Planning & City Resilience

This programme focuses on the role of planning in adapting to the impacts of social (e.g. health and well-being), economic (e.g. city competitiveness) and environmental (e.g. climate crisis) challenges. The programme explores a range of topics across four themes:

- Sustainable development
- Social and climate justice
- Inclusive planning and partnerships
- Smart interventions

You will benefit from research-led teaching from a multidisciplinary course team and learn from industry experts. Using a diverse range of learning and teaching approaches, the programme blends concepts and theories with real world problems and solutions. The course is suitable for both current planners with aspirations to work in the area of resilience, and graduates from any undergraduate programme with an interest in planning.

For further course details please see "Course Web Page" below.

Year one
Resilience Theory and Practice
Interest in resilience is expanding as a direct response to the scale and intensity of contemporary issues facing cities, governments and societies. This module embraces a range of topics that relate to the conceptual and practical issues involved in building resilient cities and identifies a key role for planning in terms of strengthening the ability of society to prepare for, and respond to, anticipated impacts of contemporary social, economic, environmental challenges.

International City Planning and Development
This module in international city planning and development has the primary objective of providing students with the knowledge necessary to critically analyse theory and practice in different international contexts. Cities are not globally homogeneous. It is therefore important for future planning practitioners to appreciate both the benefits and limitations of international policy transfer, as well as the social, economic and environmental drivers of city development.

Spatial Planning and Practice
This module considers the concept of spatial planning and how it has evolved across the devolved UK and the Republic of Ireland. In particular, the module identifies the contemporary debates surrounding the fluid conceptualisations of spatial planning, and articulates how planning nests within planning practice. The module will provide a learning platform to understand the role and interrelationships between stakeholders in structuring and shaping land use policy and how planning practice sits within a particular legal framework.

Healthy Communities
The relationship between health, well-being and the built environment requires practitioners to consider how planning and design processes influence the places where people live, work and socialise. This module provides students with an understanding of how planning policy and practices can play a crucial role in creating inclusive environments that enhance people's health and well-being, and help to diminish health inequalities.

Sustainable Development - Strategy for a Secure Future
This module introduces the student to the concept of sustainable development, how it has evolved and how it can be delivered and measured. It explores a range of economic, environmental and social challenges to determine how these overlap with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It provides for an appreciation of the policy and actions needed to stimulate government, corporate and individual change to help deliver the wide-ranging SDGs.

Research Methods and Project
This module provides students with a broad understanding of research methods and techniques, and how these can be used to investigate a research problem in any context. Students will be provided with the necessary theoretical foundations in statistical research, including the ability to plan research ethically and conduct a literature review. Students will also be able to record, analyse, interpret and present qualitative and quantitative data appropriately.

Inclusive Engagement
This module is optional
Effective planning processes and co-production practices require meaningful stakeholder engagement that fosters equal and reciprocal relationships, and inspires new ideas to enable communities and cities to become more resilient. Drawing on both theory and practice, this module provides a deeper understanding of civic agency and participatory planning to inform future practitioners of the opportunities, challenges and benefits of inclusive engagement.

Public Service Delivery and Outcomes
This module is optional
New models and motivations are emerging to co-design and improve public services that meet changing community needs, deliver well-being outcomes, produce collaborative gain and advance place-based resilience. This module provides students with an understanding of the evolving governance models associated with the (co-)design and (co-)delivery of public services that aim to enhance social, economic and environmental well-being outcomes.

Leadership for Planning and Regeneration
This module is optional
This module examines a range of theoretical and practical issues surrounding leadership for successful delivery of regeneration and spatial planning. Understanding, and appreciating, such issues and considering how best to use new knowledge will be essential for spatial planners in terms of enhancing city resilience in an inclusive way. The module is designed to prepare students to better manage their careers in the context of discontinuous change and provide an authentic experience of conflict and change within a planning context.

Environmental Protection and Sustainable Technologies
This module is optional
Students completing this module will have in-depth knowledge and understanding of the purpose, processes, principles and skills in the practice of environmental protection and sustainable technologies within the context of the sustainable development agenda. This includes protecting life on land and in water, taking action on climate change, and promoting responsible consumption and production. Students will develop critical skills in strategic planning, policy and intervention to achieve this.

To apply to our postgraduate taught programmes, you must meet the University's General Entrance Requirements and any course-specific requirements.

These vary depending on the course and are detailed online.

Applicants must:
(a) have gained:
i. a second class honours degree or better from a university of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, or from a recognised national awarding body, or from an institution of another country which has been recognised as being of an equivalent standard;

or

ii. an equivalent standard (normally 50%) in a Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate, Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma or an approved alternative qualification;

and

(b) provide evidence of competence in written and spoken English (GCSE grade C or equivalent).

In exceptional circumstances, as an alternative to (a) (i) or (a) (ii) and/or (b), where an individual has substantial and significant experiential learning, a portfolio of written evidence demonstrating the meeting of graduate qualities (including subject-specific outcomes, as determined by the Course Committee) may be considered as an alternative entrance route. Evidence used to demonstrate graduate qualities may not be used for exemption against modules within the programme.

If English is not your first language this course requires a minimum English level of IELTS (academic) 6.0 with no band score less than 5.5, or equivalent.

Visit ulster.ac.uk/englishrequirements for more details.

This course is open to international (non-EU) students (full-time only).

For full entry requirements please see "Course Web Page" below.

Your Application
Application is through the University's online application system (see "Application Weblink" below).

Full-time/Part-time/Online.

Career options
Global initiatives, such as the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, illustrate the growing need for practitioners – and graduates – with the skills necessary for progressing the resilience agenda. It is anticipated that demand for professional planners will continue to expand, nationally and internationally, due to rapid urbanisation, growing inequalities and the climate crisis. The technical and transferable skills gained through the modules will help prepare students for securing and maintaining employment within this ever changing context.

Accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), the programme will provide a career development opportunity for both current planners (in public and private sector) with aspirations to work in the area of resilience, and those graduates from any undergraduate programme to transfer to the field of planning. The provision of optional modules provides flexibility to accommodate educational preferences and career progression interests/specialism.

Graduates will have excellent career opportunities in planning and development agencies and consultancies, local authorities, regeneration, environmental management, community development, climate change mitigation and other planning related careers.

Opportunities also exist within the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment for graduate to embark on PhD research in a wide range of planning and resilience topics.

Research Areas

The PhD in Celtic Studies usually involves close study of Celtic languages and literatures (e.g., Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic), but may encompass religion, history, archaeology, and the interface with the Latin and Germanic traditions of the Celtic-speaking regions. Doctoral research usually entails some degree of comparative work. The sources utilised tend to be medieval, but some topics may require the use of written sources of earlier or later date. For certain topics, knowledge of research methodologies other than those associated with Celtic Studies may have to be attained. The Structured PhD programme provides students with opportunities to acquire such training, and to learn non-Celtic languages (medieval and modern) that may be relevant to their research.

PhD students of Celtic Studies are usually supervised or co-supervised by scholars of Irish, Welsh, or Celtic (languages and literatures), but for some theses, supervisory expertise in archaeology, history, classical languages and literatures, or other disciplines may also be essential. The list of researcher profiles below is drawn from the disciplines of Archaeology, Classics, History, Old and Middle Irish, and Welsh.