Master of Arts in Design and Branding Strategy

at Brunel University London United Kingdom

Perhaps history has always been an interest for you or it’s something you’ve developed an interest in by studying it at school or college. Either way, everyone on the Modern History BA at Brunel starts off on the same level playing field, without the need for a history qualification.

History is about understanding what it means to be human. Studying and analysing it will take you back into the societies of the past to help you understand contemporary issues all the more. It’s also a subject that will help to demonstrate your intellectual acumen and understanding of world affairs, which will be an asset in so many fields of work.

Your studies at Brunel will focus on the history of Britain, Europe and the wider world in the modern period, looking closely at life as it was lived then, observing differences, similarities, patterns and connections with the present day.

Along the way, you will build a toolkit of transferable skills gained through evidence gathering, analysis, problem-solving, drafting and communications, which can be applied to a wide range of industries within the public and private sector.

Opt for a placement year and you’ll be adding a year’s experience in a job role and industry sector that will help to show future employers where you might be a good fit for their organisation. Your placement doesn’t have to be related to history and you’ll get plenty of support from staff and resources in the University’s Professional Development Centre to help steer you in the right direction.

The course has established links to world-renowned archives and libraries based in and close to London,including the Caird Library (National Maritime Museum),The National Archives and the Imperial War Museum,among others. Additionally, the original WWII operations bunker used by Sir Winston Churchill on the former RAF Uxbridge site is a walk away from campus where Brunel students regularly volunteer.

Using mathematics to solve industrial and commercial problems has led to vital breakthroughs for human advancement. Mathematical models underpin engineering, the applied sciences, computing and many aspects of business and management today. If you have a skill for mathematics and statistics and a flare for management then this could be the course for you. The combination of skills developed on this course will open doors to a wide range of careers.

This course focuses on how mathematics can solve industrial and commercial problems. You’ll develop a broad knowledge of general management alongside applicable skills and knowledge in mathematics and statistics.

Follow the four-year Professional Placement degree programme and you‘ll benefit from our extensive experience in helping students to find well-paid work placements with blue-chip companies. Our sandwich students find that their mathematical and transferable skills are in demand in many sectors, both in the UK and abroad.

Areas recently offering placements include: accountancy, aviation, banking, defence, finance, insurance, IT (software development, network management and design), management (public and private sector), marketing and telecommunications.

This programme will meet the educational requirements of the Chartered Mathematician designation, awarded by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, when it is followed by subsequent training and experience in employment to obtain equivalent competences to those specified by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for taught master's degrees.

In today’s business landscape, brand is everything. But what exactly is brand and how do we manage it for the best possible outcome? Brunel’s Corporate Brand Management MSc examines the importance of branding, corporate identity, image and reputation.

You will study a wide-range of brands (e.g. product, service, personal, company) from a variety of cultures and sectors (private, public and not-for-profit) including start-ups, SMEs, and multinationals. You will also study how corporate branding is key to an organisation’s overall marketing strategy.

Brunel Business School was the first school to introduce a specialised MSc in corporate brand management back in 2007. The Corporate Brand Management MSc is taught by an enthusiastic team including Professor John M.T. Balmer, who is highly regarded in the corporate brand domain, as well as renowned brand specialists Dr Sharifah Alwi and Dr Yousra Asaad, amongst others.

You have the option of taking either a year-long or six to twelve week work placement, depending on your needs, to help you enhance your skills and boost your career prospects while you study. We were one of the first business schools to offer postgraduate degrees with placement and the feedback has been that this is incredibly useful as you can put your learning into practice immediately. It’s also a great way to make business contacts with the possibility of a job offer from your placement employer once you’ve graduated. Find out more on our work placements page.

Accredited by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), this course offers the option to study the CIM Certificate in Professional Marketing alongside your degree. Find out more on our accreditations and exemptions page.

Topics covered on the degree include corporate and product brand identity, corporate and product brand image and reputation, corporate marketing, and corporate communications. You will also study marketing communications and strategy from a corporate branding perspective.

Our Design Strategy and Innovation MA degree concentrates on how design might be a catalyst for innovation at all levels. This includes new products and services, new processes, new ways of working, managing creative teams and collaborating with stakeholders, new businesses and new practices. It aims to give designers and other creatives the skills and knowledge to utilise design thinking and to leverage design in the pursuit of strategic organisational change and improvement in both the private and public sectors.

You’ll have access to modern teaching and learning facilities, including a dedicated master’s design studio. Here you can discuss and exchange ideas with other students passionate about becoming design managers and leaders as catalysts for strategic innovation and change.

Our popular, annual Design Master’s: Industry Student Review Evening is a great opportunity for you to connect with experts from design, brand and business. Their professional and practical perspective will help you to build a strong and clear direction for your research projects and dissertation.

And there’s Made in Brunel - a unique, student-led initiative that showcases our design talent at its finest. Each year our students run a series of industry and community events leading up to the Made in Brunel exhibition. This annual showcase is a highlight of the London design calendar and promotes the incredible work our students produce to the creative community, and is your chance to network with key design professionals.

The Theatre and Creative Writing BA is ideal if you want learn more about the richness of theatre past and present while incorporating your passion for creative writing.

Within the theatre side of your degree, you’ll develop creative skills in a number of practical ways: acting, directing, applied drama, physical theatre, digital performance, musical theatre and playwriting.

On the creative writing side of the course, you’ll get to explore a number of writing styles including journalism,screenwriting, comedy writing, short stories and the contemporary novel.

You’ll also grow your knowledge through an understanding of the concepts and models used in the practice and study of theatre, together with the themes and techniques used by historic and contemporary authors.

Study at Brunel and you’ll become part a rich community of creative students, artists and academics with a variety of opportunities to collaborate through acting, directing, playwriting and production.

You’ll learn in Brunel’s purpose-built Antonin Artaud Performance Centre (AA), which is rather like being in drama school with its main theatre, two studio spaces, rehearsal rooms and recording studios.

AA facilities regularly host Arts@Artaud nights showcasing new music, film, creative writing and drama presented by Brunel students.

Established links with the creative industries offer plenty of opportunities to hear from guest speakers and alumni on campus. Off campus, Brunel’s easy access to central London helps to facilitate regular class trips to see West End productions and other events.

For your professional development, the option of a work placement year is an unmissable opportunity to find out where your interests lie and to increase your attractiveness to future employers.

Students from the course have completed placements in a variety of organisations including the London’s Park Theatre, Rose Wisksteed Casting, The Vaults, Unicorn Theatre, Icarus Theatre Company, and the Grieg City Academy.

What's happening inside our cells? What's happening at a molecular level? The bringing together of biology and chemistry allows scientists to use chemical knowledge to understand biological problems.

At Brunel, we understand that your specialist knowledge should be built on a sound grounding of all the areas of biomedical sciences. This means that your first year will cover areas such as the human body, biochemistry and research skills. As you continue through your degree you'll study specialist areas that will teach you about the various biochemical pathways and how they may be altered during specific human diseases.

And if you change your mind about your specialist area, don’t worry. The flexibility of our course at Brunel means that you can switch to another specialist pathway in the second year or even take the general Biomedical Sciences BSc.

The Royal Society of Biology has awarded its accreditation to all of Brunel’s biomedical sciences BSc courses. This means that you can be confident that your degree will prepare you for the working world – and your prospective employers will know this too. You'll receive a one year’s membership as an Associate Member once you graduate, integrating you into the sector with access to key contacts and up-to-date knowledge.

In your final year you’ll have the opportunity to contribute to our research programmes in cellular and biochemical pathways, the regulation of gene expression, DNA repair and immunological responses to microbial infection. This will give you first-hand experience of real-world laboratory research and prepare you for your future career.

Our Advanced Engineering Design MSc degree is described as ‘the doorway to industry’. It is for high-calibre, ambitious engineering or science graduates who wish to gain expertise in developing complex, multidisciplinary engineering design.

The focus of the course is to provide you with advanced theory and skills to give you the essential expert knowledge needed for a career as an advanced designer, a design team leader or a researcher in innovative engineering design working in a computer assisted environment.

You will learn how to design products requiring embedded intelligence and comprehensive engineering analysis, and will be taught by a team of highly regarded academics who will give you a thorough grounding in engineering design.

Throughout your postgraduate engineering degree, you’ll have access to well-equipped design studios and computers for your exclusive use, and will benefit from the latest computer aided engineering software packages.

The Design Experience project gives you experience of the whole design process in an industrial environment – from initial concept to final design and manufacture, and presentations, seminars, discussions and guest speakers from industry make this a special learning experience.  

Part of your course will also involve group projects, furthering your ability to work in a team. Recent group projects have included the design of electric vehicles, and the design of smart jigs and fixtures. 

We run regular industry liaison events and this is your chance not only to showcase your innovative engineering design projects, but also network with key engineering and technology professionals.

Brunel’s Advanced Engineering Design MSc degree is accredited by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). This means your degree will put you on course to gain Chartered Engineer (CEng) status in the UK. It can be studied either full-time over one year, or part-time over two years.

International relations is an area of politics that largely focuses on how two or more nations interact with each other. As an introduction to the course you will study the evolution of international relations theory – for example how international relations relates to problems of anarchy, sovereignty, order, justice and solutions.  

Early on in the course, you will have a choice between two topics: International Security which will look at the main concepts and models within the subject as well as its issues and policies, or International Political Economy which considers topics like globalisation, financial liberation and economic growth.

Once your knowledge, understanding and analytical skills have grown in international relations, you will choose a further two additional optional modules which cover democracy, migrant law, post-war world affairs, security in the middle east, and geopolitics. Finally, a research project of your choice under the guidance of a dissertation supervisor completes the course.

In keeping with the importance Brunel places on getting you ready for work, this degree includes the rare option of a work placement – 6-12 weeks of professional practice that takes place between May and September in an organisation with an international dimension to its mission.

Other opportunities to network and build knowledge include the option to take up membership with Chatham House, the leading British think tank on international affairs. Benefits include access to library and archive materials as well as regular events.

In fact, Brunel’s proximity to central London’s world-class research facilities, Westminster and Whitehall means you couldn’t be better placed to immerse yourself in an established political area.

Graduates of the International Relations MA, go to pursue careers in a wide range of organisations, including government, international institutions, non-governmental organisations, business, research institutes and security, or further study at doctoral level.

This course has a professional practice option. Find out more about work placements available.

The Disease Mechanisms and Therapeutics MSc is a dynamic master’s programme, allowing you to gain hands-on experience as you delve into present-day medical understanding and try to create real advances in disease treatment and prevention.

You’ll choose a specialist biomedical area and will learn about the molecular mechanisms leading to major human diseases and their current treatments. You will also work towards identifying medical advancements and possible innovative therapeutic approaches using technological developments.

The specialist areas to choose from include cancer biology and therapy; genomic technologies; vaccine and immunisation; or radiation, toxicology and pollution.

You’ll identify areas where there are knowledge gaps in current medical understanding. Throughout the course you will be encouraged to address these gaps by looking at existing research and literature and conducting your own research.

At Brunel we recognise that strong practical skills in all fields of biomedical sciences are important to employers. For this reason we have a large practical element to the course. You’ll gain experience of different modern laboratory techniques and consider the legislative and ethical aspects linked to the discipline. You’ll learn computational skills and be trained on critical analyses of the molecular problems leading to human disease and to identify intervention opportunities. In addition, you’ll receive training in statistics and bioinformatics which are fundamental to the biomedicine sector.

In our 'Scientific Communication' module you’ll learn how to disseminate medical information to a range of audiences. Your writing skills will be developed to target a diverse range of audiences, from medical practitioners through to the general public. You will learn to write your research findings in an academic style and a journalistic style - skills which will be invaluable in a range of biomedical careers. 

The Brunel Banking and Finance BSc provides students with the knowledge, skills and insights needed to effectively pursue careers in banking and financial services.

You’ll get a solid grounding in micro and macroeconomic principles, accounting practices and the workings of financial markets before studying advanced topics including real estate finance, financial regulation, risk management and how banking and financial systems operate in an international context.

You’ll also gain insight into the dynamic relationship between investors, financial markets and the institutions that enable transactions between the two.

You’ll study econometrics and develop highly valued skills in data modelling, and get training in analytical packages widely used by business and financial institutions such as Bloomberg, Reuters, SAS, EViews and STATA.

We offer two study options. You can choose three years full-time or four years full-time with a one-year professional placement between years two and three that will give you the chance to apply the theoretical principles you’ve learned to a working environment.

You can tailor the final year of your course to specialise in an area of particular interest.

Due to globalisation, banking and finance have become growth sectors for graduate vacancies. The specialised skills and training you’ll get from your Brunel BSc will make you a preferred job candidate to employers across the industry.

All of our economics and finance undergraduate and postgraduate degrees offer the opportunity to gain professional experience through work placements.

• Placements and economics and finance internships are a great way to see if your future career is right for you.  For undergraduate courses you take your placement between the second and third years of your chosen course, you’ll have the opportunity to apply your skills in a real-life working environment, with real responsibilities.  For postgraduate courses if you're studying over two years full-time, you will take a year's work placement, or if you choose the 16 month option you take a 6-12 week placement.
• More than just a way to earn some extra money during your studies, you will get the chance to taste life as a professional before entering the graduate world.
• Depending on what suits you, your work placement can be taken in small, medium or large organisations across different sectors. Our students have recently secured placements at Morgan Stanley, the Department of Trade and Industry, and HM Treasury. You’ll have to apply for a placement like you would any other professional job but with the expert guidance of your personal tutor and our Professional Development Centre you’ll be supported every step of the way to find a role that suits you and your goals.
• During your placement, an academic member of staff from the Economics and Finance department will keep in touch, and your employer will be invited to attend a tutorial day at Brunel with you.