Course description
A collaboration between the Department of Civil Engineering and the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship
The environment is the new entrepreneurial frontier. There is growing worldwide demand for technologies and products that address climate change, promote sustainability and improve environmental quality. This innovative MSc in Environmental Entrepreneurship, the first of its kind in Europe, has been designed to respond to the urgent need for a new generation of environmental entrepreneurs. The MSc aims to provide students with a sound theoretical and practical understanding of environmental entrepreneurship, in preparation for a career in either self-employment or in an innovative organisation. Through this MSc students will learn how to identify, assess and shape environmental ideas into real business opportunities.
The course is the result of a collaboration between the Department of Civil Engineering and the prestigious Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, with contributions from the Department of Economics and the Strathclyde Law School. It is available full-time (1 year) and part-time (2 or 3 years), and is offered to students from all disciplinary backgrounds and/or employment situations. Some of the modules are taught between 18:30 and 20:30 to facilitate attendance by part-time students.
The Programme and its International Context
Addressing environmental problems requires ingenuity. Entrepreneurship places emphasis upon the range of skills and understanding needed in order to make something of value actually happen - whether this is establishing a new enterprise, transforming an existing business or ensuring someone achieves positions of leadership in a corporate setting. Environmental entrepreneurship can take place through new product design, new technologies, and new organizational arrangements.
The course aims to create a whole new generation of environmental entrepreneurs with the skills that will allow them to launch new ventures, products, and technologies that address society's environmental and natural resource problems. The course also aims to develop management, consultancy, engineering and technology professionals who have reached a stage in their careers when they are seeking or achieving increasing responsibility, or would like to a refocus their career on environmental entrepreneurship.
This new MSc meets the needs of graduate students from a science, engineering, technology or business background who want to contribute to environmental improvement, and want to learn how to identify and evaluate business opportunities. The course develops environmental entrepreneurship skills relevant to a wide range of employers, from large multi-national companies to small and medium enterprises, from government agencies to NGOs. The course also enables graduates to start their own businesses.
Programme Structure
The Diploma and MSc courses run concurrently, involving a curriculum of five core modules (totalling 72 credits) and a range of optional modules (minimum of 48 credits). Each module is taught two to three hours per week over eight to 12 weeks. In addition, MSc students undertake a dissertation (60 credits). Progress to the MSc is dependent on performance in the instructional modules.
For part-time study the modules can be taken over two years (attending classes typically one day per week) with the dissertation completed in years two or three. Some of the modules are taught in the evening to facilitate attendance by part-time students. In addition to the dissertation topics proposed by course leaders and industrial partners, students may propose topics themselves that can be of relevance to their employer.
A new class Client-Based Environmental Entrepreneurship in Practice has been developed for this MSc. The class has no formal teaching and instead sees students, working in small groups, carry out a project of interest to a client while at the same contributing to environmental entrepreneurship in practice. The project has a four-month duration, carried out between January and April. The module ends with a presentation at high-profile event in May, which will further contribute to disseminate the environmental entrepreneurship concept, help find new potential clients, promote the University and industrial partners, and allow students to 'sell' their ideas and find jobs.
Core Modules
Department of Civil Engineering:
* Business Strategy and the Environment
* Research Methods
* Client-Based Environmental Entrepreneurship in Practice
Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship:
* Opportunity Recognition
* Accessing Resources
Optional Modules
(Not all classes may be offered each year)
Department of Civil Engineering:
* Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
* Environmental Management Systems
Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship:
* Technology Venture Management
* Finance and the Growing Business
* Entrepreneurship: Personal Effectiveness
Department of Economics:
* Environmental Economics
Strathclyde Law School:
* UK and EU Environmental Law
Normal course length
MSc: 12 months full-time; 24 months part-time
PgDip: 9 months full-time; 18 months part-time
PgCert: 6 months full-time; 12 months part-time
Career Prospects
This course provides a unique educational career opportunity. The career prospects of graduates are excellent as this is the first MSc in Environmental Entrepreneurship in Europe. The course has been designed so that people from industry can complete the MSc in part-time mode over 2-3 years.
This MSc is not only for those graduates who see their future in small and medium sized enterprises but also traditional graduate employment in large companies who need employees who not only can think entrepreneurially, but can also make a positive contribution to environmental issues. Graduates may follow a broad range of careers, e.g. in manufacturing, engineering and technology sectors, in local or central government, in NGOs. Graduates may follow a consultancy path or choose to start their own business.
The Essential: Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network group - designed to support Strathclyde alumni with new business creation and business growth - gives practical help to graduates from this MSc in relation to innovative ideas in the area of environmental entrepreneurship.
