Explore our Food Security taught Master's degree.

P-D4A3 full-time;
P-D4A3P part-time

MSc

1 year full-time;
2 years part-time

3 October 2022

Life Sciences

University of Warwick

Consider the critical factors influencing global food security on Warwick's Food Security MSc. Join University of Warwick's School of Life Science, ranked 2nd in the UK for Agriculture (Research Excellence Framework 2014), in analysing the contributions of climate change, biodiversity, land use, labour, diet and urbanisation.

Delivering global food security is one of the critical challenges of the 21st century. Each nation needs to balance local food production with imports and consider environmental and economic impact. This master's course considers the critical factors influencing global food security including the contributions of climate change, biodiversity, water, soil, land use, labour, diet and urbanisation.

Skills from this degree

You will gain:

• An understanding of current food production and distribution practices with an appreciation of how they can fail and ensuing health and policy issues
• An ability to critically evaluate how constraints on crop production can change due to biotic and societal pressures
• An ability to select and apply appropriate tools or techniques to tackle a food security question or problem
• Transferable skills including team working, communicating with peers and sector specialists, organising, planning and oral presentation
• Research skills including scientific report writing, conducting surveys, problem solving, data analysis and project work

You will be taught by a multidisciplinary teaching faculty including staff from Life Sciences and Warwick Business School, joined by lecturers with internationally acknowledged academic, industrial and government expertise.

Teaching is via facilitated sessions, including interactive lectures, short question and answer sessions and interactive workshops/tutorials and field visits. Individual and team learning will be used for case study analysis.

Class sizes for this course vary between 5 to 90 students.

Depending on the module contact hours vary between 15-25 per week.

Assessment is continuous and varies between modules. It typically includes essays, seminar presentations, practical reports, oral evaluation and assessed group work.

You will undertake an individual project during the third term and there is an option to undertake a work-based placement as part of your project. Your project/placement will be assessed by a seminar presentation and either a 15,000 word thesis or a 6,000 word journal article.

Reading lists

Most departments have reading lists available through Warwick Library. If you would like to view reading lists for the current cohort of students you can visit our Warwick Library web page.

Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, compulsory and optional, and you have been allocated to your lectures, seminars and other small group classes. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you and you will be able to choose your optional modules when you join us.

2:ii undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject.

• Band A
• IELTS overall score of 6.5, minimum component scores not below 6.0.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

• Soil, Sustainability and the Environment
• Advances in Crop Protection
• Project/Work Placement/Dissertation
• Environmental Accounting
• Climate Change
• Organic and Low Input Systems
• Challenges of Global Food Security
• Biosciences, Politics and Social Acceptability

Read more about our core modules on our Life Sciences website.

• Biodiversity, Conservation and Ecosystem Services
• Biological Invasions in Changing Environments
• Microbiomics and Metagenomics
• Marketing Management
• Business Strategy

Our optional module lists are subject to change each year to keep the student learning experience current and up-to-date. You can find the most up to date list on the Life Sciences website.

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