MSc Planning and Development

Completion of this one-year conversion Master, following your undergraduate qualification, will allow you to become an accredited planner.

Planning is a fascinating subject to study at university. It is about changing the places within which we live. How we can transform and improve our cities, towns, villages, neighbourhoods, and communities. So, it affects our everyday lives and is an extremely exciting discipline to study at university. A Planning degree provides you with the knowledge and skills to be able to make decisions that shape the processes of growth and development. We currently face many major challenges - for example, attracting investment, creating jobs, protecting the environment, energy policy, housing supply, transport links, providing local amenities, protecting health and wellbeing - and Planning affects how these things happen. Therefore, as future planners, you will have a very important role to play in shaping the future. Planning is a broad subject matter and planners perform many different roles relating to the natural, physical, economic, social, and cultural environments that we live in. Given this, Planning offers a wide spectrum of employment opportunities. Studying Planning will equip you with the knowledge to understand how cities, towns, villages, communities, and neighbourhoods function and operate, and then have the skills to make decisions that shape how they grow and prosper. The discipline of Planning is located in the School of Natural and Built Environment, David Keir Building on Stranmillis Road, Belfast.

Course content

The course’s primary focus is on attaining a professional qualification. It is designed as a conversion Masters for graduates in any undergraduate subject to provide a broad knowledge of planning and the professional skills and experience you’ll need to forge a career in this area. Your dissertation may be a work-based project, working for a client organisation on a brief that they commission. You will learn the use of techniques (GIS, design software, statistical analysis) but more importantly, how to apply them to solve problems, create new solutions for the built environment and understand the complexity of environmental management.

The environment

You’ll be working in an applied problem-solving environment, confronting genuine challenges in the field and making a real contribution to sustainable environments. We place an emphasis on projects on live planning problems such as a Development Plan exercise for a client (local authority), on studio work and applied learning outside the class including problem-solving with controversial proposals, such as fracking and windfarm applications. You’ll work with your fellow students in teams to find practical approaches to the management and development of the built environment.

Planning And Development Highlights

Professional Accreditations

• This MSc is professionally accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a strong emphasis on the practical skills and knowledge required for theoretically-informed practice.

Industry Links

• As well as including employers in our teaching and development of projects we value the input of practitioners on our examination panels. Our employer links are further enhanced through formal partnership meetings with our accreditation bodies (RICS and RTPI) and by providing student prizes, for example, for the best independent research project. Therefore, course development is closely aligned to the requirements of the planning sector. Employers are often also consulted by students in the development of independent research projects. For example, we have developed strong relationships in Northern Ireland with the Housing Executive, and the Planning Division of the Department of Infrastructure. As part of the support activities embedded in the degree, employers contribute to regular careers events.

Internationally Renowned Experts

• The members of staff responsible for delivering the MSc are from a variety of professional and research backgrounds. Expertise includes international development, sustainable development, development economics and planning policy and practice. Each member will give a different perspective within the course, such that both theoretical and applied elements will be fully developed and a rounded high-level education will result.

Student Experience

• The degree incorporates a week-long study visit to a venue outside Northern Ireland and works shadow experience in Northern Ireland on the planning appeals process towards the end of Semester 2. Additionally, a two-day planning practice study visit will be made to a venue in Great Britain or Ireland in semester two. Students are expected to contribute to the costs of these study visits.