Master of Arts in Design Strategy and Innovation

at Brunel University London United Kingdom

The Brunel Banking and Finance MSc is designed to give graduates the knowledge and advanced skills needed for careers in the complex and rapidly changing banking and financial services industry.

Your studies will cover key subjects including financial economics, the economics of banking, international financial markets and quantitative methodology, as well as financial regulation at national and international levels and matters arising in private banking.

Crucially, you’ll develop your problem-solving skills and ability to critically evaluate and deliver midterm and long-term strategic solutions. 

Throughout the course you’ll have access to a variety of professional databases used in business and finance including Datastream, Bloomberg, Bank Scope, Osiris, Reuters 3000 Xtra and Thomson One Banker.

You can choose to study one year full-time, two years full-time with a year's work placement or 16 months full-time with a 6-12 week work placement.

While you study for your Banking and Finance MSc you can take advantage of the opportunity to follow the CFA Program (Chartered Financial Analyst) specialist pathway and gain the skills required to complete the Level I CFA Program exam.  The CFA Program has become the most respected and recognised professional qualification in finance in the world. Find out more on our  Level I CFA® Program Pathway page.

As the worldwide financial services industry grows, so does the demand for professionals with specialist skills and competencies in banking and finance. Your Brunel Master's will give you that and make you a preferred job candidate to employers across the sector.

Learn what role the media plays in shaping our society and influencing peoples’ thoughts and behaviours by studying our exciting Sociology (Media) BSc.  

By adding media studies to your study of sociology, you’ll be able to explore and specialise in areas such as the social impact of new media, the internet and other information and communications technologies, media discourse, media policy and regulation.

The first year is designed to offer you a solid base in theoretical and methodological innovations in sociology and media. You will explore the similarities and differences in the methodologies used in sociology, media, and communications. The focus of study is upon all aspects of societal relations: it’s personal, social and cultural dimensions.

As you progress through the course, you will be able to choose modules you are interested in to actively shape and apply your learning to the issues you wish to interrogate. In your third year, you’ll work on a dissertation focusing on an area of interest of your choice. Your dissertation can be a theoretical or practical dissertation, so you can work to your own strengths.

Depending on the modules you choose, you may have the option go on fieldtrips where you will be able to apply your learning to current issues and broaden your theoretical imagination. Previous fieldtrips have included: Barbican; British Board of Film Classification; London Migration Museum; Museum of Comedy; Museum of London; regeneration areas (e.g. Spitalfields, Smithfield); and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

As you’ll be taught and supported by academics who are not only experts in their field but are actively engaged in research, you’ll develop skills that can be applied from the classroom to the workplace. They know the industry inside out, so you know you are learning from experienced professionals who will bring their unique insights into the classroom and will ensure your learning is up-to-date.

Gain an insight into life after your studies by putting your learning into practice by opting for a one-year work placement or two short placements for six months at a time. You will graduate with valuable work experience to enhance your employment prospects and will be able to develop an understanding the working world. We have excellent links with a wide range of notable external organisations, so you will have the opportunity to apply for high quality placements across London.

Some of our sociology and media students have undertaken placements in a variety of companies including the political research unit at the Conservative Party Campaign HQ, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, the Prince’s Trust, the Crime Statistics Unit at the Home Office, Citizens Advice Bureau and the Department of Work and Pensions.

This is a broad-based degree which will enable and encourage you to specialise in areas which particularly fascinate you. As a graduate of this dynamic degree, you will leave us with various transferable skills that are key to the contemporary employment market. 

Design at Brunel is all about realising fantastic ideas in the real world. Our Product Design Engineering BSc degree is for creative thinkers who are also comfortable with mathematics and who enjoy deeper analysis of functional and technical design challenges, principally focused on industrially-manufactured products. The course spans design and engineering, meaning you can develop products that both look good and work well.

There is a lot of project-based learning to test your skills and you’ll see the outcome of your design from concept to making the actual product. This means you’ll be able to build a great portfolio of your best-quality projects, academic and industry briefs, and case studies, during your studies.

You’ll have workshop training and will use industry-standard equipment and software to develop quality hands-on skills to become a maker. Independent access is available to modern facilities that include dedicated design studios, digital sketching, extensive prototyping workshops, and electronics and digital fabrication labs. The practical knowledge you gain is transferable to industry and provides a head start for your future career as a designer and design making in the modern world.

Our product design engineering course is accredited by the Institution of Engineering Designers (IED) and can be studied full-time over three years, or four years with a placement year.

The placement year helps you to prepare for the world of work and you’ll have a year’s worth of invaluable professional experience when you graduate. Our students have worked in both small innovation start-ups and multinational organisations such as Dyson, Jaguar Land Rover, Philips, Procter & Gamble, and Reckitt Benckiser. 

Our students have the opportunity to add another dimension to their university experience by spending a term or a year in one of our partner universities via our exchange programme: Politecnico di Milano in Italy; Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands, San Francisco State University in USA and Institut Superieur de Design, ISD Bubika in France.

How does the media shape culture and society? What role does the media play in people’s lives? Are audiences now producers? Are young people disconnected from traditional politics?

On this course you’ll explore the answers to these questions and many more. You’ll focus on the rapid changes in global media and communications and their social and cultural consequences within an international context. You’ll have the opportunity to meet professionals working in the broadcast, advertising and marketing industries who visit us on campus and through organised field trips.

Maybe your background is in media, sociology or another relevant discipline, or perhaps you are already a professional in the communications or broadcast industry seeking to gain a more sociologically-informed understanding of those industries. On this course you’ll develop the advanced skills and knowledge you need.

The way we do business is changing, particularly how and why we carry out transactions. Decision times are increasingly based upon user-friendliness via mobile and social media, and improving these channels is reliant upon data and analytics. The Business Intelligence and Social Media MScis a new multi-disciplinary course which explores developments in technology for businesses such as social media, business intelligence, and mobile and cloud services.

There is a worldwide shortage of qualified managers with the skills needed for new jobs being created in this area, particularly in the emerging economies. Companies that are actively seeking candidates include tech sector businesses, but also banking, insurance, retail and education. In fact, it’s expected that virtually all business sectors will need to address big data and will need skilled people to manage development. 

Developing sound knowledge and understanding of digital business practices, you will learn the importance of data, information, and mass communication technologies to business.

You will be encouraged to reflect on the relevance of these new concepts to business and apply your newly developed skills in advanced research or via professional practice in collaboration with an industry partner.

Our Aerospace Engineering BEng degree is an exciting, hands-on specialist course that has been developed to equip you with the knowledge and understanding to meet the real world needs of the global aerospace industry.

You will be introduced to fundamental engineering subjects such as structures, materials, fluids, and maths, and gain skills in technical drawing. You’ll then learn about the principles of aircraft design and progress to specialist subjects such as propulsion systems, and flight testing and analysis.

You’ll have access to a range of technical facilities including our aerospace/aviation laboratory, full-motion engineering flight simulator, supersonic and subsonic wind tunnels, materials and structure testing laboratory, and 3D printing in the digital fabrication workshop. Industry standard specialist software for aircraft design is available for you to use 24 hours a day in high-performance computing clusters.

During your time at Brunel, you will benefit from guest lectures delivered by industry professionals who present a valuable insight into current, challenging topics in the field of aerospace. There are also planned visits to engineering and manufacturing companies where you’ll see first-hand the latest breakthroughs in development and technology for future aerospace systems. In addition, you have the advantage of Brunel’s close location to London’s Heathrow Airport for site visits as well as project opportunities, and placement and employment options.

Our BEng aerospace engineering course is accredited by both the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). These professional bodies ensure that your engineering degree meets the academic requirement to qualify as a professional engineer. This accredited BEng degree in aerospace engineering can be studied full-time over three years, or four years with a placement year. The BEng degree meets the educational requirement to become an Incorporated Engineer (IEng). You may wish to transfer to the MEng route of study at the end of your second year, subject to meeting the progression requirement. The MEng degree fully meets the educational requirement to become a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and involves a further year of academic study.

We encourage the placement year option. This time in industry helps you to further prepare for the world of work and you’ll have a year’s worth of invaluable professional experience when you graduate. If you decide to go on an engineering placement year, you will have the opportunity to work in the aerospace engineering sector.

As an extracurricular activity, there is the opportunity to be part of a student-led initiative involving the design and build of an unmanned aircraft vehicle and participating in the IMechE industry-sponsored UAS Challenge (Unmanned Aircraft Systems Challenge).

Our Electronic and Electrical Engineering (Communication Systems) BEng degree is a modern course that has been developed to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to work and research in electronic and electrical engineering with specialisation in digital communication systems.This programme will help to develop underlying knowledge and skills appropriate for today’s digital communication systems including introduction to standardised systems.

You’ll gain a good understanding of the different engineering areas, giving you the opportunity to learn more about the fundamental engineering subjects such as design, structures, materials, fluid mechanics, electronics and maths and gain skills in technical drawing.

By specialising in communication systems you’ll develop in-depth knowledge of communication systems and apply techniques on individual programmes.

Access is available to modern technical facilities including computer, electronics, and power and control laboratories where you’ll work on your experiments. The latest industry standard engineering software packages are available for you to use in dedicated computer clusters.

Brunel's BEng electronic and electrical engineering (artificial intelligence) course is accredited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). This professional engineering institution ensures that your engineering degree meets the academic requirement to qualify as a professional engineer. This accredited BEng degree in electronic and electrical engineering can be studied full-time over three years, or four years with a placement year. The BEng degree meets the educational requirement to become an Incorporated Engineer (IEng).

We encourage the placement year option. This time in industry helps you to further prepare for the world of work and you’ll have a year’s worth of invaluable professional experience when you graduate. If you decide to go on an engineering placement year, you will have the opportunity to work in an engineering or technology company.

The Brunel Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences with Business Studies BSc is a unique joint honours programme that combines a strong foundation in the sciences behind sport and exercise with a thorough knowledge and understanding of the business administration and management processes sought by professional organisations.

For the sports science portion of your degree, you’ll study how the human body works on physiological, biomechanical and psychological levels and how this can be applied to improve athletic development and performance and prevent injury. You’ll develop the skills to monitor, evaluate, and enhance sport and exercise performance in laboratory and field settings and to design and conduct experiments.

The business element of your course will focus on key business disciplines including management, organisational behaviour, marketing, change management, entrepreneurship and small business ventures.

In today’s fast-growing sport and exercise market, the skills and knowledge of both the sports sciences and the world of business that you’ll gain from your Brunel degree will make you a preferred job candidate to employers across the industry.

You'll also have the opportunity to carry out a placement as part of your degree, that will give you the chance to put the theory you’ve learned into practice. Our Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences with Business Studies BSc offers two placement options: you can choose to carry out two placements during the summer vacations within the three year degree, or a one year placement between years two and three, as part of a four year degree.

Mathematics is a fundamental subject that is critical to our understanding of the world. Through the study of mathematics you’ll advance your problem solving skills, develop your reasoning and increase your analytical thinking. This is why mathematics forms a basis to so many careers. Yes – it is a discipline in its own right, but it is also the thinking behind countless commercial, industrial and technological activities. Mathematical models underpin engineering, the applied sciences, computing and many aspects of management today.

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.

The Financial Mathematics BSc covers the application of mathematical methods to financial problems so if you’re looking to work in the fast-moving world of finance or commerce then this is the course for you. Two thirds of the course content focuses on developing your mathematical knowledge and skills. The rest of the course covers financial markets, corporate investment and finance.

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.

The Brunel Economics and Accounting BSc gives students the theoretical and practical skills necessary to understand and analyse economic and accounting issues that arise in business, industrial, financial or government environments.

You’ll learn the fundamental analytical techniques of micro and macroeconomics and gain a comprehensive knowledge of the principles and practices of financial and management accounting.

You’ll also study econometrics and develop sought-after skills in data modelling and get training in analytical packages widely used by business and financial institutions such as SAS, EViews, Bloomberg, Reuters 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 what you’ve learned to real-life situations

In your final year, you can tailor your course to specialist areas including auditing, taxation, behavioural economics and finance and the economics of labour markets.

The degree is accredited the ACCA and CIMA, which means you’ll gain exemptions from certain professional qualifying exams.

As business and finance become more complex and global, employers are on the look-out for job candidates with the analytical and technical skills needed to keep pace with the changes. Your Brunel Economy and Accounting BSc, with its focus on economic analysis, will make you a preferred prospect in the fields of accounting, business management, financial markets and corporate finance. 

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