School of Global Studies

Global Studies has four departments that are all highly relevant to the SDGs: Anthropology, Geography, International Development, and International Relations. Global Studies shares many modules with the Business School and with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). This allows modules to take an interdisciplinary approach that fosters innovative thinking.

This approach is taken to a wide range of global economic, environmental, and social issues across the school’s many modules. The school currently offers modules covering topics ranging from climate change and biodiversity loss to global health, energy and trade. Modules also investigate the interlinkages of these topics, such as global food security and the political economy of the environment.

Current sustainability related undergraduate modules in Global Studies include:

The majority of modules in Global Studies are relevant to the SDGs due to the high importance of development, geography, and international relations to the achievement of the goals. Below is just a sample of the modules that are available at present:

• Global environmental change
• Global food security
• Environmental perspectives on development
• Environmental management and sustainable development
• The global politics of health
• Global development challenges and innovations
• Wealth, inequality and development

The availability of the above modules depends on your chosen course of study. Please follow the module links to see which degree courses offer this module and look at your course prospectus to see whether modules are core or optional.

Case study: Putting students into the role of global policy-makers

Global Studies uses innovative, creative approaches to help students to think and act like policy-makers. This is essential for their future careers, whether they go into policy making or the private or not for profit sectors, all of which demand an understanding of the perspectives of policy makers.

For example, in the module Environmental Management and Sustainable Development students take on the role of negotiators in the United Nations climate talks, representing different blocs with diverse interests that have to come to agreement, to get an insight into how these processes work.

Meanwhile, the module Disasters, Environment and Development uses a mixture of innovative real-world simulating games and students' development of policy briefs to explore scenarios and solutions to environmentally-generated disasters.

These innovative approaches mean that, as well as thinking critically about sustainability in concept and practice, our students come to understand the challenges of thinking and acting like a policymaker and are better prepared to compete in the global workplace.