Study an Environment MSc at Cranfield
Develop your career as an environmental engineer Suitable for engineering, science and geography graduates, the Environmental Engineering MSc will help you develop your career as an environmental engineer. Accredited by CIWEM, CIWM, and IAgrE, this course will equip you with the knowledge and skills required to solve a wide range of environmental engineering challenges, including municipal and toxic waste management and disposal, process emissions, contaminated land and water, waste disposal, and energy and resource recovery. Cranfield offers a unique, postgraduate-only environment, with a teaching team with extensive experience of solving real-world environmental challenges.Overview
- Start dateFull-time: October, part-time: October
- DurationOne year full-time, two-three years part-time
- DeliveryTaught modules 40%, group project 20% (dissertation for part-time students), individual project 40%
- QualificationMSc, PgDip, PgCert
- Study typeFull-time / Part-time
- CampusCranfield campus
Who is it for?
This course is designed for science, engineering, and geography graduates who are passionate about the protection and improvement of environmental quality alongside enhancing the quality of human life.
You will learn principles of environmental improvements, including the protection of environmental quality at both local, landscape and global scales.
We also welcome graduates currently in employment who are keen to gain further qualifications or to pursue a career change, or an individual with other qualifications and considerable relevant experience.
Your career
With the current global focus on the full range of environmental issues, graduates of this course can expect to be highly sought after by employers. Equipped with the advanced knowledge and management skills to analyse processes, principles and practices essential to environmental challenges, you will have opportunities to pursue careers across a wide range of industrial and public organisations.
Successful graduates have been able to pursue or enhance careers in a variety of key areas such as:
Research Consultant, Environmental Scientist, Waste Consultant, Environmental Consultant, Site Engineer, Environmental Quality and Compliance Consultant, Risk Prevention & Environmental Engineer, Project Engineer, Research Engineer, Environmental Engineer, Environmental Project Manager, Supply Chain Manager, and Digital and Analytics Specialist.
Some graduates have also followed the academia route through progression onto PhD study.
Cranfield Careers Service
Cranfield’s Careers Service is dedicated to helping you meet your career aspirations. You will have access to career coaching and advice, CV development, interview practice, access to hundreds of available jobs via our Symplicity platform and opportunities to meet recruiting employers at our careers fairs. We will also work with you to identify suitable opportunities and support you in the job application process for up to three years after graduation.
Previous students have gone on to jobs within prestigious institutions including:
Golder Associates, Arup, Seche Environment, EnvironTech Gmbh, Deloitte, BP, Chevron, WSP, Jacobs, Viridor, Syngenta, SCOTEC UK, Mondelēz International.
Cranfield supports international students to work in the UK after graduation
Why this course?
This course equips you with the knowledge and skills to solve a wide range of environmental engineering challenges. The course covers municipal and hazardous waste management, process emissions, contaminated land, water, wastewater and waste disposal. The programme also addresses energy and resource recovery from waste materials.
- Study a course with accreditation by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) and the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE).
- Benefit from Cranfield’s applied focus by working on real problems faced in industry during your studies.
- Participate in individual and group projects focused on your personal interests and career aspirations.
- Learn from lecturers with extensive, current experience of working with industry on solving real-world environmental challenges.
- Technical modules incorporate a range of industry relevant topics, including Pollution and Prevention and Remediation Technologies and land Engineering Principles.
- Management modules cover essential topics such as Waste Management in a Circular Economy and Environmental Risks: Hazard, Assessment and Management.
This MSc is supported by our team of professional thought leaders, including Professor Simon Pollard who is influential in the field of Environment and an integral part of this MSc.
Informed by industry
The Environmental Engineering MSc is closely aligned with industry to ensure that you are fully prepared for your new career.
- An Industrial Advisory Board for the programme scrutinises course content and ensures its relevance to the needs of global employers.
- Industry practitioners contribute directly to the course by teaching alongside academics from Cranfield ensuring the relevance of course content to the professional world.
- Sixty percent of the course is focused on applied research projects including group projects (20%) and an individual thesis project (40%); both also supported by industry and environmental sector organisations.
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Cranfield University is unique in the UK because it focuses exclusively on graduate students. We need to work with some of the brightest and best scientists around the world, and Cranfield University are one of the partners that we selected to work with on a long-term strategic basis.
Dr Mark Berry, Senior R&D Manager, Unilever
Course details
The modules include lectures and tutorials, and are assessed through examinations and assignments. There is an emphasis on analysis of real problems. Students undertaking the Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) complete the seven modules and the group project. Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert) students are required to complete six of the eight modules.
Course delivery
Taught modules 40%, group project 20% (dissertation for part-time students), individual project 40%
Group project
The group project experience is highly valued by both students and prospective employers. It provides students with the opportunity to take responsibility for a consultancy-type project, working within agreed objectives, deadlines and budgets. For part-time students a dissertation or projects portfolio can replace the group project.
Recent group projects include:
Individual project
The individual thesis project, usually done in collaboration with an external organisation, offers you the opportunity to develop your research capability, your understanding of the subject and your ability to provide solutions to real problems in environmental engineering.
Modules
Keeping our courses up-to-date and current requires constant innovation and change. The modules we offer reflect the needs of business and industry and the research interests of our staff and, as a result, may change or be withdrawn due to research developments, legislation changes or for a variety of other reasons. Changes may also be designed to improve the student learning experience or to respond to feedback from students, external examiners, accreditation bodies and industrial advisory panels.
To give you a taster, we have listed the compulsory and elective (where applicable) modules which are currently affiliated with this course. All modules are indicative only, and may be subject to change for your year of entry.
Course modules
Compulsory modules
All the modules in the following list need to be taken as part of this course.
Environmental Risks: Hazard, Assessment and Management
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Aim |
Over the past decade environmental regulators and the public have aimed to improve the quality of environmental management by basing choices on reliable data and assessment. However risk analysts often develop their competencies from their specific profession, for which the requirements can vary across industries, government bodies and geographical boarders. There is therefore little consensus on the competencies risk analysts require to be considered proficient. This module aims to provide you with an understanding of the theory and practice of effective management of all phases of environmental hazards. The module covers key topics including conceptual model development, probability, risk characterisation, and informatics. In doing so, this module will provide you with a means of improving the capability and capacity to perform European-wide risk assessments. |
Syllabus |
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Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Modelling Environmental Processes
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Aim |
An introduction to the full suite of environmental models and modelling methods that are currently used to describe and predict environmental processes and outcomes. The objective of this module is to give an overview of the different types of models currently being used to describe environmental processes and how they are being applied in practice. The module will offer you the opportunity to strengthen your analytical abilities with a specific mathematical emphasis, including programming and modelling, which are key skills to launch future careers in science, engineering and technology. In addition, throughout various interactive learning events, your social skills will be intensively trained. |
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Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to: |
Pollution Prevention and Remediation Technologies
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Aim |
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Syllabus |
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Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Waste Management in a Circular Economy: Reuse, Recycle, Recover and Dispose
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Aim |
The aim of this module is to provide specialist understanding of the major processes used for municipal waste management and their role within an integrated – circular - waste management system. In particular the module will focus on the bottom three points of the waste hierarchy: recycle, recover and dispose. |
Syllabus |
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Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Land Engineering Principles and Practices
Module Leader |
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Aim |
Natural landscapes and built environments can be engineered to optimise the goods and services delivered to society, including provision of natural resources and the regulation of water and carbon. Technologies that prevent and/or reverse land degradation can be devised and implemented to ensure sustainable use of finite land resources. Environmental engineers and land managers need sound understanding of the environmental properties that determine land capability for any given desired end use, as well as the interrelationships between soil, water, vegetation and built structures. This understanding is grounded in basic soil physics, hydrology, hydraulics, geotechnics and agronomy. With this background, appropriate interventions such as drainage, soil erosion control, slope stabilisation and irrigation can be designed and implemented to improve inherent land quality. The required skills set also informs the management of environmental projects involving land forming, reclamation, restoration and protection, which require selection, design, engineering and maintenance of appropriate structures. |
Syllabus |
Site Assessment: Concept of land capability and land quality Land forming, earth moving and landscape modification. Geotechnics: Slope stability Top and sub soil management |
Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Process Emissions and Control
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Aim |
The aim of this module is to provide an understanding of the major air pollutants emitted by key industrial processes, the associated regulatory frameworks and monitoring and control techniques. A further element of this module is for students to gain an in-depth knowledge of emission control strategies currently applied by industry, e.g. processes modification and implementation of appropriate control mechanisms. |
Syllabus |
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Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Cleantech in Water-Energy-Food Nexus
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Aim |
The aim of the module is to introduce you to the international priorities under the umbrella of the Water-Energy-Food nexus across sectors and scales. The module is premised on the understanding that environmental resources are inextricably intertwined and therefore there is a need of advancing a nexus approach to enable integrated and sustainable management of water, energy and food systems. You will learn and evaluate a range of innovative technologies that provide significant gains in terms of provision and management of energy, water and food and resources. |
Syllabus |
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Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Catchment Management
Module Leader |
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Aim |
The catchment is often the unit of landscape at which environmental planning takes place. Understanding the intra and inter-field hydrological and hydraulic processes and factors affecting these operating on hillsides and in channels is essential to ensure the delivery of ecosystem goods and services, including the provision, regulation and protection of natural resources such as water, land and soil. The aim of this module is to improve understanding of the drivers of catchment hydrological processes with regard to water quantity and quality, and how these can be managed through engineering practices including drainage, irrigation and soil erosion control. |
Syllabus |
Principles of catchment hydrology and hydraulics. |
Intended learning outcomes |
On successful completion of this module you should be able to:
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Teaching team
You will be taught by industry-active research academics at Cranfield with an established track record, supported by visiting lecturers from industry. To ensure the course is aligned to industry needs, the course is directed by its own Industrial Advisory Committee. The Admissions Tutor is Dr Chris Walton and the Course Director is Dr Mark Pawlett.
Accreditation
The MSc of this course is accredited by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) and the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE).
Benefits of accreditation include: complementary student membership while on the course, the opportunity to join Young Professional Project Groups, thus giving access to mentoring opportunities, career talks, increased employability, access to free events, and free publications such as CIWEM’s magazine called The Environment.
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I couldn’t think of a better place to develop academic skills alongside exposure to industry leaders.
Rosie Chalker, Risk Manager, studied an MSc in Environmental Engineering
How to apply
Online application form. UK students are normally expected to attend an interview and financial support is best discussed at this time. Overseas and EU students may be interviewed by telephone.