Master of Science in Zoo Conservation Biology

at Manchester Metropolitan University United Kingdom

Zoos play a crucial role in animal conservation. Whether they’re carrying out important research into animal behaviour, taking part in breeding programmes, educating the public or advising policymakers, they are important players in international conservation.

Study our masters in Zoo Conservation Biology and you can play your part too, as you develop expertise in the science which underpins the management and maintenance of captive populations and explore the links with species conservation on a worldwide scale.

The main core unit is Zoo Conservation, which we deliver with the help of our partners at Chester Zoo – giving you access to the zoo’s collections and facilities. Within the course, you can participate in a field course in Poland, Ecuador or East Africa or apply for a three-month work placement at a zoo or aquarium. Other core units, delivered at our Manchester campus, include practical techniques and analysis, statistics and research design and organismal genetics. Amongst a wide range of option units, you’ll also have the chance to specialise in subjects like species recovery and behavioural biology.

This all then feeds back into your research project, where you’ll combine your own data collection with background research and data analysis, and communicate your findings in a comprehensive dissertation.

The world of business is always evolving – adapting to new technology, moving with geopolitical events and reacting to the shifting financial climate. But there is one constant: people. Growth, change, success – it’s only possible with a well-managed workforce, no matter what the industry or sector.

By focusing on the human element of effective business leadership, this is a course that offers vital transferrable skills, providing the first steps of a range of career paths. You’ll leave us equipped to pursue roles across a vast range of sectors in a wide variety of disciplines.

We’ve built an impressive network with industry experts and major employers – sharing understanding and opportunity. For us, it means keeping our expertise at the cutting edge of business and human resource management. For you, it means learning from leading professionals from organisations like PwC and AJ Bell. Plus, if you opt for a third-year placement, it’s a network that can open doors to the sort of employers where you can turn classroom theory into workplace practice.

By bringing together our academic expertise with Manchester City F.C.’s City in the Community Foundation, this degree offers the very best of both worlds and an integrated path to rewarding career goals.

This course offers work-based learning in Premier League surroundings, equipping you with the skills, knowledge and experience you will need to find success as a coach or sports programme leader.

Academic experts deliver the programme, providing insight and support during your three years. In addition, you are continually mentored and supported by practitioners from City in the Community who provide perspectives from the real world of delivering community sport coaching and sport development initiatives.

You will learn how coaching sport improves aspects of mental and physical health. The programme will cover all angles of project development – from planning and delivering activity, through to measuring impact – to help understand the potential of sporting opportunities to make a positive difference in the community.  

Placement options

You can opt to spend your third year getting a taste of professional life in a sports or health organisation with the four-year placement route. The program is built around work-based learning and will include placements at each level working with City in the Community on a variety of their football schemes.

Work-based learning is built into the course and you will typically spend 12 hours per week completing the work-based modules. They will give you the opportunity to explore all project areas within City in the Community and gain valuable, hands-on experience with project planning and delivery, monitoring and evaluating processes and quality assurance.

Across all three years of the program, students will complete work-based learning across the core strands of Manchester City F.C.’s City in the Community Foundation.

Why is our education system organized the way it is? How can those working within the sector influence social justice and empower those in education?

Throughout our Education course, you’ll explore these and other questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. From media, youth and play to disability, citizenship and development you’ll consider issues such as the way education differs across national and international contexts.

We want to make your experience as interactive and collaborative as possible. The course is designed to introduce you to a range of current debates and contemporary issues in education, combined with practical experience.

As you progress through the degree, you will have the option to explore your personal journey within education, tailoring your study to your career intentions. You may opt for units focusing on issues such as global agendas in education, or volunteer in a nursery to understand child development. This course also offers the chance to explore areas of Secondary Education opening-up new, exciting, career opportunities.

You will be encouraged to take a critical perspective throughout, and you will balance academic skills with practical experience.

You’ll learn through a mix of lectures, projects and placements, tutorials, presentations and discussions. Some of the ways you might learn include group work with your peers, debating topical issues in education and delivering group presentations. This is to help you develop the confidence to present to an audience, whether you’re speaking to a classroom of eight-year-olds, your friends or educational professionals.

By bringing management theory into the practical world, our Sports Business Management degree will help foster the understanding and ability you’ll need for a career in the sport, recreation and leisure industries. Throughout the program, we’ll encourage you to think creatively, bringing your own ideas to tackle real-life business challenges, from running recruitment campaigns and managing events to developing a marketing strategy and conducting market research.

With guest lectures from industry experts and field trips to sports clubs, you’ll meet plenty of professionals working in the sector. And with our connections across sport, we’re ready to help you gain vital experience. You can volunteer for organisations or events in the area, or spend a year studying abroad or working on an industry placement – developing your skills and boosting your career prospects.

Once you've graduated, you’ll have everything you need to chart your future in the business of sport – following in the footsteps of some of our other graduates, working for organisations including BBC Sport, England Netball, and British Swimming.

Understand why our healthy new years’ resolutions always fizzle out despite our good intentions. Explore how our brains and bodies process stress and how psychology could help you fight off your next cold. Discover how to assess neuropsychological function.

Health psychology is a rapidly growing discipline, which can make a huge contribution to some of the big health issues currently facing society. Health psychologists have been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic, frequently in the media spotlight as one of the expert groups helping our populations keep well and cope with illness, isolation, stress and the many ways life has changed.

On this course, you’ll ask questions about the key health issues facing our communities, from our ageing population to pressurised health services, global health challenges and health inequalities.

You’ll explore human behaviour, health behaviour change, neuropsychology and research methods. And, you’ll seek ways to improve health, illness and healthcare systems through applying psychological theory and practical methods.

You might apply psychology to ensuring that children get enough physical activity, in understanding the experience of people living with a stroke, or how we can help people with diabetes to take their medications.

You’ll also study the principles and practice of research and evaluation, applying these skills to a field-based dissertation. You’ll complete a 70-hour work-based learning opportunity to apply your health psychology learning and build your work experience.

Drawing upon our internationally recognised research expertise in economic, social, political and cultural geography, our human geography course has been designed to let you understand the causes and potential solutions to some of the biggest challenges the world faces today. We’ll introduce you to theories and approaches to understand the relationship between society and space and help you make sense of geographical processes.

From past events to future developments and from local changes to global trends, you’ll build up a wide-ranging understanding of how our society interacts with our environment.

Study human geography at Manchester Met and you’ll get to grips with qualitative research techniques, not only learning the theories but also putting them into action – both in the city of Manchester and overseas. With a range of units on offer, you can follow specialist pathways in environmental sustainability and Geographical Information Systems through to your final year. If you take the four-year route for this program, you can spend a year either working on a placement or studying overseas before returning for your final year.

Placement options

• All of our geography degrees have been designed to be flexible. You can opt for the four-year placement degree route and spend Year 3 on a professional placement with a degree-related organisation.
• Alternatively, if you opt for the four-year study overseas route, you will spend your third year in Europe, North America or Australia, subject to national and international travel restrictions.

Every great business starts as a small seed of an idea. The ones that make it are those that understand their market and have strong strategies to grow and adapt.

On this course, learning that knowledge from the beginning will get you ahead of the competition. Whether you’ve just started a business (or plan to), are working in a small start-up, or want to apply entrepreneurship principles to a career elsewhere, this course gives you the skills to maximise your chances of success.

A real career journey
You’ll begin with idea generation and business planning, before moving on to strategy, which includes looking at marketing and logistics and supply chain. Plus, learn about the policy, cultural and local environments within which entrepreneurs operate and enterprises thrive. Finally, work on a live business project and pitch your idea to investors before writing up what you’ve learned in the research project.

Every step of the way you’ll learn practical skills you can put to use in your own business.

Food for thought
While the practical skills are vital, you’ll also learn about management systems and analyze organizations’ socio-political environments. By putting your work into context, we believe you’ll be a much more effective entrepreneur when you graduate.

Topics like ethics and globalization are relevant to any business. With our expert research and teaching staff, and visiting professionals, you’ll hear about the latest industry trends as they’re happening.

Optional internship year

If you choose to take the optional one-year internship, you’ll do so once you have successfully completed your taught units. The internship takes place over 36-48 weeks – you will be supported by our Placement Office, who have extensive contacts with the industry and over 25 years of experience of helping students to find placements.

The Placement Office advertise a variety of opportunities, support and advise on the application and recruitment process and continue to support you whilst you are away from the University.

Physical geography offers the chance to understand, investigate and model the physical interactions and processes that influence our environment and landscape. Study physical geography at Manchester Met and you’ll examine modern environmental phenomena and the long-term evolution of the landscape. You’ll explore Earth’s dynamic nature – not just looking at how it changes, but also how much it has changed over time – and you’ll investigate human impacts upon it, particularly in terms of past and future climate change.

While you can learn a lot on campus, there’s no substitute for seeing the physical landscape for yourself. As part of our program, we regularly engage in fieldwork, from day-long trips to residential trips across the UK and overseas. Being in Manchester also means you’ll have plenty to explore on the doorstep, with four national parks within a couple of hours’ drive. You can even spend a year developing your professional skills working on a placement, or broadening your horizons by studying abroad with the four-year route.

Placement options

All of our geography degrees have been designed to be flexible. You can opt for the four-year placement degree route and spend Year 3 on a professional placement with a degree-related organisation.

Alternatively, if you opt for the four-year study overseas route, you will spend your third year in Europe, North America or Australia, subject to national and international travel restrictions.

In French and Spanish, emphasis is placed on communicating effectively and developing transferable skills such as translating, interpreting, and interview techniques. Practical language classes embrace speaking, listening, reading and writing. We offer a wide choice of subjects, which may include society, cinema, culture and linguistics.

Both languages can be studied post A2 level. You can study either French or Spanish from beginners level in the first year by taking a fast track option (please note, you cannot do beginners level for both languages).

The course is taken as an equal honours route. You will have the opportunity to spend your third year abroad in France and Spain. The experience of being immersed in another culture for several months is one our students find both beneficial and rewarding. They return having made new friends, experienced new places and have grown in confidence. After this year, you return to the University to study for your final year.

Placement options

• You will have the opportunity to spend your third year in France and Spain or Latin America, and we will assist you in choosing from a wide choice of partner universities where you can study.