A welcome to your course from Alex Mejia, Director, Division for People and Social Inclusion Head, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
UNITAR provides innovative learning solutions to individuals, organizations and institutions to enhance global decision-making and support country-level action for shaping a better future.
Aimed at mid to senior management the MSc Sustainability in Practice programme is designed for leaders, managers and individuals in charge of teams or workplace sustainability. This course will be delivered by distance learning and is fully tutor supported.
Eager to learn, develop and drive organisational change in the world of sustainability, you will have the opportunity to undertake a 12-month research project that will explore your workplace or community challenges as well as create authentic and sustainable solutions that can be implemented.
The process will start with a planning phase. We will ask you to plot a course of creating sustainable changes to your workplace or community, and then roll up your sleeves and put them into practice.
This is why it is called Participatory Action Research – it is about you getting involved and taking part in the making of change, not just ‘directing traffic’. Along the way, we will talk about designing evaluations, creating objectives, dealing with conflict and considering others.
You will directly contribute to the effective attainment of at least one SDG by developing authentic and sustainable solutions to problems in your working environment. You may not fully complete this by the end, but you will reflect upon the process and identify opportunities for future projects. You may have only made a start but, by doing so, you will have left the world of talking about sustainability behind and taken active ownership of some part of a sustainable future.
You must possess one of the below:
And
Bell, J. and Water, S. (2018). Doing Your Research Project: a Guide for First-Time Researchers (7th Ed.) McGraw Hill. Maidenhead.
Creswell, J.W. and Creswell, J.D. (2018). Research Design. Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches. (5th Ed.) Sage. London.
Denscombe, M. (2021). The Good Research Guide. (7th Ed.). Open University Press. London.
MLA College and the University of Plymouth use Harvard style referencing and it is advisable to pre-study on the importance of referencing on all academic coursework and how to do it, which is available here.
University Degrees validated by the University of Plymouth
Having a personal tutor/point of contact with the College was very useful. In the sometimes lonely world of distance learning, it is nice to receive some personal feedback.
We are happy to assist you, feel free to contact us via email or by phone:
Your MLA College Student Experience team, Abigail White and Charlie Vosper, are the first point of contact for enrolled students who are in need of pastoral support, including requests under the Extenuating Circumstances policy for matters related to their academic studies. Abigail and Charlie are also responsible for monitoring student engagement and academic progression and will contact students directly to offer assistance should they feel that intervention is needed.
