Lancaster University

The MA in Society, Technology and Nature introduces students to the social studies of technoscience and the natural environment. Students are taught by some of the leading academic figures in these fields, and become part of an intellectual community that links a number of significant Lancaster-based research centres, including the Centre for Science Studies, the Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, and the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics.

Students can specialise in their chosen area of study by taking one of three pathways:

Technoscience and Culture

Environment, Culture and Public Policy

As well as pathway-specific modules related to their chosen specialism, students on all pathways take a set of common modules designed to provide them with the necessary theoretical resources, a critical understanding of the role of knowledge in public policy, and a familiarity with important research methods for investigating these domains. They will thus be better equipped to identify and analyse important real-world problems and mobilise appropriate intellectual resources for understanding and intervention.

Technoscience and Culture

This pathway is for students who would like to acquire theoretical, methodological and policy-related skills for understanding contemporary science and technology and its social and political dimensions in a range of different empirical contexts including health, information technologies, the environment and genomics.

Students are required to take the following core modules: Science, Technology and Society; Policy, Publics and Expertise; Researching Technoscience, and can then select three modules from an extensive list to fit with their interests.

Genetics, Culture and Public Policy

This pathway provides a unique basis for further research and study in the social sciences, focused on the social impact of genomics and related biosciences. Capitalising on our expertise in the ethical, social, economic and cultural dimensions of the biosciences, the pathway responds to the dramatic increase in public concern in this domain by providing specialised teaching and research training in this important emerging field.

Students are required to take the following core modules: Genomics and Society; Science, Technology and Society; Policy, Publics and Expertise; Researching Technoscience, and can then select two modules from an extensive list to reflect their interests.

Environment, Culture and Public Policy

This draws on our expertise in the critical analysis of the social, political and cultural dimensions of environmental and technological controversies. Drawing on environmental sociology and other disciplinary approaches, students critically explore key concepts such as science, risk, value, modernity, expertise and lay knowledge. Through investigating a wide variety of empirical case-studies, students gain a richer understanding of environmental issues, and improved resources of critical judgement for dealing with them. Students that have taken this MA pathway have gone on to work in organisations such as the Sierra Club, WWF, Germany's Green Party, and the UK's Forestry Commission.

Students are required to take the following core modules: Environment and Culture; Science, Technology and Society; Policy, Publics and Expertise; Researching Technoscience, and can then select two modules from an extensive list to reflect their interests followed.

An upper second class honours degree, or its equivalent, in a relevant subject (e.g. geography, politics, economics, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, science). Appropriate work experience also taken into account.