Coastal & Marine Environments: Physical Processes, Policy & Practice

This MSc programme has a strong field-based and applied focus and is offered in direct response to newly emerging discourses on the long-term health of coastal and marine systems. The programme is designed to train skilled personnel who can: advance our understanding of these environments through further research; and offer scientific advice on, organise, and regulate an informed development of coastal and marine resources and activities in Ireland, the EU and worldwide. The modules currently offered are: Research Methods and Mapping, Dynamics of Climate Change, Coastal Processes and Landforms, Reconstructing Marine Environments, Biodiversity and Coastal Change, and Marine Spatial Planning and Policy. In these modules you will be challenged to engage with established scientific perspectives of how coastal and marine systems work and the strategies used to manage them—especially in response to future climate change scenarios. There is a strong emphasis on transferable and problem-solving skills, reflected in the focus on field-based learning practices (including ship-time on the RV Celtic Voyager) that are embedded in all modules, in addition to an engagement with the most cutting-edge theoretical work from various interdisciplinary fields. The team is engaged in a broad range of scientific investigations of the physical/human environment, and students will become active members of ongoing research programmes and will learn the research and publication process.