New Masters in Planetary Health tackles crises for people and planet

A postgraduate programme aims to provide students with the critical and data skills needed to understand and address global challenges that impact the health and wellbeing of people and the environment.

The MSc in Planetary Health will focus on the impacts of the climate emergency, extreme poverty, conflict, biodiversity loss and insecurities within the health, education, energy, culture and environment sectors.

It will equip students to work with local and national governments, finance and industry organisations and international agencies.

Planetary Health provides us with a way of understanding how people, the life-systems of our planet on which we are dependent, and the societal systems created for survival, intersect and interconnect. Graduates from the MSc in Planetary Health will have interdisciplinary research skills, knowledge and connections to mitigate barriers to human and environmental wellbeing and to engage.

Professor Liz Grant

Blended learning option for maximum flexibility

Students may opt for full-time or part time study through online or on-campus learning, or a blend of the two.

Our teaching model – fusion teaching – is designed to allow students lots of flexibility. They can study online or on-campus and can also move between the two, for example choosing to spend one semester on campus, or visit campus for a specific course. The approach is designed to work for people who have other life commitments and wish to study part-time, as well as for those who wish to study full time. Regardless of mode, all our students study together as a single, global cohort in custom-designed fusion studios.

Professor Sian Bayne

Building careers

Participants will learn about key planetary health concepts, understand the relationship between various drivers of health across the globe, and be supported to build careers focused on tackling climate collapse, health and other inequalities.

They will develop legal and business skills alongside entrepreneurial thinking, and develop their ability to use large scale data to address global challenges.

The programme is suitable for recent undergraduates and mid-career professionals, including leaders in all sectors of business and industry, especially in strategic roles relating to wellbeing and societal development.

Complex elements of human, animal, environment and economic systems often combine to drive the ill health of people and our planet, with examples such as malnutrition, cyber insecurity and environmental degradation. The MSc in Planetary Health programme seeks to equip graduates to explore the ways in which this happens, and to meet the challenges presented by it.

Dr Fiona Borthwick

The Planetary Health programme is led by the Edinburgh Futures Institute in a collaboration with the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Systems, the Global Health Academy, the School of Health in Social Science and the Usher Institute, drawing on expertise from across the University of Edinburgh.

Learn more and apply for the MSc in Planetary Health