Global Development and Sustainability (Professional Placement Year)

Explore contemporary global challenges and become a skilled professional who is ready to promote and implement sustainable development.
- Learn to understand complex global challenges including sustainability, climate change, hazards, disasters, development and urbanisation.

- Broaden your experience through optional work placements and international field trips to destinations such as Italy and Spain.

- Develop the knowledge and transferable skills needed for a wide range of careers or postgraduate study.

Our Global Development and Sustainability degree is designed to help you to develop the knowledge and skills needed to manage the challenges and opportunities of sustainable development in a variety of contexts.

You’ll explore a wide array of topics including climate change, hazards and disasters, cities and urbanisation, global development and education, environmental justice and migration.

Your core studies will focus on key themes and skills in geography and global development, and you'll be able to choose optional modules from a range of relevant subject areas such as geography, sociology, education, business and management, history and politics.

You’ll be taught by our team of expert lecturers who specialise in topics such as resource extraction and indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon, adaptation to climate change in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan, long term environmental change in Siberia and Alaska, displacement and migration in Mexico and Guatemala, and public engagement with climate change and sustainability in the UK.

More about the Professional Placement Year
A Professional Placement Year (PPY), traditionally known as a sandwich year, is where you undertake a period of work with an external organisation for between 9-13 months. The placement occurs between your second and final years of undergraduate study. You can engage in multiple placements to make up the total time and are required to source the placement(s) yourself, with support from the Careers team.