This interdisciplinary programme prepares you to drive the transition towards a circular economy, giving you the tools to support communities, businesses, and policymakers to create a more sustainable and equitable future.
The MSc Circular Economy explores a bold alternative vision to today’s wasteful, linear model where resources are extracted, manufactured, used, and discarded. In a circular economy, systems are designed to keep products and materials circulating at their highest value for as long as possible, prompting us to rethink how we consume and use goods and services, both locally and globally.
The circular economy vision presents opportunities for creative thinking, critical research and vital action on urgent global challenges, including the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and social inequality.
Core courses focus on practical and theoretical approaches helping you to:
You will be able to shape your learning through option courses and an independent final project, allowing you to pursue your own circular economy interests. The programme encourages you to think critically about finite global resources in the context of a changing world and to act as an agent of change.
This programme is aimed at recent graduates and early to mid-career professionals from across the globe, and from a diverse range of backgrounds, areas of study and skill sets. We are particularly interested in students that are not afraid of challenging the status quo, who are independent thinkers, and want to make a difference in their communities and organisations.
This is not an economics or environmental economics programme. The focus of the programme is on understanding systems of production and consumption through concepts like circularity, sustainability, and systemic innovation. If you are primarily interested in traditional economic theories or environmental economics, you may wish to explore other economics programmes at the University of Edinburgh.
If you have entrepreneurial ambitions, you will be given the opportunity to explore and nurture your circular economy ideas for disrupting and rethinking how we currently design, make, and use resources in the world. The programme is designed to support student entrepreneurship, with an opportunity for you to explore your own circular business ideas through coursework and the final project.
Alternatively, if your ambitions are to challenge and transform existing business and policy-domains, you will have the opportunity to engage with circular economy practitioners and organisations, learning from their experience in navigating circular transitions.
This programme is part of an interconnected portfolio of postgraduate study opportunities at Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI). EFI supports interdisciplinary teaching, learning, and research that addresses today’s most complex global and social challenges.
A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in any discipline.
We will also consider your application if you have other professional qualifications or experience.
To find international equivalent qualifications, select where you studied from the country or region list.