend.

Countries to be visited may change their immigration and visa regulations at short notice. The School cannot guarantee that where visas are required for the field course, they will be granted. The School will ensure that, in the unlikely event that a visa is refused, affected students are not academically disadvantaged.

The course also includes a course unit that introduces students to the excitement of working within a professional, 'real world' context on a 'live' consultancy project. 

Working with industrial partners, students will be asked to complete a piece of work on an area of planning, urban regeneration, or environmental management - depending on their chosen specialism - to a standard that is expected and demanded in the planning, environmental management or development professions. This core course unit is highly regarded by employers and students alike.

Part-time students complete the full-time programme over 27 months. There are no evening or weekend course units available on the part-time programme, therefore if you are considering taking a programme on a part-time basis, you should discuss the requirements with the Programme Director and seek approval from your employer to have the relevant time off. Timetabling information is normally available from late August from the Programme Administrator and you will have the opportunity to discuss course unit choices during induction week with the Programme Director.

Coursework and assessment

Assessment methods are largely individually based, but may also involve some elements of group-working and submission.

Overall, you are continuously assessed via a range of methods, including essays and report writing, topic papers and critical reviews, project portfolios, and assessed workshop presentations.

A 15,000-word dissertation on an approved topic is discussed and chosen at the beginning of the second semester and a suitable supervisor allocated.

Initial work focuses upon an overview of the chosen topic, a literature review, and the design of the methodology to be adopted.

During the latter part of the second semester and over the summer, you will undertake the necessary research and analysis, culminating in the writing of your dissertation.