Risk Masters Program (MA & MSc)

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• Key Information
• Overview
• MA in Risk
• MSc in Risk
• Tailoring Your Studies

Key Information

Risk Masters Overview

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Our Risk Masters programme will provide you with a thorough grounding in theoretical and practical approaches to identifying, understanding, framing, assessing and managing risk. Understanding and managing risk is ultimately about choice. All elements of society, from individuals to governments, must make decisions – conscious or not – about the ways in which they perceive, interpret, balance, and mitigate risk. Risk permeates our day-to-day lives in ways that are now recognised to be much more complex than acknowledged by the hazard-vulnerability paradigm, which dominated risk research until the 1990s. The Risk Masters will enable you to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of risk, its emergence, and its interface and position within societies.

The Risk Masters encourages students to think broadly about the idea of risk, and to consider a multiplicity of topics from the risks and vulnerabilities due to climate change, environmental hazards (such as flooding, earthquakes, heatwaves and landslides), environmental change (such as deforestation and desertification), disaster resilience and risk reduction, to issues of risk communication and perception, governing and managing risk, risk and insurance, risk and health, risk and migration, security-related risk (including cyber risks), geopolitics and terrorism.

We offer both MA and MSc programmes in the Risk Masters.

MA in Risk

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The MA degree in Risk programme will enable you to explore the social dimensions of risk and resilience. The Department of Geography is especially well-suited to examine these in relation to environmental hazards, climate vulnerability and security-related risk, but you are encouraged to develop your own thinking in relation to any aspect of risk research, including broader environmental change, disaster risk reduction, risk and insurance, risk and health, risk and migration, risk and social policy, risk and governance, borders and terrorism.

The aim is for students to develop an understanding of risk through a multiplicity of epistemologies that cut across both science and social science perspectives. Here risk can be understood as an objective phenomenon, opening possibilities for in-depth engagements with the social dimensions of environmental hazards or climate change, or as a social and political construct. Dealing with risks as a function of both the natural and social environments we live in, the course responds to the growing realisation that many risks are being created through social processes bound to questions of security and vulnerability, including the ways that risk techniques are emerging and being employed as a means of securing uncertain futures.

Students on the MA can pursue pathways in environmental hazards, climate risk and society or security and politics although other options are also possible.

MSc in Risk

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The MSc degree in Risk programme will enable you to engage with the natural and social dimensions of environmental hazards and draws primarily on a scientific understandings of risk.

Despite the phenomenal technological progress of the 20th century, most people still live with the acute and chronic consequences of age-old hazards such as floods, heatwaves, landslides and earthquakes. This MSc is for students who want to receive specialised scientific training in physical hazards that pose large risks to communities living throughout the world. On this programme, you will receive theoretical and practical training on understanding, identifying and framing risk and the underlying physical and social mechanisms that generate it. You will also examine the relationship of risk to knowledge and policy, and learn about the array of advanced tools and techniques to assess the physical and social dimensions of risk under conditions of uncertainty. You will also be trained in the substance and methods associated with a range of science and policy areas and learn about mitigating and managing risks in society.

Students on the MSc are encouraged to develop their thinking in relation to any aspect of hazard, risk or resilience, including, for example, through our environmental hazards pathway or our climate risk and society pathway, although other options are also possible.

Tailoring your studies your way

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We offer a very flexible approach for studying within our Risk Masters so that you can tailor your studies to what suits and interests you the most. You will be supported by staff along each step of the way.

1. Study holistically

The Risk Masters offers the chance for you to learn in one of the finest centres of geographical research in the world and is delivered by staff at the very forefront of the discipline. Being housed in the Department of Geography means that the programme provides expert teaching and research support from across the social and physical sciences to provide a particularly integrated approach to identifying, understanding, framing, assessing and managing risk.

The programme also provides a strong interdisciplinary orientation through close collaboration with Durham University's Institute of Hazards, Risk, and Resilience who provide permanent exposure to both practitioner and academic perspectives at the forefront of risk thinking and practice.

The broad range of modules to choose from allows you to develop an individualised set of professional skills that, depending on your preference, speaks more to either the natural sciences (e.g. via scientific modelling, GIS or science and communication), or the social sciences (e.g. via social science research methodologies and engagements with social policy and international relations), whilst combining science and social science perspectives in an interdisciplinary manner - skills particularly needed in today’s workforce.

2. Choose Your Own Pathway

The Risk Masters offers the chance to study one of three specialist 'pathways' which will help you develop a specific and practical set of skills within risk analysis and research. These play an important role in helping to define a skillset which employers can use to understand how your skills apply within the professional world, while also supporting students in understanding the diversity of learning opportunities available within their degree. These pathways are:

• Environmental Hazards and Risk (MA and MSc)
  • This pathway provides specialised scientific training in environmental hazards that pose large risks to communities living throughout the world - such as earthquakes, flooding events, landslides and many others. Students will receive theoretical and practical training for understanding, quantifying and/or critically evaluating environmental hazards and the relationship of these with issues of vulnerability and resilience. They will learn about how environmental hazards and risks persist over long periods of time instead of merely as single events, and are made up of both natural processes as well as socio-economic dynamics.

• Climate Risk and Society (MA and MSc)
  • This pathway was developed in response to student demand and the need to support our graduates in addressing the most relevant societal challenges of today. It seeks to provide students with an advanced understanding of anthropogenic climate change as an issue that poses new risks to society, challenges and vulnerabilities. It also supports students in developing tools for apprehending, interpreting and responding to the emerging natural and socio-political threats associated to climate change. The pathway provokes students to think critically about how evolving understandings of risk, resilience and vulnerability shape efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

• Security and Politics (MA)
  • This pathway is aimed at students interested in security-related risk, offering advanced skills in the critical analysis of issues such as risk and migration, risk within geo-politics, security and terrorism. There is a growing realisation that many risks are being created through social processes linked to questions of security. For example, since the 9/11 attacks in New York City and the 7/7 bombings in London, governments have become more concerned with terrorist threats to security, and surveillance has become more commonplace, preventing some risks while also creating new ones never before seen in society. The pathway critically unpacks ideas of risk and resilience, pointing to their political implications. It evaluates the ways by which uncertainty plays a key role in the contemporary making of society, and uncovers risk not simply as a matter of management and governance but also as a political technique through which populations are governed. The security and politics pathway is run in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and the School of Government and International Affairs.

3. Pursue a research or vocational dissertation

Both MSc and MA students will be expected to demonstrate that they can combine their general training in risk with their specific understanding of the substance and method associated with their chosen area through a dissertation project on an aspect of hazard, risk or resilience.

We offer you the choice to undertake a traditional dissertation by research OR a vocational dissertation in collaboration with a partner organisation.

Either way, the dissertation process allows you to learn how to produce a coherent and stand-alone piece of work, sufficient to demonstrate either your capacity to conduct academic research in an academic setting or research and its applicability in the risk industry.

All dissertations are supported by an individual dissertation supervisor and, in the case of a vocational dissertation, by an additional vocational partner.

Traditional Research Dissertation

You can choose to pursue a traditional research dissertation of your choice on any aspect of hazard, risk or resilience. You are encouraged to choose your topic in consultation with an allocated dissertation supervisor or to pursue research topics offered as projects by our own research and teaching staff.

A research dissertation is an excellent opportunity to develop and execute your own academic-facing research ideas on a specialised topic in depth. The dissertation can be a theoretical or practical facing piece of work and enables you to acquire specific skills to progress towards doctoral research or careers in risk research.

Vocational Dissertation

You can alternatively choose to pursue a vocational dissertation working with an external partner organisation to undertake a consultancy-style piece of research on any aspect of hazard, risk or resilience. The vocational project will be developed in consultation with the partner organisation and in collaboration with the dissertation supervisor, and should be a piece of work of relevance and interest to the partner. We encourage students to develop vocational projects with partners of their choice, and support this process along the way, from seeking out possible vocational partners to contacting them, setting up and conducting the dissertation research itself. However, we also have a number of established informal relationships with various partners that enjoy working with our students so we also offer a number of vocational projects directly to our students.

A vocational dissertation is an excellent opportunity to gain work experience, explore potential routes for future employment and develop your CV. For some lucky students, a vocational project may lead to some remuneration, or even a job with the partner.

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Click on the video below to hear from Dr Lauren Martin about the Taught Masters Programmes we offer (a video from our 2024 online open day):