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Global Prosperity MSc

London, Bloomsbury

The Global Prosperity MSc prepares you to become one of a new generation of global leaders. The programme challenges current economic and social models that have generated both astonishing levels of wealth as well as deep social and ecological dilemmas. Through your study you will examine possible solutions to contemporary global challenges and explore how much-needed economic, social and political transformations can be enacted to deliver sustainable prosperity.

UK students International students
Study mode
UK tuition fees (2024/25)
£19,300
£9,650
Programme also available on a modular (flexible) basis.
Overseas tuition fees (2024/25)
£31,100
£15,550
Programme also available on a modular (flexible) basis.
Duration
1 calendar year
2 calendar years
5 calendar years
Programme starts
September 2024
Applications accepted
Applicants who require a visa: 16 Oct 2023 – 31 May 2024
Applications close at 5pm UK time

Applications open

Applicants who do not require a visa: 16 Oct 2023 – 30 Aug 2024
Applications close at 5pm UK time

Applications open

Apply for this course

Entry requirements

A minimum of an upper second-class Bachelor's degree in any discipline from a UK university or an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard. Prospective students must demonstrate commitment to engage with complex global challenges across a range of disciplines. Applicants with significant work experience in government, business, civil society or social entrepreneurship and/or postgraduate training are strongly encouraged to apply.

The English language level for this programme is: Level 3

UCL Pre-Master's and Pre-sessional English courses are for international students who are aiming to study for a postgraduate degree at UCL. The courses will develop your academic English and academic skills required to succeed at postgraduate level.

Further information can be found on our English language requirements page.

Equivalent qualifications

Country-specific information, including details of when UCL representatives are visiting your part of the world, can be obtained from the International Students website.

International applicants can find out the equivalent qualification for their country by selecting from the list below. Please note that the equivalency will correspond to the broad UK degree classification stated on this page (e.g. upper second-class). Where a specific overall percentage is required in the UK qualification, the international equivalency will be higher than that stated below. Please contact Graduate Admissions should you require further advice.

About this degree

The 21st century is a critical moment for humanity. From climate change to global pandemics, livelihood security and human wellbeing is under threat around the world. Existing economic structures, extractive systems and patterns of consumption are exceeding planetary limits. With GDP oriented growth failing to increase the welfare of millions of people, many communities remain isolated from the models of economic prosperity generated in the 20th century.   

The Global Prosperity MSc argues that in order to address these interconnected challenges, we must fundamentally reconceptualize what prosperity means and how it is designed and delivered. Students on this programme will unpack this premise by critically exploring how the economic, political and institutional roots of today’s global challenges have informed current modes of social prosperity thinking. In assessing the legacies of these paradigms, you will explore a range of methods and experimental case studies aimed at addressing extant global challenges through the process of co-design and the decentralisation of older more hegemonic paradigms of prosperity. Students will critically deconstruct current solutions to global challenges and explore models for enacting and co-designing positive and inclusive change for livelihoods around the world.  

This MSc offers an explicitly transdisciplinary learning experience. You will be situated within a diverse network of IGP-led initiatives with industry leaders, businesses and citizen scientists. Through these networks, you will not only be taught cutting-edge social science methods and theories but will be offered real practical experiences through direct engagement with the kinds of future initiatives needed to address current global challenges. The programme draws particular originality from world-leading research into heterodox forms of inclusive and sustainable prosperity generated by the IGP and its ongoing engaged work with multiple stakeholders in the UK, Lebanon and Kenya. These initiatives include regional Prosperity Collaborations in the UK, Lebanon and Kenya (PROCOL) and the Fast Forward 2030 (FF2030) network for young entrepreneurs. Through these initiatives you will be integrated into projects that are prototyping and designing new futures built upon the notions of equality and inclusivity in design, access and decision making.   

Global Prosperity MSc is a dynamic, novel transdisciplinary degree that links students with communities of practice in order to generate new pathways to social prosperity. In doing so, students will be trained as the next generation of sustainability managers, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, critical thinkers, researchers and artists who are able to draw on these ideas in their daily practice – both as the ‘responsible citizens’ envisaged in the SDGs – and as future change-makers working through their selected careers to generate and co-design a diversity of prosperous futures.

Who this course is for

This programme will appeal to a range of students from around the world. In particular, individuals who already have a postgraduate degree and/or significant real-world experience in business, social entrepreneurship, government or third sector organisations are encouraged to apply. Entry to the programme is highly competitive and we are especially searching for students with diverse knowledges and abilities and a desire to work as part of a dynamic and inclusive community. We welcome students from natural and/or social science and humanities backgrounds and with skills in both quantitative and qualitative research. Students with a strong personal vision for social, economic and ecological transformation are especially encouraged to apply. Please also note that this is a unique transdisciplinary programme and is not a standard business, economics or development studies programme.
Read about what it takes to study for a Master's at UCL

What this course will give you

The IGP is pioneering research into questions of prosperity and driving forward novel transdisciplinary engagements to deliver new, more prosperous social and economic forms. As a student in the Institute, you will have the opportunity to become part of this emerging community, to learn from and participate in our research, and to help shape debates around what a prosperous society should be. We expect students to graduate as leaders who go on to deploy the ideas and practices they have learnt in future careers.

You will have the opportunity to engage with a range of IGP researchers, partners and affiliated fellows with possibilities of developing academic, policy or business-oriented projects. As a multidisciplinary global university with wide resources at its disposal, UCL is the ideal environment in which to study sustainable global prosperity.

Read about what you'll get out of a graduate programme

The foundation of your career

As a student at the Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP) you will join a wider network of both past and future alumni. Alumni are actively encouraged to engage in the life and community of the institute beyond their degree programme. Our alumni often go into major roles in government, business and the third sector thus becoming future partners and collaborators. We run regular alumni events throughout each academic year, allowing current students to engage with alumni and to build on this growing network of change makers. On graduation we expect students to become an active part of this lively alumni network and to engage with and mentor future students, providing essential career inspiration, advice and opportunities. Recent cases include:  

Silvia Velasco Arellano, who funded her MSc at IGP through a Chevening Scholarship, now works as Lead Manager for the Skills for Prosperity & Education Policy Programme, part of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in the British Embassy, Mexico.  

Areej Al Medinah, a Commonwealth Scholar from Pakistan, has returned to her home nation to work for SadaPay in promoting financial inclusivity.  

Patricia Naya, a Commonwealth Scholar from Ghana, is now completing a PhD in Business Administration with a focus on Organization and Social Change at UMass, USA.

Employability

The programme attracts a wide diversity of both established professionals and new graduates. We recruit from diverse backgrounds in the UK and across the globe. We expect our graduates to show self-initiative and a drive to make global change across the environment, policy, economics, business and the third sector. Graduates must be able to work in truly global, cross cultural and international teams. You will learn to think across and between traditional disciplines and to apply a range of qualitative and quantitative skills alongside broader strategic and design/prototyping thinking. Graduates will gain key transferable skills in teamwork, communication, digital capabilities with particular software, academic and popular writing, presentation, visual design, foundational quantitative methods, creativity, real world problem-solving and in the methods of building engaged and participatory initiatives. The IGP organises careers events with alumni throughout the year.  

By educating a new generation of transdisciplinary change leaders we aim to build the informed and responsible global citizens envisaged in the SDGs and contribute to the speeding up of appropriate responses to the climatic and ecological crises of the moment. We expect our graduates to go on to leadership roles in the public and private sector, working in government and civil service, in sustainability and business, and in the NGO and third sector. This could include a broad range of roles such as ecological consultants, policy officers and social research officers. We also envisage graduates going on to careers in research and PhD study.

Networking

There are opportunities to work closely with students and staff across the Institute for Global Prosperity. This includes weekly extra-curricular seminars with guest lecturers. Students will also have the opportunity to meet with the people who work on the IGP's wider research work, including our work on Fast Forward 2030, and our Prosperity Co-Labs (PROCOLs) in East London, Kenya and Lebanon. Students gain access to our extensive alumni network of professionals who are now leaders in the field from across the world.

Teaching and learning

Teaching and learning methods are strongly guided by the UCL connected curriculum and emphasise active research-led learning with students conducting their own research activities, sharing knowledge between each other and learning through peer-to peer activities. Considerable emphasis is placed on the value of a diversity and inclusivity of knowledge and on outward facing knowledge production though connection to communities and practitioners beyond the academy.   

The curricula design is balanced around two general teaching and learning themes. These are conceptual/theoretical and design/engagement.   

The conceptual/theoretical theme is weighted to modules taken in the first term to provide fundamental foundations of prosperity thinking. This includes the compulsory modules:   

  • BGLP0001 Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies   

  • BGLP0002 Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity  

The design/engagement theme is weighted towards the second term of teaching, and involves design thinking and prototyping as well as engagement with practitioners and policymakers. This includes the compulsory modules:  

  • BGLP0003: Pathways to Prosperity 2: Society and Livelihoods  

  • BGLP0004: Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity  

Teaching and learning methods/strategies involve:   

  • Critical engagement with literature through pre-recorded material, live seminars, guest lectures, in-depth discussion and exploring competing ideas.   

  • Active and engaged learning tasks, including work in groups and pairs.   

  • Engagement with world leading academics and non- academic practitioners through the departmental Academic Directors Seminars and Practitioner Soundbites.   

  • Grounding core concepts and theories through teaching cases, and application of core concepts through learning- by-doing methods including prototyping and design to explore how theory and practice inform one another.   

  • Enhancing student participation through flipped-learning methods and regular group assignments and activities.   

  • Connecting to practice/industry through engagement with entrepreneurial leaders, as well as policymakers and practitioners, through tutorials, guest lectures, site and field trips.  

All modules contain a strong balance of formative in class exercises and peer to peer learning combined with a diversity of summative assessments. These are designed to allow you to progress across the course of each module and the Programme as a whole and to allow students with diverse skills, abilities and interests to shine both within individual and group-based work. The structure of assessments also builds towards the Dissertation, which provides a key focus of the Programme wherein you are able to develop your own substantial research project and contribution to knowledge.   

Assessment types include:   

  • Individual and group assignments, including personal reflection, video/live presentations;   

  • Critical essays and reports that involve in depth exploration of key concepts and theories pertaining to module content;  

  • Blog posts that allow for the articulation of complex ideas in concise and publicly accessible ways;  

In addition to academic skills and training, the Programme will also provide you with a unique set of career and skill enhancement sessions focussed on developing the core abilities and capacities of students. These will be delivered through the existing Skills and Personal Development sessions. These sessions are delivered by both internal specialists and external consultants and include:   

  • Web-design and blogging   

  • Writing for the media   

  • Academic writing   

  • Presentation skills   

  • Film and audio media skills   

  • Personal Leadership skills   

  • Mindfulness and study skills   

  • Career Building 

The Programme involves various forms of assessment. They include:

  • Individual and group formative and summative assignments
  • Blog posts
  • Written essays, reports and case studies
  • Individual and group presentations/films
  • Posters and design portfolios
  • Dissertation

The programme consists of approximately 150 contact hours.

Modules

The Global Prosperity MSc is a one year taught program that combines a range of class and seminar based teaching with practical research based student activities. The programme is inter- and trans-disciplinary in approach, and will include contributions from the humanities and the physical and social sciences. The programme engages with global challenges using novel collective problem solving, and by examining historical, current, and projected issues in global prosperity through avenues of development, health, demographics, ecology, energy systems, social innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology.  

In Term 1, all students undertake two modules: ‘Pathways to Prosperity 1: Global Legacies’ and ‘Researching and Measuring Global Prosperity’. These modules will introduce you to a range of core concepts that examine how we come to understand current economic, social and environmental challenges. Critical historical analyses of major global trends such as the drive for economic growth, unsustainable consumerism, and sustainable development are accompanied by practical research methods classes that examine how measures of prosperity, wellbeing and progress have been constructed and how alternative measures (both quantitative and qualitative) might be framed through your own engaged and participatory empirical research.  

In Term 2, students will critically deconstruct current approaches to global challenges and explore models for enacting positive and inclusive change for livelihoods around the world. Content will be taught through two modules. ‘Pathways to Prosperity 2: Society and Livelihoods’ module will focus on concepts and theories of social, economic and technological change and develop case studies of ongoing radical transformations driven by actors from across the globe and from a range of positions including entrepreneurs, policy makers, business and civil society. Radical changes discussed may include concepts such as Universal Basic Income/Services, de-growth, sustainability transitions and circular and green economies. The ‘Collective Problem Solving for Inclusive Prosperity’ module will introduce you to a range of practical engagement methods aimed at empowering you to affect change within your future careers, including processes of collective decision making, trans-disciplinary research, decolonising methods, participatory action research and human-centred design.   

In Term 3, you will focus a research dissertation of your own choosing on a topic related to Global Prosperity. Dissertations can be both desktop/literature based or involve practical empirical research and may be supervised by an appropriate departmental tutor or an expert from another part of UCL. Dissertations may also be aligned to ongoing IGP research or collaborative partnerships.  

In their first year, part-time students will need to take a minimum of 60 credits of modules. In the second year, you will take the remaining taught modules up to 30 credits, plus the dissertation (90 credits), for a maximum total of 120 credits.  

Apart from the compulsory modules, 30 credits of optional/elective modules will be distributed across the 2 years. The distribution of compulsory and elective/optional modules should be discussed with the programme director ahead of initial enrolment.  

Students undertaking modular/flexible study may choose to organise the distribution of their modules flexibly across the five years provided they complete 180 credits by the end of year five.  

Modular/flexible students are expected to have completed the majority of their taught modules before undertaking their dissertation.  

Apart from the compulsory modules, 30 credits of optional/elective modules will be distributed across the programme. The distribution of compulsory and elective/optional modules should be discussed with the programme director and/or personal tutor ahead of each year's enrolment process.

Compulsory modules







Optional modules











Please note that the list of modules given here is indicative. This information is published a long time in advance of enrolment and module content and availability are subject to change. Modules that are in use for the current academic year are linked for further information. Where no link is present, further information is not yet available.

Students undertake modules to the value of 180 credits. Upon successful completion of 180 credits, you will be awarded an MSc in Global Prosperity.

Fieldwork

Short, half-day field trips are a component of some of our modules.

Fieldwork related to your dissertation is encouraged and may take place in the UK or elsewhere in the world. However, risk and ethical considerations will need to be discussed with the Programme Leader and fully approved according to the circumstances at the time.

Placement

This programme does not include placements.

Accessibility

Details of the accessibility of UCL buildings can be obtained from AccessAble accessable.co.uk. Further information can also be obtained from the UCL Student Support and Wellbeing team.

Visit us

All open days and events

Online - Open day

Graduate Open Events: UCL Institute for Global Prosperity

Whether your ambition is to design better buildings, plan better cities, build sustainable communities or help meet the challenge of climate change, The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment could be a big step towards it. This session focuses on the Master's courses offered by IGP: Global Prosperity MSc, Prosperity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship MSc and Prosperity, People and Planet MSc.

Watch on demand event

Fees and funding

Fees for this course

UK students International students
Fee description Full-time Part-time
Tuition fees (2024/25) £19,300 £9,650
Tuition fees (2024/25) £31,100 £15,550

Programme also available on a modular (flexible) basis.

The tuition fees shown are for the year indicated above. Fees for subsequent years may increase or otherwise vary. Where the programme is offered on a flexible/modular basis, fees are charged pro-rata to the appropriate full-time Master's fee taken in an academic session. Further information on fee status, fee increases and the fee schedule can be viewed on the UCL Students website: ucl.ac.uk/students/fees.

Additional costs

Students may need to spend a minimal amount (i.e. £20) on local transport for short field visits in London. 

If you are concerned by potential additional costs for books, equipment, etc. on this programme, please contact igp@ucl.ac.uk.

For more information on additional costs for prospective students please go to our estimated cost of essential expenditure at Accommodation and living costs.

Funding your studies

UCL offers a range of financial awards aimed at assisting both prospective and current students with their studies.

In our faculty, The Bartlett Promise Scholarship aims to enable students from backgrounds underrepresented in the built environment to pursue master's studies. Please see the UK Master's scholarship and Sub-Saharan Africa Master's scholarship pages for more information on eligibility criteria, selection process and FAQs.

Any additional funding available from the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity and the Built Environment Faculty Office are advertised on the respective websites.

For a comprehensive list of the funding opportunities available at UCL, including funding relevant to your nationality, please visit the Scholarships and Funding website.

See all the ways you can fund your studies

Bartlett Promise Sub-Saharan Africa Masters Scholarship

Deadline: 3 April 2024
Value: Fees, stipend and other allowances (Duration of programme)
Criteria Based on financial need
Eligibility: EU, Overseas

Bartlett Promise UK Master's Scholarship

Deadline: 31 May 2024
Value: Tuition fees plus £15,364 maintenance/yr (Duration of programme)
Criteria Based on financial need
Eligibility: UK

Commonwealth Shared Scholarship Scheme (CSSS)

Deadline: 14 December 2023
Value: Full fees, flights, stipend, and other allowances (1 year)
Criteria Based on both academic merit and financial need
Eligibility: EU, Overseas

Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP) Equity Fund

Deadline: 30 June 2024
Value: £5,000 towards fees (1yr)
Criteria Based on both academic merit and financial need
Eligibility: UK

UCL East London Scholarship

Deadline: 20 June 2024
Value: Tuition fees plus £15,700 stipend ()
Criteria Based on financial need
Eligibility: UK

Next steps

Students are advised to apply as early as possible due to competition for places. Those applying for scholarship funding (particularly overseas applicants) should take note of application deadlines.

There is an application processing fee for this programme of £90 for online applications and £115 for paper applications. Further information can be found at Application fees.

Your application must consist of both a personal statement and a CV. We place considerable emphasis on your personal statement and how you have tailored this for your application to the Global Prosperity MSc. Generic or template-style personal statements will not be strong enough for admission. Statements that do not fully engage with aspects of the degree programme will also be unlikely to succeed. We particularly value personal statements that outline a clear vision for transformative change and directly explain how the degree programme will help you realise the changes you would like to see happen. We also encourage students to explain how their past experiences have directly led them to this degree programme and to outline how the skills and knowledge they have acquired will help them to realise their goals for transformation.

When we assess your personal statement we would like to learn:

  • Why you want to study Global Prosperity at graduate level.
  • Why you want to study Global Prosperity at IGP and UCL.
  • What particularly attracts you to this programme.
  • How your academic and professional background meets the demands of this challenging programme.
  • How you can make a unique contribution to our innovative academic community.
  • How you see this degree programme leading to a future transformative career.

Together with essential academic requirements, the personal statement is your opportunity to illustrate how your reasons for applying to the programme match what the programme will deliver. Please note that the programme is not a standard business, economics or development studies programme (though it contains elements of each of these). The programme aims to address major challenges in our current social, economic and environmental conditions, and students are encouraged to consider how they would work to contribute to addressing such challenges.

We advise applicants to upload any supporting documents related to research, work experience, extracurricular activities or other projects mentioned in the personal statement or CV.

Please note that you may submit applications for a maximum of two graduate programmes (or one application for the Law LLM) in any application cycle.

Choose your programme

Please read the Application Guidance before proceeding with your application.

Year of entry: 2024-2025

Apply for this course

Got questions? Get in touch

Institute for Global Prosperity
Institute for Global Prosperity

igp@ucl.ac.uk

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