Explore our Arts, Enterprise and Development taught Master's degree.

P-W4PQ

MA

1 year full-time;
2 years part-time (Home/EU)

30 September 2024 

Centre for Cultural and Media Policy StudiesLink opens in a new window

University of Warwick

This course examines how we use culture as a force for human, social and economic development. Warwick's Centre for Cultural and Media Policy has expertly designed this programme to focus on ideas, critical thinking and research while enhancing your professional skills.

This programme will give you the opportunity to explore the use of the arts and cultural approaches to local and global development challenges. It examines the impact of arts and culture in a range of contexts in ‘advanced’ and ‘developing’ countries across the world, with particular attention to innovations in cities, local districts, communities and creative enterprises. 

You will consider the strategy models and creative potential in using arts and culture within development contexts, and explore how they can be used to further social justice as well as economic growth. You will develop your vocational direction and capacity for active involvement in development projects in various parts of the world. 

You will learn in an international environment through interaction with academic experts and industry practitioners.

The core modules are taught through a combination of lectures, workshops and student-led presentations and discussions. These sessions are complemented by self-directed learning and access to resources and activities in a virtual learning environment.

The course is designed to facilitate participation and critical reflection and in some modules you will have the opportunity to apply your learning in a professional context.

We traditionally limit class size to 20-35 students on each of the three taught Master's courses.

Typical contact hours range between 6 to 10 hours each week for core teaching - this excludes additional tutorials, workshops, and research seminars.

• All coursework
• Written assignments come in a variety of forms: essays, case studies, evaluations, reports, proposals, portfolios and business plans
• Group presentations and creative and practical projects
• A major project (written dissertation of 12,000 words) on a research topic of your choice

Additional course costs

For all MA courses, the cost of field trips or off-campus assignments are estimated to cost between £100-£200, although this will depend on which option module has been chosen or the nature of a project or placement undertaken for an applied management module.

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 lecture, seminar and other study groups. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you, and you will be able to choose your optional module when you join us.

2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject

• Band B
• IELTS overall score of 7.0, minimum component scores of two at 6.0/6.5 and the rest at 7.0 or above.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course, however we may ask you to write a short essay, attend an interview, or respond to a set of questions to satisfy the course selection panel of your suitability for the course.

Culture and Global Sustainable Development

This module examines the global policy frameworks for culture, arts and development: the ideas, aspirations, ethics and policy strategies for using the arts, culture and creative industries within human, social and urban development- from local communities to the United Nations-level development programmes globally. 

We will explore the place of culture, art and creative enterprise specifically within the global discourses of Sustainable Development. We will assess how development projects have always had a ‘cultural’ dimension, whether this has been acknowledged or not. We use case studies to look at how global ideas and policies are interpreted "on the ground" — using business enterprise, arts curating and administration, project management and political protest.

Creativity, Community and Enterprise

The core module ‘Creativity, Community and Enterprise’  considers the practical potential for using creativity, the arts and culture in socially-based Development. In this module we will focus on creative enterprise and local realities. How does enterprise work? What is creativity in practice? 

To do this the module we will tackle questions around how enterprise and culture have been proposed as a solution to ‘development’ problems? What does this type of creativity offer that more established approaches to development does not? What can the creative economy do that the mainstream economy cannot?  

We will explore what creative/arts and/or cultural models of development have to offer whilst examining the limitations of the theories, policies and practices. The central purpose of this module then is to critically explore the tensions and contradictions in the use of economic models, models of business enterprise and entrepreneurialism for social, local and community development. You will be encouraged to develop both your theoretical knowledge and practical skills in order to understand the complexities involved with engaging the arts in community development problems. 

Project Management for Cultural Enterprise

In this module, the student group will engage in collaborative practical work and 'apply' the theoretical or academic learning of the MA course. The subject of this module is Project Management (PM) as an established range of methods and tools, but here applied to a cultural event. The event will be situated either on the Warwick campus or the City of Coventry, and will afford the students a practical opportunity in (a) devising a PM methodology appropriate to the cultural industries (a creative process as well as experience), and (b) learning the skills required to apply their methodology — reflexively and in dialogue with a tutor(s), who will open the module with a series of coordinated lectures and seminars on PM and the challenges of cultural enterprise.

Research Design

This module aims to prepare you for your Major Project, which is a substantial piece of independent research on a topic of your choice. The module will equip you with a broad understanding of relevant research methods from which to select an appropriate approach for your own project. It will introduce you to ethical dimensions of research. It will provide you with the skills to write an effective proposal (including research questions, rationale, explanation and justification of research methods, identifying relevant literature and data sources).

By the end of the module, you should be ready to submit your proposal and have a broad understanding of research methods in the cultural, creative and media industries field.

Plus the following:

Major Project

The Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching and research in the fields of cultural and media policy and the creative industries. The commitment to interdisciplinarity is reflected in our Major Projects, where you will be encouraged to draw on approaches from across the humanities and social sciences in producing your work. Successful projects can emerge from creative engagement with scholarly debates, from the design and analysis of original empirical work, or from some combination of these. This openness of approach is also reflected in how Major Project research can be represented.

• Cultural Entrepreneurship
• Developing Audiences for Cultural Organisations
• Marketing and Markets
• Media, Policy and Markets
• Managing Creativity for Sustainable Development

All students will take one optional module. There are four core modules, one of which is a course specific applied management module. The bespoke applied management module for this MA is called ‘Project Management for Cultural Enterprise’ (see above), which gives you the opportunity to apply your learning in practice- or industry-related contexts.

Read more about the MA in Arts, Enterprise and Development on the Centre's website.Link opens in a new window

We have revised the information on this page since publication. See the edits we have made and content history.

This is a holding content block which does not currently display on the page. To make it live, update the copy above, change the Title to remove the brackets, and delete this sentence.