MSc Biodiversity and Conservation

Learn the skills needed to kick-start your career in this exciting and evolving field. This new programme balances evolutionary and ecological theory, conservation and restoration to find practical applications in conservation.

You will learn how to monitor, survey, study, manage and restore biodiversity in freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Through a combination of core modules and some electives, you’ll cover topics including habitat restoration, spatial analysis, evolutionary biology, and conservation policy, theory and practice.

We aim to ground your studies in insightful practical training, so that you’re familiar with the very latest industry-standard equipment and practice. To put these skills and knowledge into practice, you will have the opportunity to be embedded into research projects and NGO work on a two-week field trip to a biodiversity hotspot: Cabo Verde, Madagascar or Borneo (depending on your interests, although venues are subject to change).

This programme offers two unique streams; Ecology, Evolution and Conservation or Conservation and Restoration. The main differences are which two elective modules you select, the field course location and the research project topic.

For both programmes you commence your training by gaining expertise in cutting edge literature in ecology, evolution and conservation. You move from that to a module that gives a thorough grounding in data analysis, centred around the statistical programme R, essential for your project and any data-based employment/training. Then you will explore causes, consequences, challenges and solutions regarding biodiversity loss. This will be covered in three modules, taught by Queen Mary and Kew staff, at their places of work. During this phase you will be asked to elect to do one of two streams.

The focus in this stream is centred most strongly in the fundamental science of biodiversity and conservation, although both streams offer fundamental and practical conservation. You will be based at Queen Mary, and you will explore how ecosystems function and how they can be modelled to inform conservation practice. You will then analyse problems in biodiversity, evolution and conservation relevant to your project before embarking on your extended 6 month project, most likely based at Queen Mary. We are very flexible with projects and will try to accommodate projects and venues that you find exciting. Your field trip will be a marvellous tropical forest (likely to be Borneo, although venues are subject to change), giving you experience of its amazing biodiversity and the problems associated with its conservation.

The focus in this stream is centred most strongly in the practical science of biodiversity and conservation, although both streams offer fundamental and practical conservation. You will be based at Kew, and you will explore how to conduct biodiversity surveys, red-list species and the ways that habitats are restored. You will then embark on your extended 6 month project, most likely at Kew. We are very flexible with projects and will try to accommodate projects and venues that you find exciting. Your field trip will be a marvellous tropical forest (likely to be Borneo, although venues are subject to change), giving you experience of its amazing biodiversity and the problems associated with its conservation.

Field trip costs are included in the course fees.

Deadline for postgraduate Overseas applications - Friday 02 September 2022

Deadline for postgraduate distance learning applications and postgraduate Home applications - Friday 09 September 2022