MA Public Policy and Management (online)

Course content

This Masters course will develop your knowledge of public policy, so you will gain a better understanding of how policies are made and then implemented on the ground. You will also acquire skills in public management, and learn to analyse and influence how public services are run and how organisational change can be best managed.

The first year of the course will ensure you have a foundation in all key aspects of public policy and management. In your second year you can choose areas of study that are most interesting or most applicable to your own work

Towards the end of the course you will start to prepare for your dissertation which will allow you to explore an area of particular interest with support from a dedicated dissertation supervisor.

You can also study for a shorter period of time and graduate with a Postgraduate Certificate or Diploma.

Modules

To graduate with a Masters degree, you will need to take 140 credits of taught modules and complete a dissertation worth 40 credits.

You will study these modules to a schedule. This will allow you to participate online with academics and fellow students from around the world.

Year one: foundation

In the first year you will study 80 credits with the following modules:

• Public Management and Delivery (20 credits)
• Governance and Public Administration (20 credits)
• Policy Analysis and Process (20 credits)
• Reflective Practice for Professional Development - Part One (10 credits)
• Digital Capabilities for Global Citizenship (10 credits)

Year two: specialisation and dissertation

In your second year you will study a combination of taught modules and work on your dissertation. You will choose one of these modules:

• Comparative Social Policy (20 credits)
• Leading and Managing Organisational Change (20 credits)
• Social Policy: Evidence, Ideas and Institutions (20 credits)
• Work, Welfare and Citizenship (20 credits)
• Housing and Social Justice (20 credits)

You will then choose to study one of these modules:

• Globalisation and Social Policy (20 credits)
• Project Management (20 credits)
• Public Finance (20 credits)
• Public Service Reform: Economic and Political Perspectives (20 credits).

You will also need to complete a dissertation, as well as modules designed to develop your professional and research skills:

• Reflective Practice for Professional Development - Part Two (10 credits)
• Dissertation Workshop (10 credits)
• Dissertation (40 credits)

Dissertation

• Dissertation (40 credits)

Throughout your studies your assignments will help you to apply theory to practice and to combine academic work with case studies or examples relevant to your work.

One of your taught modules, the Dissertation Workshop, will help you prepare for your dissertation. You will learn how to plan and schedule your independent literature-based research project. With the help of your dissertation supervisor you will work on finding the appropriate scope and focus for your project, and develop a workable structure. You will also receive feedback on draft chapters and guidance on conducting your literature review and any further research.

Your dissertation is worth 40 credits and will be 12,000 words long.

Previous dissertation titles have included:

• Service delivery during crises: challenges in performance management at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• To what extent has decentralisation impacted on development and public service delivery in post-conflict Sierra Leone from 2004 to present?
• Evidence and ideology in criminal justice policy-making in the UK: the role of the media
• Is good governance achievable in fragile states? The role of civil society organisations in promoting good governance in South Sudan
• The role of policy networks in the policy transfer process: the case of the World Bank Institute
• How has the rise of New Public Management affected the professional development needs of school leaders?
• An analysis of discourse, power and policy change in drug treatment in the UK 1997-present
• The enabling and constraining factors that influence knowledge sharing in public organisations.