 Okay, so officially let me say welcome to this webinar on the SEDEP MSE in Climate Change and Development. What's going to happen this afternoon is that I'm going to talk you through just a little bit about SEDEP primarily, about the program, how you might study it, how it works, and take as many questions as we have got time for during the course of the afternoon. So I should just take us onto our first slide and let us get started. Okay, so a little bit about SEDEP first. SEDEP is one of three online programs that is postgraduate programs run by SOAS. We are actually the largest postgraduate online provider within the University of London system. I think it's more than three and a half thousand students are studying online with SOAS at the moment of whom slightly more than a thousand study with SEDEP. And SEDEP has been doing distance learning programs that weren't originally online within the University of London for about 30 years. So we have quite a lot of experience of supporting study distance for master's level. So we have this large number of students. Their climate changing development program is actually fairly new. We're just in our third study session now. So it's been running for just under 18 months. That and a new MSE sustainable development use the teaching model, which I'm going to talk to you about this afternoon. But let's say we have this much longer experience of offering distance and line programs in other capacities. So I guess you're all interested in the climate change and development program at least I hope so. I should say a little bit first actually about myself. I am the program director overall for the SEDEP program. So I've been responsible for bringing this program into being but I'm not actually the program convener. We're actually between two program conveners at the moment. We have a new convener for the program starting in a couple of weeks time. Somebody called Dr. Tom Tanner who has 15 years or so of experience of working in this area with DFID and then with Idea Sussex. He's currently a research associate at ODI and he's a brilliant person to head up this program. He happens to be the author of the textbook of our core module, the climate change environment. So really excited that Tom is joining us but before he starts I should be able to answer most of your questions on the program. I'm sure you're all aware of the magnitude of a challenge posed by climate change and the program is looking at all of those interactions with development processes and then with line programs this changes everything. Certainly it changes a lot. We have to think about what climate change means for development trajectories in the middle income countries. As we adapt to changing climates what are the implications for the nature sorry nature development trajectories and the costs of those trajectories and then conversely as countries economies develop we have to think about how to mitigate the impacts of that on climate what the low carbon development trajectories look like and how are they achieved thinking for example well bank estimates it may be 1.3 billion people still don't have access to electricity. Twice that number rely on traditional biomass, cooking and heating as people come to rely more on modern electricity that has its benefits but it also is going to have huge implications for greenhouse gas emissions as they demand more and more electricity as they come to have a lifestyle more like ones that we have. So how do we get those balances between department and poverty, energy and emissions right? Also of course huge international dimensions to this with the interests of high income and middle income and low income countries very different in this regard and how do they negotiate their relative commitments and responsibilities internationally and how do they work with each other to support development in a changing climate. Okay so the aims of the program in a way I've already covered some of those and what does the challenge of climate change imply for development efforts development trajectories do we have to completely rethink where we're going do we have to do what we've conceived of as development in the past somewhat better is it reform or is it revolution we want to help students develop analytical skills to address problems of adaptation but also identifying feasible low carbon development options so we see that this problem is clearly not going to go away and we're looking to contribute to producing the next generation of environment and development professionals working on climate policy and also practice and we hope that this MSc will also provide a route into PhD studies in the same topics for some students as well after they've finished their MSc program like this gives you specific academic training it also helps you with more general professional skills and dissertation is a core part of this program as with most MSc's so you'll be helped in research design project management and literature writing skills more generally at MSc level critical thinking skills are one of the core skills that we're looking to help students develop reflective independent learning taking on board complex idea thinking your way through them then being able to communicate them all of these are our skills that we're looking to offer networking skills as well you can study with SEDEP for three levels of qualification a postgraduate certificate is the most basic there are two modules that you have to take for that if you want to take four modules but you're not sure that you want to do a research component you can do a postgraduate diploma if you want the full MSc with the research components as well then it's four modules plus the dissertation you do there are two study sessions in a year and you take one module per study session so that is why we suggest a postgraduate certificate that requires one year but you could take up to three if you really were doing it very slowly lots of students would like to do an MSc in two years that is certainly possible within our programs but when we look at the workload and we know that many of our students are also working and have full family lives and other commitments that you might want to think about a sort of three-year time scale and that just means that within those three years there are some periods where you think okay I'm just too busy at work at the moment I can't really study intensively over the next two or three months so I'll take a break if you have a three-year time frame in mind that allows you to have a couple of those periods during the course of your studies where you're just less active with your studying but if you have two years you can intensively to your studies in and around other things and it's certainly possible to finish MSc within two years. With SEDEP you pay as you go so at the moment an MSc costs 9,500 pounds there may be small sort of inflation increases in that over overcoming years but it's not going to depart hugely from that figure over the next two or three years but you don't pay the full 9,500 pounds up front and you pay it module by module and it's five modules including the dissertation and those modules are 1,900 pounds each so each time you register for a module you pay 900 pounds okay Hannah first question how far in advance do you need to register for a module good question so our study sessions start in the middle of October and the middle of April and I think it is late September and late March I think I actually have figures I have actual dates in my last slide but sort of broadly late September and late March is when you register for the next study session so probably only sort of three weeks or so in advance of the study session itself it says here about scholarships there are no well we have one scholarship specifically for this program for the coming study session but that's specifically for South African women students otherwise you're in competition for more general scholarships there's information on the SOAS page I would say most of our students are funded either by themselves or by their employers rather than through scholarships okay how does a how does a study session work so that actually just before I do that let me just take the next question well would it be possible to pay all MSc fees at one go yes it is perfectly possible to to do that all at one go if for some reason you have the money and you'd like to pay it all up we will certainly we can certainly do that but actually you know you don't need to do that you can wait until you've passed a particular module and then register for the next one and actually I think we'd encourage you to pay as you go just in case something comes up during the course of your MSc and for some reason whatever you change your mind so pay as you go is is our preferred option I'm sure if you want to pay everything up front we could arrange that can you get this George can you get a student finance loan for the course yes UK students can get a a loan for this University of London have negotiated with the office for students and it's a slightly complicated arrangement for online students and I think that you actually have to pay for the first module yourself as a way of sort of showing that you're actually committed to the program and then you get the money back from the student finance company as part of your loan so I think you have to find a little bit of capital upfront but essentially you can then get a student student finance loan for this program okay how does a study session work so I've said that there are two 16 week study sessions per year starting in October and April the one that starts in October does have a two week break for Christmas the one that starts in April just goes straight through 16 week flat and we reckon that that complete a module you should be trying to set aside about 15 hours per week during that study session so that's quite a significant study commitment if you think about in terms of available hours in your weekends or evenings or early mornings whenever you whenever you study best but that's the sort of time commitment that will be necessary to work your way through the materials our materials are quite text-based that is likely to evolve over time but at the moment they're quite text-based and they comprise two main elements there are course guides which have been written by sedep staff who are experts in their particular fields and then those are complemented by a series of key readings to read around topic you basically do one topic per week for the 16 for the 16 weeks and all your materials are accessed online via our so-called virtual learning environment so it's as simple as clicking a link to get to the materials there you are in groups of about 15 students on your particular module if we had 30 students studying a particular module at once then we would have two tutors so a dedicated tutor for a group of about 15 students and the tutor's job is to answer your questions and to try and stimulate the discussion during the course of the 16 weeks and during each of the topics that you are studying on so that's a sort of asynchronous interaction and everyone goes on in their own time and contributes to discussion threads but we find that on these new programs that works very well as an online student you have full access to the online resource of the SOAS online library which are very rich resources for this program and so in addition to the key readings that we ask you to read you are free to go on and look at anything else that you have time to look at there are additional readings suggested as sort of options associated with each unit also when you're doing your dissertation obviously you need to be familiar with the SOAS online library in order to be getting materials for your dissertation there's a hundreds and hundreds of journals available through the online library. Each module is assessed via one or two assignments plus an exam so several of the modules including the climate change and development core module have a short initial assignment after about three weeks where you reflect critically on a particular reading you post some comments and then everyone is asked with commenting constructively on a couple of other people's comments just as a way of getting students familiar with with debating with each other online you do get a mark and feedback on that assignment there's then a more substantive assignment of I think 3 000 words which comes in week nine of the study session and then at the end of the study session so about 10 days after the official end of the study session there is an exam and the exam is one bit of the program which in some ways is a bit inflexible in that you have to go to a designated University of London exam centre to sit the exam it's a two-hour exam and it's on a specified morning or afternoon University of London have exam centres in 100 plus countries of world and they have multiple centres in many countries so there should be one near you but it you do have to be able to turn up on that particular morning or afternoon to take that exam okay let's have a look at some of the modules on the climate change and development program uh so you'll see that there's one core module we recommend all students start with that core module which sort of gives some coverage of the the breadth of topics within the program as a whole and showing how they sort of fit together so you can then take aspects that you've studied in that core module and study them in more depth via the list of optional modules and we require you to take one or more of the List A modules the slide here is actually not quite correct you can choose anything from one to three of the List A modules but you have to do at least one and then you top that up with modules from List B so you can choose Upt two modules from list B each of these modules has been prepared by uh so our staff who you know have that particular expertise in these areas climate change development actually is prepared by a team of us climate change adaptation was prepared by our colleague Andy Neucham who's now in the studies department here low carbon development and energy and development and we're prepared by Dr Franca Urban who is who was the convener of the program at that point is now moved to Stockholm I've just finished the understanding poverty module which I'm quite excited about and I'm about to get started on the food security and social protection module our colleague Professor Lauren Smith is an expert in water catchment management and water management issues has done the water and land management for sustainable development then we have a couple of modules from our colleague Dr Ben Daley who's also the convener of the MSc sustainable development and in our list we have one or two modules other so as programs so the global public policy module is a module that's actually produced by our colleagues at the Center for international studies and diplomacy and their human and critical security module comes from our development studies department there one module I need to just flag up on the list in front of you as a gender and social inequality module which is probably a year off being ready yet I'm still finalizing the plans for producing that one so if that's one of your the ones you particularly like it might have to be one of the last ones that you take in your set of choices for those of you who are interested in doing the full MSc including the dissertation let me say a few words about how the dissertation works within this model so each year there are two main study sessions where you should probably be focused on one of the modules I've just shown you and then in between those sessions there are little spaces for dissertation study and so the dissertation is split into four stages in the first stage you think a bit about what makes a good research question and about processes of research and the output at the end of that is you produce a topic form with some suggested research questions and what you're interested in and doing doing your dissertation on and on the basis of that we then identify a suitably qualified supervisor who will then work with you for the rest of your dissertation and in the second part of your dissertation they will work with you to take your initial ideas from your topic form and those into an assessed proposal which really sets out what you're the design of your research is what are the what's the question that you're interested in and why what's the gap in the literature you're looking to contribute to filling what information might you need to come up with an answer to that question how will you get it what will you do with it when you've got it that's the sort of content of an assessed proposal and if you can do a good assessed proposal you're then well set up for the rest of the dissertation so the assessed proposal carries 20 percent of the dissertation marks once you've got your mark and your feedback on that you're ready to actually do your data gathering which could be literature based for some students but for other set up students as our students all over the world it might involve some form of primary data collection so you do that in the block three stage three of the dissertation and then stage four is the write up analysis and write up leading to the submission of the final dissertation I should have mentioned that when you are in phase two and you are developing the assessed proposal there are also a whole set of research methods resources that we make available to you and with your supervisor you can identify which ones of those would be useful to you given your topic and the type of data you're working with and you can use those materials to help you develop your ideas on what you're going to do in your dissertation so if you are looking to finish an MSc in two years then you would register for the first stage of the dissertation at the same time as you register for your first module and as soon as you'd finished the 16 weeks of the study session for the first module you'd go into the first stage of the dissertation and if you're if you are going to finish in two years then you have a fairly tight schedule of talk module stage of dissertation talk module stage of dissertation and so on through the two years if you have a three-year time perspective as I mentioned earlier you have a couple of breaks in that cycle when you might decide that you haven't got time to do any study at all due to other commitments or you might decide actually I'm not going to do a talk module in the next four months but I'm going to use time to make more progress on my dissertation take it a bit more on my own pace and just work on it a bit more deeply than I than I can in just the eight to ten weeks of the dissertation stage so you have a certain amount of flexibility as to how quickly you proceed through the program okay I think I've got two or three more slides this is just a sense of where SEDEP students are located as I mentioned we've got over a thousand students and this reflects the whole of the SEDEP student body we probably have seven well actually we have precisely 74 students on the climate change and development program at the moment so we've got just over a thousand on some older programs using a different format which we are still running until 2022 and as you can see you're including UK which accounts for about 20 percent of our student body Europe and the UK is just over 50 percent and then we've got people spread elsewhere around the world our students vary slightly across the programs that we run and but we have first thing to say is the majority of our students are already in some form of work we have a very small proportion who have done an undergraduate degree and haven't gone into work yet but that's less than five percent of our students probably two thirds to three quarters are already in a job that is related to the subject that they're studying we have plenty with international organizations UN World Bank we have at least a similar at least that number or more who are working for a range of NGOs both international NGOs national NGOs and I would say quite a lot of them are people who are working their way up through to their country offices of some international NGO and are seeking to upgrade their skills as as they progress in their careers we also have probably I would say somewhere quarter to a third of our students who are coming from a wide variety of backgrounds need to get into something slightly more development orientated we have a really pleasing number of people with a pure commercial background who are looking either to get into understanding greater understanding of sustainability or perhaps to establish social enterprises so mixing development expertise with their commercial background we have got a lot of people who've got a background in education maybe teaching now moving into development but there are lawyers there are people from all sorts of backgrounds looking to move into development oriented professions as well as those who are already in there I had a question earlier about when you have to enroll so our next study session starts 16th of April so about two months away it says here that you should have your application put in by the 8th of March you've then got another three weeks or so after that to actually enroll which involves paying selecting your module and paying your money if you're starting the program the selection module will be the climate change and development core module but three weeks also to pay the money and then just a couple of weeks after that the study session will start and then after April the next study session is in the middle of October so September is the time to get your applications in okay I think it's time to open things up to you now and see what questions you have for me I hope that was the sort of information you were looking for but now please do fire in any questions on anything that you do you have for me either things I've covered or things I haven't covered George can you give me an example of a dissertation research project okay so I guess if you're thinking about the climate change and development MSC you might therefore focus on what does adaptation mean in a particular area you might for example if you were based in a low or middle income country you might look at some sort of development project and you might examine what the implications of changing climate might be for that project how do things have to be done differently you may not look at a project you may just if you've got you're able to collect primary data you may look at the livelihoods of people in the area and think about what the changing climate might mean for their livelihoods and how they respond to that that would be if you had a primary data collection possibility if you didn't and you were doing a dissertation that was based on literature that you might take a country that you're interested in and you might in some way critically examine national development strategies and the extent to which climate is thought about in those and what difference it makes for the strategies and if you're somebody who's done the global public policy module you might also be thinking about what are the drivers of those strategies and what are what are the politics around embedding consideration of climate more fully into those strategies some you could something like that there's a there's a wide range as long as there's a focus on both climate and development in your in your ms in your dissertation topic there's quite a wide range of things that you could think about Hannah is it possible to take two modules simultaneously um right so I think if you were not working um would certainly be something that could be contemplated um two modules would be something like 30 hours a week so that would be a lot to do for somebody in a in a full-time job so you know perhaps if you could show you had a part-time job or possibly you were not working for a while then yes uh we certainly wouldn't recommend you to start the program asking to take two modules simultaneously uh if you hadn't seen how you got on doing one first unless as I say you could show it you were taking time off work to do this so I would um I would go in with the expectation that it really is a module at a time um and then if you really want to make the case to try to add the sorts of things I've talked about are the sorts of things you'd have to try and persuade us of that makes sense okay well what mechanism do we have for exams if there's no specific university in country um okay so the way the exam book uh university of London maintain relationships with exam centres in over a hundred countries around the world and as I say um there are often multiple exam centres in a given country probably the biggest single provider of exam centres is our bridge council offices around the world um and they're um yeah so probably more than half of our students are actually doing their exams in British council exam centres so the way the system works is um you have to go to one of the exam centres which is registered with University of London so there is a list of them on the University of London website and that shows you what your possibilities are so you select according to the city you live in that's probably the biggest single determinant of which exam centre you go to um and and you take it from the list of options that are available um what I would say is it's very flexible so you don't have to take all your exams in one centre so you might take your first exam uh in a centre uh in Germany for example because you're working there and then you might uh move to India so you might find that actually your next couple of exams uh you are taking in India and then it may be you end up uh when it's the fourth exam and you're on leave and you're in Dubai and you might take your fourth exam in Dubai basically you just register for a centre of your choice every time you come to do an exam and they can they can be all around the world okay um well you've asked about Afghanistan so we do have students in Afghanistan and I am therefore confident that there is a university of London exam centre in in Kabul I can't tell you what it is without looking on the University of London website to look at the list of exam centres um but I am almost certain that you would be able to take your exams in country in Afghanistan George um so you're currently studying geology particularly enjoying climate change you're not planning to work next year and instead do a master's full time this is a kind of course for you so uh let me give you two reflections on that um so the first one is that our modules are essentially social science modules with uh an element of natural science where necessary to understand the processes involved but we're really looking at the human interactions around the around the process of climate change so I think in the climate change and development module there's probably one maybe two units out of 15 which just give you some of the basics of climate science and if you were to do the global environmental change module which is one of the modules that in option b again there'd be more of the natural science and then some different implications but much of the program is is social science so there will be some economics some politics um other things like some anthropology some law it's very much a multidisciplinary program but in the social sciences so the first thing is to decide if that's really what you want to to do um we do take people with a variety backgrounds so geology background would not be an obstacle to you registering for this program if you have a two one equivalent uh in in your geology then we would certainly take you on if you decide this is what you wanted to do um if you wanted to do it full time um there is still the challenge the minimum completion time for the msc is two years there's a two-year cycle for the dissertation um so if you're looking to do the masters in one year and do it full time you might want to consider an on-campus masters we really set up to um providing which work well for people who are studying alongside other things so hope that's helpful to see Helen's typing so i'm just waiting for the next question to come in um please feel free to fire in any more questions you have as well excuse pause i'm watching the chat and expecting a couple of messages to come in at any point okay hannah from an admin perspective are we registered as students like a normal university i.e email addresses etc um yes you are um you are registered as a uh so as student so although ultimately the program is credited by university of london and university of london will appear on your degree certificate the lead college of university of london which provides that study is so as and you're therefore a so as student with a so as email address and password um you will use that for accessing the library for example um you are welcome if you have the opportunity not all our students do but you're welcome to come to the campus as well and use the the library facility physically if you want to um there are some students uh UK based students who can use a scheme called sconal which is a system whereby different universities allow their students to share each other's library facilities so you get your sconal card as a so as student and you take it to your the university in town or city where you live and you present that and you're able to use their library facilities as a visiting student from so as um so there are one or two things where science still doesn't quite support it's uh on its online students uh in quite the same way as on campus um so we haven't quite got that level of career support for our students that we have on campus but these things are gradually being uh worked on and changed and effectively the distinction between online and on-campus students is uh being blurred all the time and so as is working to the towards the objective of one day offering blended uh learning where you take some modules on campus and some modules at distance we're not quite there yet so don't bank on that for this program but that's our direction of travel and therefore you will hopefully feel like a so a student as if you were here on campus still see one message looks like it's on its way to me oh brilliant okay hello um so let me see your so Helen you um you have a background in branding and marketing um you're thinking about uh how developing a reputation for sustainability can be good for for the brands that you you work with you're particularly interested in climate change with a particular interest in energy um and you've noted the similar modules on the msc sustainable development um okay uh so first of all let me just comment on the msc sustainable development and the climate change and development program you're right Helen that they're quite a lot of the same modules are offered on both programs at the moment if you were doing an msc in climate change and development as opposed to sustainable development um the the two things that would differentiate your degree at the end would be the foundational core module that you take so climate change and development as opposed to understanding sustainable development and then your dissertation in climate change and development that's very much what the dissertation has to focus on something within that area in an msc in sustainable development it would be a broader range of topics that you might want to take your focus your dissertation on um i think as the programs go on um we are looking also to offer additional modules from some of the other programs this last move we'll be looking to do further differentiation between the programs by the moment it's the it's the foundational core module and the focus of the dissertation which are the main differentiators between the two programs at the moment now you wanted to know um about if modules will help uh okay people in the private sector building solutions to tackle climate change challenges so i think it's fair to say that our modules um look at the look at questions of climate change adaptation and mitigation uh in general terms and then there is scope for people whether they're thinking of things from a public policy perspective or from an NGO advocacy perspective or from a corporate perspective to take that information on the the challenges of climate change and development and to then start reflecting what does that mean for me um and tutors will be there to sort of facilitate that discussion there will certainly be people on the course from all of those backgrounds so hopefully there'll be the opportunity to bounce ideas um of other people thinking about things from a similar angle um and then again when it comes to your dissertation with your supervisor that's also a very good time to think about things particularly from the angles that you're interested in so there certainly are opportunities through the program to take the material and digest it from a particular perspective and think so what does this mean for me and hopefully within the program we will support you to do that so i hope that that's the best answer i can give to your question i hope that's helpful okay brilliant we've had a lot of uh okay thanks another question about carbon credits to what extent will the modules talk about it okay so uh they are mentioned in the climate change and development core module um they don't go into they're not going to in great depth at that point because the core module is introducing the sort of breadth of interest across the program i imagine they must therefore be gone into in more depth in the low carbon development module but Helen if you wanted to uh ping min email i can check that out for you so i'm sure the answer is yes that they've addressed actually i'd have to look into those module materials just to absolutely confirm that for you so let me also use this opportunity for everybody here to say if you have uh questions for me afterwards um my email address is cp31 at sellas.ac.uk and you can also find me on the sedet website where my email address um is also available so that's cp for carbon poulson cp31 at sellas.ac.uk and i'd be very happy to answer any other questions that you have that come up great all right we've got about five minutes till the hour is up so um opportunity if you have any final questions to to send them in um george does the program teach us about the uk's climate change and development strategies so no we uh don't specifically teach about that what we do in the core module is we think about what the challenge of climate change means for countries at different income levels with different historic emissions uh and different future aspirations um we think about challenges of uh no growth or even degrowth uh for high income countries not saying that that's what we have to go for but we get students to think about what might that mean um if that was the only way for us to uh reduce our emissions so that there is still scope for um economy to historically have emitted far less than us uh to still fulfill some of their growth aspirations which inevitably will involve greater emissions and historically so we do think about the challenges at that sort of level uh for high income countries um we do inevitably think about uh development assistance and development finance and i'm i suspect that comes into the climate change adaptation model and probably the low carbon development and energy and development modules as well so that will be possible uh to think about those sorts of assistance strategies there given the development finances an important part of the international climate change discussions um poorer countries saying um well we'd love to go for this low carbon trajectory um but you know where's the money to invest in uh in renewable energy or the other other investments that we need to make in order to go into a more low carbon trajectory so development finance is very much uh featured in the program and again if you have a particular interest in uk's climate change and development strategies that is a valid topic for a dissertation so that's something that you could think about in your dissertation if you particularly wanted to focus on that uh well this is a course program linked climate change with conflict countries where vulnerability is relatively high so again yes if you select your options you can think about that in particular so again in the core module um there is one unit on that the nexus between change conflict migration it's definitely something we're going to ask students to think about us um that's going to be part of future scenarios then if you took the human and critical security optional module which was on the list that i mentioned earlier that thinks very much about conflict um how climate change interacts with that so you would have the option uh the possibility to think about letting more depth through that module um Hannah are the exams essay based um yes so the way our exams are structured Hannah is that they are two hour exams uh and certainly at the moment you in the first hour or so because obviously your time is your own in the exam uh you do what three short questions out of a choice of four so that tests a bit of breadth of knowledge and your grasp of key concepts um that come up in that particular module and then in uh the second part of the exam is one longer essay question where you'd be expected to spend roughly an hour on that um out of a choice of four essays so basic answer yes but one is a longer essay and there are three that are shorter answers so essays are such um the assignments um should have said when i told you about how our modules are assessed where there's an initial exercise after about three weeks it takes 10 percent of the marks um the first the assignment in the middle of the module carries 40 percent of the marks roughly in the exam the final 50 percent so those assignments are 3 000 words and um i guess if you haven't got a background in writing essays then your assignments are also opportunities to get practice and good feedback on uh on writing more essay style things so hopefully that's helpful brilliant okay um we've got to four o'clock um thank you for all of your questions and your engagement i hope you've found that helpful um let me just once again say that if you have further questions that you think of afterwards then my email address again is cp31 at soas.ac.uk and i would be very happy to answer any more questions that you have at that point