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1. Admissions/ Management Information
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Title of the new programme – including any lower awards
Please provide the titles used for all awards relating to this programme. Note: all programmes are required to have at least a Postgraduate Certificate exit award.

See guidance on programme titles in:
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https://www.york.ac.uk/media/staffhome/learningandteaching/documents/programmedevelopment/Framework%20for%20Programme%20Design%20-%20PG.pdf
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Masters MA in Conflict, Governance and Development
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Postgraduate Diploma Postgraduate Diploma in Conflict, Governance and DevelopmentPlease indicate if the Postgraduate Diploma is available as an entry point, ie. is a programme on which a student can register or as an exit award, ie. that are only available to students exiting the masters programme early, or both.Exit
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Postgraduate Certificate Postgraduate Certificate in Conflict, Governance and DevelopmentPlease indicate if the Postgraduate Certificate is available as an entry points, ie. is a programme on which a student can register, or as an exit award, ie. that are only available to students exiting the masters programme early, or both.Exit
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Level of qualificationLevel 7
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This document applies to students who commenced the programme(s) in:2022/23
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Awarding institutionTeaching institution
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University of York University of York
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Department(s):
Where more than one department is involved, indicate the lead department		Board of Studies
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Lead Department Department of PoliticsDepartment of Politics
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Other contributing Departments:
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Route code
(existing programmes only)		PMPOLSCGD1
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Admissions criteria
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This course is open to all UK and overseas applicants with a good first degree and/or significant relevant practical experience. For applicants whose first language is not English, IELTS 6.5 with no less than 6 in each component (or equivalent) is normally required.
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Length and status of the programme(s) and mode(s) of study
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ProgrammeLength (years/ months) Status (full-time/ part-time)
Please select		Start dates/months
(if applicable – for programmes that have multiple intakes or start dates that differ from the usual academic year)		Mode
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Face-to-face, campus-basedDistance learningOther
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MA in Conflict, Governance and Development1 yearFull-timeSeptember intake onlyPlease select Y/NYesPlease select Y/NNon/a
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MA in Conflict, Governance and Development2 yearsPart-timeSeptember intake onlyPlease select Y/NYesPlease select Y/NNon/a
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Language(s) of study
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English
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Language(s) of assessment
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English
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2. Programme accreditation by Professional, Statutory or Regulatory Bodies (PSRB)
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2.a. Is the programme recognised or accredited by a PSRB
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Please Select Y/N: Noif No move to section 3
if Yes complete the following questions
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3. Additional Professional or Vocational Standards
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Are there any additional requirements of accrediting bodies or PSRB or pre-requisite professional experience needed to study this programme?
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Please Select Y/N: Noif Yes, provide details
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4. Programme leadership and programme team
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4.a. Please name the programme leader for the year to which the programme design applies and any key members of staff responsible for designing, maintaining and overseeing the programme.
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Programme leader: Dr Matthew Whiting
Key staff: Dr Philip Roberts, Dr Rob Aitken
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5. Purpose and learning outcomes of the programme
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5.a. Statement of purpose for applicants to the masters programme
Please express succinctly the overall aims of the programme as an applicant facing statement for a prospectus or website. This should clarify to a prospective student why they should choose this programme, what it will provide to them and what benefits they will gain from completing it.
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"Our expertise in the field of Conflict, Governance and Development is wide-ranging. Our Masters course reflects this expertise by delving into some of the most important issues in world politics such as new security challenges, migration, terrorism, human rights, sustainable development, international trade, global health or international organisations and allows students to investigate the challenges that face our rapidly evolving but delicately balanced world. Our expertise also spans most areas of the world, including the Middle East, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia and Eastern Europe. In this Masters programme you will explore development, an inherently political process of change, and the inevitable ensuing testing of human relationships. By exploring these relationships, you wll see the connections between violent and non-violent conflict, processes of development, and how they relate to the governance of our modern world. You will also get to examine key conflict and development case studies and apply major theories of international development to deepen your understanding of local, national and global processes of change as part of this dynamic course. You will join a Department that is internationally recognised for the excellence of its research, and you will be taught by researchers who are at the cutting edge of their fields. We are a lively and friendly intellectual community, and we will provide you with the ideal setting to develop a range of skills including analysis, communication and teamworking, all of which will be immensely useful in your future career. In summary, we will help you to realise your potential."
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5.b.i. Programme Learning Outcomes - Masters
Please provide six to eight statements of what a graduate of the Masters programme can be expected to do.
If the document only covers a Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma please specify four to six PLO statements for the PG Certificate and four-eight for the PG Diploma in the sections 5.b.ii and 5.b.iii as appropriate.
Taken together, these outcomes should capture the distinctive features of the programme. They should also be outcomes for which progressive achievement through the course of the programme can be articulated, and which will therefore be reflected in the design of the whole programme.
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PLOOn successful completion of the programme, graduates will be able to:
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1Understand the origins and evolution of the discipline in order to achieve an in-depth knowledge of historical and contemporary political issues in development and conflict issues (substantive knowledge).
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2Apply different theoretical perspectives, methods and concepts to specific aspects of Politics of Development, and use masters level intellectual reasoning and systematic empirical testing to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses (disciplinary/methodological knowledge/critical thinking)
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3Undertake independent research relating to the field of conflict governance and development by conceiving and operationalising research questions, by selecting and justifying the use of appropriate theories and concepts, gathering and interpreting data, and arriving at appropriate and justified conclusions (research skills).
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4Construct and clearly present written reflections, vital to graduate employment (communication skills)
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5Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of literature within a sub-field of conflict governance and development and establish the foundations of an empirical and/or conceptual contribution to the sub-field through original work (Advanced disciplinary knowledge, critical thinking, and communication skills).
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6Communicate as an academic citizen in ways that help to foster the inclusive sharing of ideas.
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5.c. Explanation of the choice of Programme Learning Outcomes
Please explain your rationale for choosing these PLOs in a statement that can be used for students (such as in a student handbook). Please include brief reference to:
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i) Why the PLOs are considered ambitious or stretching?
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Our state-of-the-art MA in Conflict Governance and Development (CGD) provides a holistic grounding in approaches to and issues in GCD. Often the study of CGD is segmented between 'critical' and 'mainstream' approaches; at York, we aim to provide students with a broad range of intellectual tools that they can critically apply to their areas of particular interest. We conceptualise CGD as a sub-discipline without borders, encouraging students to creatively apply approaches and insights gained from the CGD canon to the study of a wide variety of issues and topics across Politics and International Studies.
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ii) The ways in which these outcomes are distinctive or particularly advantageous to the student:
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The intellectual heterogeneity of the course will push students to employ independent critical thinking to identity their point of entry into concepts and issues that are studied, and allow extensive opportunity for academic clarification, extension, and/or synthesis.
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iii) Please detail how you would support students from diverse entry routes to transition into the programme? For example, disciplinary knowledge and conventions of the discipline, language skills, academic and writing skills, lab skills, academic integrity
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The CGD programme offers an extensive induction activity to provide students with an overview of the programme learning objectives and the annual programme benchmarks including progression indicators. This orientation enables students to better assess their learning and studying requirements to successfully engage with the course materials and to navigate the theoretical and practical components of the programme. In addition, throughout the autumn term, the department run regular Study Skills sessions for PGT students. Sessions focus on: reading and taking effective notes; participating in seminars; and developing academic writing skills. For non-native English speakers these study skills sessions are supplemented by English language classes run by the Centre for English Language Teaching. All students participate in department-run Turnitin workshops and complete the University's academic integrity tutorial.
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iv) Please explain how the design of the programme enables students to progress through to the end of the award? For example, in terms of the development of research skills, enabling students to complete an independent study module, developing competence and confidence in practical skills/ professional skills, (See: QAA Mater's degree characteristics http://www.qaa.ac.uk/publications/information-and-guidance/publication?PubID=2977#.WS1JOevyu70).
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"Teaching is delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars, one-to-one supervision and independent study. Students' academic and personal development is supported and monitored closely through continual supervision and feedback. They will be trained how to think, act, engage, reflect and communicate as a researcher in conflict, governance and development.
Students will develop academic and writing skills through written assignments, build their capacity for reflexivity about the foundations and strengths and weaknesses within the discipline of conflict, governance and development, and learn how to conduct sustained independent academic research though their dissertation"
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v) How the programme learning outcomes develop students’ digital literacy and use technology-enhanced learning to achieve the discipline and pedagogic goals which support active student learning through peer/tutor interaction, collaboration and formative (self) assessment opportunities (reference could be made to such as blogging, flipped classrooms, response 'clickers' in lectures, simulations, etc).
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"For several years it has been departmental policy that all modules are supported by a VLE site on Yorkshare. A module template is used to ensure a minimum standard across the department. This includes: the course announcements tool; module information; seminars; assessments (formative and summative); links to EARL/ Reading Lists software; and contacts. The student will, therefore, obtain graduate skills in digital research, for example through finding academic sources (reading lists), but also in organisation and analysis (data collection), and digital communication (online contact with tutors and other students).
All summative assessments require that students make extensive use of online and library databases to find sources for their research. Students will acquire experience and expertise in use of databases, assessed by the comprehensiveness and presentation of produced bibliographical work and referencing in essays and dissertation.All summative coursework is then submitted via the VLE with generic material regarding instructions for submission, marking criteria etc are uniform and in the correct place across all VLE platforms.
In addition to module sites the Department provides further support via the 'MA Study Skills’ VLE site."
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vi) How the PLOs support and enhance the students’ employability (for example, opportunities for students to apply their learning in a real world setting)?
The programme's employability objectives should be informed by the University's Employability Strategy:
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Students will be prepared for a variety of different careers, ranging from political research to journalism, marketing and HR. Previous students have found work in central or local government, non-governmental organisations, community and voluntary organisations, social enterprise, higher education, accountancy and banking organisations, law firms, media companies and international and global development bodies. The PLOS emphasize the development of transferable skills like communication, analysis and critical thinking that will equip students for the job market. In addition, the course comprises a variety of teaching environments - lectures, seminars, group work and opportunities for one-to-one tutorials - which have been designed to enable students to experience the tasks and demands that will be required of them in their future careers.
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viii) How is teaching informed and led by research in the department/ centre/ University?
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students will benefit from our research-led approach to teaching. Many of our academics are internationally recognised in their field and all are active researchers. Students will gain knowledge from top academics at the forefront of current debates. The MA CGD fits perfectly with our research priorities – set out in the Research Strategy, LTP and in the Strategic Plan – to expand our capacity in international development.
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5.d. Progression
For masters programmes where students do not incrementally 'progress' on the completion of a discrete Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma, please summarise students’ progressive development towards the achievement of PLOs, in terms of the characteristics that you expect students to demonstrate at the end of the set of modules or part thereof, and provide appropriate detail of the module diet students will need to complete.

This summary may be particularly helpful to students and the programme team where there is a high proportion of option modules and in circumstances where students registered on a higher award will exit early with a lower one.

Note: it is not expected that a position statement is written for each masters PLO, but this can be done if preferred.
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i) If the Postgraduate Certificate is an exit award only please:
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Provide a global statement to explain what a student who exits with a PG Cert award will be able to do (this should capture the extent of the achievement of the programme learning outcomes).

NB: Where more than one PG Cert is available as an exit award a statement should be provided detailing what a student exiting with each award will be able to do		Detail the module diet that students will have to have completed to gain the PG Cert as an exit award.

NB: Where more than one PG Cert is available as an exit award the module diet required for each award should be given
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Students who exit with a PG certificate will have met PLOS 1,2, and 6: they will have improved their knowledge base, evaluation and interpersonal and communication skills. Although the core- and option modules also touch upon PLOs 3,4 and 5, students will develop these to a lesser extent than students completing the MA programme as a whole, as PG Cert students will gain less experience in writing essays and will not write a dissertation. As a result, their independent research skills (PLO 3), their ability to construct and clearly present written reflections (PLO 4) and demontrating a sophisticated awareness of the topic (PLO5) will be less developed.To qualify for a Postgraduate Certificate students must pass the following core modules worth a total of 40 credits, and one additional taught optional module worth 20 credits: Theories & Policies of Development Governance (20 credits) and Conflict and Development (20 credits).
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ii) If the Postgraduate Diploma is an exit award only please:
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Provide a global statement to explain what a student who exits with a PG Dip award will be able to do (this should capture the extent of the achievement of the programme learning outcomes)Detail the module diet that students will have to have completed to gain the PG Dip as an exit award
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Students who exit with a PG dip will have met PLOs 1,2, 4, and 6: they will have improved their knowledge base, evaluation, analysis, and interpersonal and communication skills. Although the core- and option modules also touch upon PLOs 3 and 5, students will develop these to a lesser extent than students completing the MA programme as a whole, as PG Diploma students will not have successfully completed a dissertation. As a result, their independent research skills (PLO 3) and demontrating a sophisticated awareness of the topic (PLO5) will be less developed. To qualify for a Postgraduate Diploma students must pass the following core modules worth a total of 40 credits, and four additional taught optional modules worth 80 credits: Theories & Policies of Development Governance (20 credits) and Conflict and Development (20 credits).
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5.e. Other features of the programme
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i) Involvement of partner organisations
Are any partner organisations involved in the delivery of the programme?
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Please Select Y/N: Noif Yes, outline the nature of their involvement (such as contributions to teaching, placement provision). Where appropriate, see also the:
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University guidance on collaborative provision
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ii) Internationalisation/ globalisation
How does the programme promote internationalisation and encourage students to develop cross-cultural capabilities?
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The very nature of Conflict, Governance and Development means that the curriculum is international, as demonstrated by the module titles and descriptions. Almost by definition, most conflict, governance and development-related modules promote awareness of international issues, contexts and cultures.
The Department has benefited from a staff recruitment strategy in recent years that has resulted in an incredibly ‘international’ department - at least half of the Department was educated overseas (including Spain, Greece, Romania, USA, Argentina, Denmark, Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Canada) and around 50% are non-native English speakers, so students will benefit from this rich and diverse range of cultures and approaches. Our student intake at the PGT level is similarly diverse. We are not overly reliant on one country or region, rather students come to study with us from across Europe, Africa, the US, Central and South East Asia and the Middle East. Many of these students join us with a wealth of professional experience spanning many countries, which they share with one another through seminar discussion.
Also see inclusivity below
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iii) Inclusivity
How will good practice in ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion be embedded in the design, content and delivery of the programme?
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This refers to the protected characteristics and duties on the University outlined in the Equality Act 2010
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"The programme complies with the Equality Act 2010. Diversity is embedded in the content of the curriculum. PLO 6 is directly related to making sure that equality, diversity and inclusion is embedded in the programme design. By applying different theoretical models and concepts to a range of practical problems, students will learn to appreciate the ethical and normative implications of study, and the importance of tolerance, sustainability and inclusivity. By working with others inside and outside of the classroom, including people of different nationalities, religions, cultures, ages, gender and political persuasions, students will learn to respect difference while promoting tolerance and inclusivity. The Department ensures that the recommendations of all disability statements for individual students are implemented in full (eg extra time for assessments, use of computers, lecturer/seminar recording, powerpoint presentations released ahead of the lecture etc). "
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6. Reference points and programme regulations
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6.a. Relevant Quality Assurance Agency benchmark statement(s) and other relevant external reference points
Please state relevant reference points consulted (e.g. Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, National Occupational Standards, Subject Benchmark Statements or the requirements of PSRBs): See also Taught Postgraduate Modular Scheme: Framework for Programme Design:
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There is no benchmark statement for an MA of this kind.
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6.b. University award regulations
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The University’s award and assessment regulations apply to all programmes: any exceptions that relate to this programme are approved by University Teaching Committee and are recorded at the end of this document.
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7. Programme Structure
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7.a. Module Structure and Summative Assessment Map
Please complete the summary table below which shows the module structure and the pattern of summative assessment through the programme.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If the structure of your programme does not fit the usual academic year (for instance students start at the beginning of September or in January) please contact your Academic Quality Team contact in the Academic Support Office for guidance on how to represent the structure in an alternative format.

To clearly present the overall programme structure, include the name and details of each invidual CORE module in the rows below. For OPTION modules, ‘Option module’ or 'Option from list x' should be used in place of specifically including all named options. If the programme requires students to select option modules from specific lists by term of delivery or subject theme these lists should be provided in the next section (7.b).

From the drop-down select 'S' to indicate the start of the module, 'A' to indicate the timing of each distinct summative assessment point (eg. essay submission/ exam), and 'E' to indicate the end of teaching delivery for the module (if the end of the module coincides with the summative assessment select 'EA'). It is not expected that each summative task will be listed where an overall module might be assessed cumulatively (for example weekly problem sheets).

Summative assessment by exams should normally be scheduled in the spring week 1 and summer Common Assessment period (weeks 5-7). Where the summer CAP is used, a single ‘A’ can be used within the shaded cells as it is understood that you will not know in which week of the CAP the examination will take place. (NB: An additional resit assessment week is provided in week 10 of the summer term for postgraduate students. See Guide to Assessment, 5.4.a)
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Full time structure
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CreditsModuleAutumn TermSpring Term Summer Term Summer Vacation
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CodeTitle12345678910123456789101234567891012345678910111213
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20POL00021MTheories & Policies of Development GovernanceEASEE
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20POL00018MConflict & DevelopmentSEA
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20VariousOption module List ASEA
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20VariousOption module List ASEEEA
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20VariousOption module List BSEA
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20VariousOption module List BSEA
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60POL00041MDissertationSEA
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Please indicate when the Progression Board and Final Exam board will be held and when any reassessments will be submitted.
NB: You are required to provide at least three weeks notice to students of the need for them to resubmit any required assessments, in accordance with the Guide to Assessment section 4.9
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Progression Boardweek 6 summer term
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Reassessmentweek 10 summer term
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Exam BoardNovember of following academic year