Urban Studies MA at De Montfort University

This MA is a high profile international programme in Urban Studies, drawing on the critical urban research traditions developed in the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, to explore the transformation and challenges in the political economy, governance and geography of cities. By bringing together scholarship from politics, urban studies, urban geography, political economy, the programme provides theoretical and analytical tools to address urban topics such as local governance, local socio-political and economic innovation, social inequalities and urban sustainability. 

The MA programme in Urban Studies is informed by up-to-date scholarship and makes use of materials that ensure that students are engaging with debates that are at the forefront of the discipline. Students on this course will benefit from our local and international networks, whose contributions are embedded in the curriculum. In addition, we offer three unique opportunities that are all relevant to the programme:

• Participatory Action Research project
  The programme offers a compulsory 30 credit research-based learning module “Participatory Research in Action”, The module is organised in two different blocks: the first block will focus on research methods training. For the second block, the students will work in teams and design and develop a Participatory Action-Research Project in collaboration with #DMULocal. Through this module, the students will have the opportunity to use and contrast the theoretic and methodological knowledge with practical training that will potentially have an impact on the city.  
• Opportunities for engagement with practitioners and stakeholders
  Besides the PAR project, the curriculum of the programme emphasises the contact with practitioners and stakeholders, marrying broader concepts to practice and bringing in practice-based links result of the work that the members of the teaching team are developing. 
• Opportunity to travel to Barcelona
  to undertake one module in the “Master Metropolis in Urban and Metropolitan Studies” at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. This institution is a leading institution in the field of Urban Governance and Barcelona is the most exciting city in Europe from the standpoint of its resistance to austerity and the attempt to craft new municipalism rooted in a radicalised participatory governance model.  zzz